“Where do your ideas come from?” I am asked that question fairly regularly. My answer, depending on the audience, will be a variation on, “I am inspired by the books I’ve read.” Sometimes it’s “stories I’ve heard,” or “an epic poem,” or “comic books.” But the gist is the same: I steal ideas. Gasp! Well. [...]

So a couple of months ago, I posted about how my second book was demanding a party. Well, it got one, a super wonderful “Book Birthday Party”, hosted by the literacy organization New Haven Reads. We had face painting, puppet making, birthday cake and… uh oh… what happened to the live chicken that was supposed [...]

Just last week, my second book, Blue Chicken, was published. I’m excited, to be sure, but I finished the art for this book over nine months ago, and quickly moved on to writing another. Since four long years passed between my first book, Scribble, and this one, I now find myself in a situation that [...]

Today, Boni Ashburn (author of Hush, Little Dragon) blogged about “Great Gifts for Word Lovers”. She lists some terrific books for anyone who loves words, and I imagine most writers out there are word-addicts, as I am! Picture book writers, especially, are always looking for The Perfect Word. I’m joined at the spine to my [...]

Honestly, I was planning to see the movie. I mean, who knows? Sometimes the movie is even better than the book, or at least wonderful in its own way. The Wizard of Oz certainly holds its own. I like Disney’s Pinocchio. So I was going to give Where The Wild Things Are a chance, when [...]

Reporting on the Hudson Book Festival in the post below got me thinking about the value of events like it for us, the authors. Beyond the obvious… During my many years of doggedly working toward becoming published, I was, among other things, a Book Fair Mom. Helping to run and engineer a school book fair [...]