My blog

So you’ve published a book!  Congratulations!  Now here’s something you may not have realized when you sat at your desk polishing your baby: when you’re an author, you really [...]

Peeps!  How have I missed the boat on the Discovery Channel’s Naked and Afraid for four whole seasons?!?  It is my new obsession.  Here’s why. First, the story of how I came to [...]

I’m back home from a whirlwind weekend in San Francisco.  I was in SF to attend the annual librarian convention and an awards ceremony.  Both were awesome!  But perhaps my favorite part of [...]

ALA’s annual conference is the best!!  Imagine being in a wonderland of all the new books coming out, with tons of your favorite authors there live and in person, and everyone talking about [...]

Today I landed in my adopted second city, San Francisco, for ALA, the annual librarian convention.  I dragged my neat little wheelie bag on to the Air Train and fired up Google News.  There I saw [...]

I was excited for the UPS guy to arrive today because I was expecting some gorgeous (albeit way oversized) lanterns for my garden.  (Yes, it’s official, I need Garden Lanterns Anonymous). [...]

My little boy – who was so tiny just a minute ago – is now a young man.  I don’t usually post about my kids here, but this has been a month of marking the passing time. [...]

Meeting Judy Blume!!!  

Last night I sat on a hard chair in a room crammed with 400 strangers to hear one of my childhood idols speak and, later, have her sign my book. And it was wonderful. Judy Blume is the beloved [...]

I have loved books for a long time, and probably one of the first people responsible for creating that love is the author Judy Blume.  No one spoke to me quite like she did, understanding my [...]

Librarians: Will you be at this year’s annual American Library Association Conference in San Francisco?  If so, I’d love to meet you!  I will be doing a signing at the Moscone Center, [...]

When we are small, it’s impossible to know how we’re being shaped by the things we see and experience.  If you’d told me when I was a kid that some part of my brain was watching [...]

Today is that yummy day when those of us in the Northern Hemisphere enjoy the longest period of sunlight in our year.  Celestial events have long influenced humans, giving our lives a certain [...]

Since “woman on the currency” thing got started, I have been honestly wracking my brain to think of a suitable candidate–that is, a woman who had profound and lasting impact on [...]

Oh my god oh my god oh my god, people.  It is not often that I want to send you off to read someone else’s words.  I want you all to myself, but today I must put your needs ahead of my own. [...]

This past Sunday I was thrilled to be one of the authors invited to participate in BooksNJ 2015, a book festival held on the grounds of Paramus Library.  We had a gorgeous, sunny day under a sea [...]

It was an unprepossessing little set of scraggly leaves in a plastic pot, a gift from my mom. My mother, raised on a dirt road halfway around the world, chickens and grapevines out back, loves [...]

I have a tendency, especially when I’m angry, of starting with, “First of all…”  “First of all” usually turns into a long harangue, at which point I’m [...]

For those of you who subscribe via email, I wanted to write you a little note about the posting that I do sporadically which I like to call “housekeeping.”  This morning, I created [...]

2014 National Indie Excellence® Award winner. 2015 International Latino Book Award Finalist 2015 CLASP Américas Award Commended Title A School Library Journal Top 10 Latino Books of 2014 pick. A [...]

I hope to meet you this fall at one of these upcoming events! Texas Teen Book Festival Austin, Texas September 26th, 2015 Click here for more information Bar Harbor Book Festival Bar Harbor, [...]

Last night I took a drive to Manhattan’s Lower East Side to celebrate the launch of Surviving Santiago, my friend Lyn Miller-Lachmann’s latest book. Lyn was one of the first people I [...]

Today it was announced that I’ve been invited to participate in the Texas Teen Book Festival in Austin, Texas, on Saturday, September 26, 2015. The Texas Teen Book Festival is one of the [...]

One of my favorite things about traveling to promote my books is getting to see beautiful places in the country.  I’ve been everywhere from California to Massachusetts to Virginia, as well [...]

I am honored to be included in June’s issue of Voice of Youth Advocates, a leading journal for librarians who specialize in young adult books.  I was interviewed by the journalist Haydee [...]

I just love book festivals, but BooksNJ has a special place in my heart.  First, it’s right in my backyard in Paramus, New Jersey.  Second, since it’s local, many of my FAVORITE local [...]

I’ve been posting daily (or close to it) on this blog for a little over two years now.  It’s been massively helpful to me in a variety of ways.  It helps me commit to writing daily. [...]

I have a running list of “things I wonder about” written in the Notes section of my phone. Fodder for blog posts, random thoughts, things that irk me which somehow feel better written [...]

I’ll never forget the day I realized that I’d been booked to go to a conference for work in Las Vegas the same day my daughter was graduating from fifth grade.  I was at a new job [...]

Recently, I had to go to a conference for work.  It catered to the educational wants of religious fundamentalists (don’t ask) and was full of “biblically inspired” educational [...]