Writing

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 [...]

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 [...]

I love the full moon.  I always try to get outdoors for a bit and gaze up at it, so I especially love it during the warm months when I can do it comfortably and maybe build a nice fire. [...]

I have my issues with Game of Thrones (rape scenes, anyone?) but there’s no denying that it’s a cultural juggernaut.  I’m always fascinated by how books that are now huge hits [...]

My kids went to the town pool for the first time last weekend… a sure sign of summer. This weekend, I raided the local nursery like mad, crowding my steps with plants that need to find [...]

My children should be fruit inspectors, because the instant any produce shows the slightest blemish, they refuse to eat it.  It may have just come in through the door, but if they perceive it as [...]

Squeezing out one last post before I get on a plane later this morning. Yesterday I was delighted to read the news that the legislature of Nebraska passed a law banning the death penalty, [...]

I have a thing for container gardening.  For all gardening, really, but there’s just something about creating a whole self-contained garden in a beautiful pot that makes me all giddy [...]

It’s always interesting to me when I have a connection (even if tenuous) to something that’s going on in the news. This week, I’m traveling to Ohio to a homeschooling convention [...]

Sometimes old lines from my favorite movies start running through my head and won’t stop (you can imagine how much fun it is to be me).  This is from Legends of the Fall, one of the movies [...]

Hello, darlings. Apologies for so completely neglecting you these last few days. I had a jam-packed weekend without a moment to breathe (or write). I hope yours was as fun as mine was!  Mine was [...]

Here’s something kind of hilarious I found by accident.  There’s someone on Ebay selling “a signed first edition” of THE SECRET SIDE OF EMPTY, complete with a picture of [...]

I love my daughter madly, but as she firmly settles into her adolescence, she has begun to ask for things.  A lot of things.  Not only stuff but a variety of things, most of which need to be [...]

One of my bookish friends posted this graphic on Facebook yesterday.  It points to something we all know: most people aren’t reading books.  For my book-loving crowd, this is cause for [...]

The release of the paperback version of THE SECRET SIDE OF EMPTY has been pushed up to July 28th.  The cover hit the streets yesterday (and I’m totally in love).  I can’t wait to hold [...]