Posted on

Summer Blog Blast Tour – in which I am interviewed!

There are a lot of terrific bloggers in the kidlit corner of the blogosphere. This week they have coordinated their efforts into the Summer Blog Blast Tour 2008. Little Willow has the entire schedule.

Kelly Fineman was kind enough to ask me to take part. So… warm up your linkety-link finger, because:

Step One – Kelly has posted an extensive review of INDEPENDENT DAMES.

Step Two – Yesterday she gave a preview of all the folks she’s interviewing this week.

Step Three! Today (drum roll, please) you can read her interview with me; in which I ponder writing history and historical fiction for kids, spill the secrets about the writing process of DAMES, and answer the age-old question: “cheese or chocolate?”.

Thank you very much, Kelly and organizers of SBBT!

Posted on

In which an author gets down to it

Don’t know about you, but my weekend rocked the house. I worked on revisions, I did not touch the pile of research I was supposed to, BH and I ran 13.3 miles on Saturday morning, and I was both mom and daughter yesterday. Spent most of it in the garden, a most Demeter-like day.

(ETA – You should read my daughter’s blog on what she learned from her various moms about books.)

I will be signing books on Thursday! Come see me at river’s end bookstore in Oswego, NY from 6 – 8pm. The store is celebrating its 10th anniversary and it is time to party. We’ll have TWISTED in paperback and INDEPENDENT DAMES (thank you Uncle Simon and Uncle Schuster for making it available a little early).

The next 6 weeks are going to scream by, so be patient if my posts are a little sporadic and shorter than usual. I am going to be posing questions in preparation for my July Writing Challenge; things designed to get you thinking and maybe open up some ideas for your writing during that month.

Today is Katherine Hepburn’s birthday. Ms. Hepburn famously said: “If you obey all the rules you miss all the fun.”

So here is today’s question: Which rules are worth breaking?

Posted on

The Ladies are in the House!

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.

Image and video hosting by TinyPic ::wipes tears from eyes::

Image and video hosting by TinyPic 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.

When you spend more than a decade on a project, you want to show it off.

Posted on

Want to join my writing challenge?

Last month I gave the keynote speech at the New England SCBWI Conference. There were 550 people in the room. Most have them have written to me in the last couple of weeks (thank you very much – they have been sweet and much appreciated notes) commenting on what I had to say.

The most frequent topic is the challenge I issued: to write for at least 15 minutes a day for 21 days. Some people loved it, others struggled.

With summer coming, I thought I’d issue it again:

Can you commit to write for at least fifteen minutes every day from July 1st – July 21st?

Let know if you want to join by leaving a note in the comment section. You can comment anonymously, if you want. If there is enough interest, I will focus my blog posts in July on writing stuff.

What do you think? Want to play?