Where We Used to Roam will be published on March 23rd, 2021, but did you know you can preorder it right now? Preordering a book helps authors because by preordering a book, you’re telling the bookstore, hey, people want this book! Which makes them more likely to stock more copies of the book, which means… Read more »
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Book Festivals go virtual!
This weekend (Friday – Sunday, August 28-30) is the Ohioana Book Festival. Typically, this book festival is held in Columbus, Ohio, but because of Covid-19, this year it is being held virtually. Which means anyone can attend! Wherever they are! For free! Earlier this week, I participated in a panel with fellow middle grade authors… Read more »
Bookshelf Tour
Over on Goodreads, a reader requested that I share a YouTube video of my bookshelves. I didn’t realize bookshelf tours were a thing, but an hour later on YouTube, I can see that they are quite a thing. It’s neat to see so many ways of organizing books (and the other cute goodies tucked into… Read more »
Mental Health Awareness Month
May marks Mental Health Awareness Month, which exists to help raise awareness and educate the public about the mental illnesses affecting so many Americans as well as the effective strategies for attaining mental health and wellness. Mental Health Awareness Month also exists to draw attention to suicide, which can be precipitated by mental illness, and… Read more »
Happy National Library Week!
While life has been disrupted in so many ways by the coronavirus pandemic, one of the things I miss the very most has to be the public library. I can’t recall a time in my life where I’ve gone this long (6 weeks, tomorrow, not that I’m counting or anything) since I last visited my… Read more »
You may leave the library, but the library never leaves you
At the end of the summer in 2012, I worked my last afternoon in the public library’s teen room. It had been a busy summer — as any public librarian who works with children and teens will tell you, they all are — and I was on the cusp of burnout. I’d recently enrolled in… Read more »
The only thing better than a book festival . . .
. . . is a book festival with writer pals! Which, honestly, is pretty much all book festivals these days. The Books by the Banks Book Festival was this Saturday in Cincinnati and with 150+ authors in attendance, well, yes, we do tend to know each other. I was so fortunate to share a table… Read more »
Coming in 2021 – Where We Used to Roam
I’m thrilled to share that I have another project in the pipeline. Where We Used to Roam, my fourth middle grade novel, will be published in spring 2021 by Aladdin/Simon & Schuster. On the outside, it probably looks like, wow, she has two books coming out in two years (2020 and 2021), she’s so speedy! Oh, how… Read more »
Cover reveal for Things You Can’t Say
I’m so excited to be revealing the cover for my next middle grade novel, Things You Can’t Say, today. Check out the full cover and an interview about the book over at Mr. Schu Reads.
Write what you know? Or write what you *want* to know?
The old adage in writing is “write what you know,” and while I think there’s plenty of truth in that, I’ve found that lately, my writing projects have steered me away from areas of deep knowledge and experience. Now, don’t get me wrong, I think within every story there are emotional truths that surpass the… Read more »
