Rebecca Danzenbaker

Rebecca Danzenbaker believes in trusting your gut and chasing your dreams. That probably explains her massive career jumps – from teaching elementary school music, to managing a team of 25 at Congressional Quarterly, to running an award-winning photography business, to writing young adult novels. When she’s not editing words or photos, she’s either reading, hiking, volunteering, being a goofball on social media, or cheering on her husband and two children as they chase their own dreams. Soulmatch is her debut novel, the culmination of five years of blood, sweat, and tears. She did it!

1. What genre(s) do you write?

YA dystopian romance

2. Do you have a newly released novel? What is the title and a link to buy the novel?

Soulmatch publishes on the 29th of July 2025.

3. Are there any other social media links, websites, or other places to learn about you that we should add?

4. What is your favorite part of being an author?

Sounds cheesy, but the friends I’ve made along the way. Second favorite is seeing all the long hours and countless revisions pay off.

5. If you are traditionally published, who is your agent? If you are self-published, what publishing software do you prefer?

Michelle Wolfson

6. What do you do with your free time when you’re not writing?

Free time comes in short supply these days, but I LOVE putting together incredibly detailed vacation itineraries and visiting places I’ve never been.

7. How long does it usually take you to finish a novel?

First draft takes 2-3 months. Then about 2 months for the first developmental edit and another month for the second. Copy edits, proofreading, and pass pages add another month. So about 6-7 months.

8. What is the most fun and most difficult part of the writing process for you? Eg. first draft, editing, researching?

Most fun is choosing a narrator (I love audiobooks) and hearing glowing reviews from readers. Most difficult is definitely getting edit letters. I always feel like such a failure for not writing a perfect first draft, then the ideas start percolating and I get excited about revising. But the first read through of an edit letter is the worst.

9. Is Soulmatch part of a series or a standalone novel?

Standalone! But there’s the potential for sequels from different POVs or perhaps in my characters’ next lifetimes. That might be fun to explore - see if readers can pair up characters from Soulmatch with their next lives/bodies.

10. Who is your favourite author/s? And why?

This answer changes all the time, and it usually correlates to a recent book I’ve read. At the current moment, it’s DeAndra Davis. Her YA debut, All the Noise at Once, was incredible.

11. What is one book that profoundly impacted you as a writer, and why?

The Hunger Games. It was the first YA dystopian novel I read, and I gobbled up as many as I could find afterwards. I got the idea for Soulmatch shortly after reading HG.

12. What is one characteristic of yourself that you gave Sivon, your main character in Soulmatch?

She prefers tea over coffee, and she loves a good challenge.

13. What are two fun facts about you?

I used to sing in a band. (No, you’ve never heard of them.)

I got a two-book deal with a Big Five publisher!! Sometimes I have to remind myself how big a deal that is.

14. If you could give any advice to a new writer/author, what would it be?

DO NOT GIVE UP!