Having your new book – the book you’ve worked on for years, dreamed about, fussed about, cried over, danced with, bored your relatives to tears with (“aren’t you done with that thing yet?”) – having that book arrive is the closest thing possible to the moment when you give birth to a child.
Without the mess and a room full of strangers wearing latex gloves and face masks.
Without further ado, meet INDEPENDENT DAMES: What You Never Knew About the Women and Girls of the American Revolution.
::wipes tears from eyes::
DAMES is a 40-page non-fiction historical picture book that highlights the revolutionary activity of 80 women and girls you’ve probably never heard of.
The illustrator is Matt Faulkner, the same talented artist who worked on THANK YOU, SARAH with me.
Along with all of the illustrated pages, there are several text-heavy pages in the back, and this – a bibliography! Woot! The book can be read aloud to younger grades, but there is enough meaty information in it to make it useful up through middle school.
Even the back cover is fun. ::closes book and sighs with content::
INDEPENDENT DAMES goes on sale June 3. (Feel free to call your local bookseller today and bug her about it.) Kelly Fineman will be posting an interview with me about DAMES in the coming weeks, so I will save all of the juicy stuff for that. I’m also putting together supplementary material for my website, so stay tuned.
We have one more lady in the house.
Colleen Paratore was in Oswego this week for school visits and we snuck in time for a cup of coffee before she had to leave. (Do I look overcaffeinated in this picture or what?)
Thanks for the huge response to my July Writing Challenge (must come up with a better name for it). I’ll post more info about that soon. On Monday, I’ll give details about a few upcoming book signings I have. This weekend in Forest we have a very long run scheduled, revisions, gardening, and celebrating Mother’s Day. Not too shabby, eh?