What’s New

Today I was so excited to hear this audio excerpt of the LOVE IN ENGLISH audio book. Take a listen! Click on the picture below (it opens in a separate tab).

I’m so excited… just 28 days until LOVE IN ENGLISH is out in the world! Don’t forget to pre-order yours at your preferred retailer. Every book ordered prior to the publication [...]

I’m so grateful and thrilled to kick off 2021 with news of a great review from Publishers Weekly. Here are a few quotes: “The teen love triangle at the center of this warm and [...]

Just a few days left to enter to win one of five copies of LOVE IN ENGLISH being given away by my publisher on Goodreads. Click on this link to enter (you’ll need to be logged in to [...]

There are milestones in a writer’s life that one never forgets. The first time a teacher tells you you have a knack for this writing thing, and that you should explore that. The first time [...]

I was honored to be invited to participate in the anthology Come On In: 15 Stories about Immigration and Finding Home. As the subtitle suggests, it’s full of wonderful, creative and [...]

LOVE IN ENGLISH, the young adult novel by Maria E. Andreu, tells the story of 16-year-old Ana as she integrates into the U.S. in her first year here. It’s a love story and an ode to Spanish [...]

Curious about upcoming 2021 young adult books? If you want your to-read pile to grow by a bajillion books, check out this great list of Harper Collins’ young adult winter 2021 new [...]

Welcome to Come On In Anthology: Misa Sugiura Interview. I was honored to be invited to participate in the anthology Come On In: 15 Stories about Immigration and Finding Home. As the subtitle [...]

If you want your to-read pile to grow a hundred-fold, hop on over to the new Publishers Weekly list of upcoming Spring 2021 titles… and check out LOVE IN ENGLISH in the section for [...]

Someone recently reached out to me to share this interesting piece, called “Dreamers: Living Undocumented in Contemporary Young Adult Fiction” written by Dr. Amy Cummings,  an [...]

Welcome to YA Scavenger Hunt! This bi-annual event gives you a chance to gain access to exclusive bonus material from your favorite authors…and a chance to win some awesome prizes! At this [...]

Regular readers will remember I recently announced that my story “A Port in the Storm” was chosen for a cool new anthology coming out in May of this year. The premise of Five Minutes [...]

It was great to be invited for an interview at RVN TV to talk about the upcoming Collingswood Book Festival, where I’ll be appearing, along with a ton of awesome authors. I come in at the [...]

I have been grappling with with what I could do about the situation at the border, beyond calling and donating and crying. I’ve been trying to turn my sadness and frustration into action. That’s [...]

Color me tickled! The Barnes and Noble blog has always been good to THE SECRET SIDE OF EMPTY, but I was particularly jazzed by my latest mention there. My boyfriend’s daughter has turned me [...]

Read an insightful and provocative piece in the LA Times which quotes many well-known young adult authors (and me!) about what it’s like to write YA in the age of Trump. It’s written [...]

I am catching on to this concept of chronicling life through pictures. I’m a word girl, so sometimes it’s not intuitive. But I’ve been getting better at it. Click here In other [...]

Honey bunches, it’s been a mad scramble, and I’ve had a TON of help from my many writing friends, but I can now finally report that my first draft of my new novel is done! Honestly, [...]

Yvonne and Alison and I are actually doing TWO Barnes and Nobles events on June 12th, not just one. Besides the one I told you about before, in Clifton, there’s another in the Woodland Park [...]

Pleased and honored to announce that TSSOE has been nominated for a Georgia Peach Book Award for Teen Readers! And among some pretty impressive company too. I just finished reading the [...]

A few days ago I told you I’d gotten word about TSSoE being mentioned on SLJ. The link is finally online! Click here to read the full piece, which is entitled  “Long-Awaited Mirrors: [...]

CLASP Américas Award Commended Titles of 2015 I just found out that THE SECRET SIDE OF EMPTY was named as one of the CLASP Américas Award Commended Titles of 2015.  CLASP stands for Consortium of [...]

I remember the thrill I felt when I first saw my native New Jersey featured in a Judy Blume novel back when I was a kid. How could this be? No book I’d ever read was set in New Jersey. [...]

Today I was honored and delighted to learn that THE SECRET SIDE OF EMPTY has been chosen as one of Wichita Public Library’s Companion Titles for Young Readers for their Big Read, which is [...]

I just learned something interesting: 48.6% of Los Angeles’ population is Latino. The most recent survey of books for young people (conducted every year by the Cooperative Children’s [...]

It was great to come across this article on Bustle about the Restless Books Prize.  Submissions are open this coming September through December for previously unpublished first-generation [...]

2015 International Latino Book Award Finalist The 2015 International Latino Book Award Finalists have been announced… and THE SECRET SIDE OF EMPTY is one of them!  It’s under the [...]

Diversity has been a buzzword in young adult literature this past year.  In particular, the We Need Diverse Books campaign has made a lot of strides in bringing attention to the issues of [...]

Have you ever wished that there was a resource to help readers find children’s and teen stories that are about more than blond princesses and white action heroes?  So have the folks over at [...]