Writing

Today I am so excited that the cover for the paperback edition of THE SECRET SIDE OF EMPTY is being released out in the world at the wonderful YA Books Central.  They’ve got a little [...]

I am a dismal cook (like, really bad.  Like… remedial cooking classes would be too advanced for me).  So, about once a year, I involve myself in collecting something that lulls me into [...]

It’s iris season!  I want to post a gazillion pictures but I’ll spare you and post just a few (below).  They’re so pretty and they’re popping up everywhere! I am adding a [...]

Iris season is in full swing and I couldn’t be happier.  Every morning I can’t wait to rush outside to see what new variety is blooming.  This morning I was particularly delighted to [...]

This week I spoke to a journalist with the Latin Post who asked me some questions about writing, immigration and what I hope readers get out of THE SECRET SIDE OF EMPTY. Check out the interview: [...]

I love it when I get a chance to just guffaw out loud.  This morning, I got that chance at CVS. Here’s the Daily News cover about Deflate-gate.  I don’t understand a thing about it [...]

It occurred to me while watching the new HBO documentary, Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck: I am old.  Not only am I old, but I’m okay with it. I have always been on the side of the young, [...]

The CYBILS Awards  (which stands for Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers Literary Awards) has just released a list of nominated and winning books with Latino characters.  It’s a [...]

So, apparently I make hi-la-rious faces when squeegeeing the windows.  Unbeknownst to me (since the reflection kept me from seeing in the house and since I was clearly involved in a very [...]

All I wanted for Mother’s Day was an iris bloom… and I got one!!! My lovely Aggressively Forward decided to give me my wish and grace me with one single, gorgeous bloom.  It was a [...]

It’s true, I am a terrible attention hog on my birthday.  I start spreading the word around March that the most important day of the year is on its way: June 14th, Flag Day, otherwise known [...]

Do you ever wonder what goes into naming a book?  I’m always surprised by how many readers don’t realize that authors don’t always get to name their books… or that, at the [...]

Alone, I love silence. When I’m with loved ones, I don’t do well with it at all. I am a person who yearns for connection. I don’t do small talk. I do deep, interested, [...]

I took a fun dialect quiz yesterday.  You answer about five minutes’ worth of questions about how you pronounce certain words or what you call certain objects (those things you run in, are [...]

I have been on a years-long quest to get one of my iris plants to bloom by Mother’s Day.  Thus far, I have been thwarted.  But this year it’s looking SO GOOD.  So close.  This is my [...]

Being at a birth this week has thrown me out of the ordinary rhythm of my life in the best possible way.  Nowhere am I feeling it more than when looking at my own children. Parenting teenagers is [...]

I just had to take a picture of this most gorgeous of tulips that has somehow, improbably, has survived in my front yard without being chewed up as a snack by a hoofed menace.  Is it not [...]

Someone very special just came into my life and I am over the moon about it. Her name is Hazel and she’s 7 pounds 3 ounces.  I performed her mom and dad’s wedding ceremony a year and [...]

This was a weekend in which I felt I did EVERYTHING I wanted to do.  I usually try to have all my major garden changes done before Mother’s Day – window boxes freshened up with new [...]

May 4th through the 10th is Children’s Book Week.  The Children’s Book Council asked gobs and gobs of authors, “What book made you a reader?”  It’s a fun video full [...]

Peeps, I can’t even deal with the excitement of this.  Today I saw… an iris bud!!! What?!? Every year, I am in a waiting game with my iris.  I whisper to them and ask them please to [...]

May 1st has been used for centuries for a variety of celebrations.  Coming as it does between the spring equinox and the summer solstice, it is a good day for hope and plans.  It’s been the [...]

Yesterday’s post on nostalgia and the feeling that things “used to be better” left me thinking about how life has changed in the time since I was a child and teenager. [...]

Yesterday I chatted with my agent to talk about several items of outstanding business – pages I’m showing her, steps to take on several balls we have up in the air, a conversation I [...]

The original 16-page (?!?) working manuscript of the lyrics to “American Pie” has been sold at auction for $1.2 million.  With the story about the sale, I finally read an explanation [...]

An ode to my gardenia-scented skin lotion: My sugarplum.  My sweet thing. I love you. I love you with the wild abandon of a first crush. Your touch invigorates me. Nothing in the world smells [...]

My life would be so much easier if my name was Marie Andrew.  Like… orders of magnitude easier.  Tallied up, I would probably get weeks or months of my life back that I didn’t have to [...]

When the trees start to flower, I am overcome with a bizarre obsession.  As I drive around, all I can think of is sneaking up to every flowering tree I see and cutting off branches, then running [...]

The other day when I got home, my son looked a bit worried.  “There is a deer in the backyard,” he said, waiting for my reaction. M)%#$#^! I am offended by the presence of deer in my [...]

I’ve often said that writing is about remembering. Even when you’re making something up (which is what writing fiction essentially is), you still have to access memories of your own [...]