1. Remember that book I’m writing for teachers? About how to get kids excited about revision using strategies shared by lots of authors who write for them? It’s just about done! I’m waiting on a few photos & quotes, and adding a couple more student work samples this week because my new 7th graders just did some fantastic revision work that was too good to leave out. But otherwise, it’s done & ready to go back to my editor at Stenhouse. This is very good timing because…
2. The fabulous MK, my editor at Walker/Bloomsbury, emailed the revision letter today for EYE OF THE STORM, my upper-MG dystopian tornado book that’s coming out in Spring 2012. The line edits should be arriving by UPS tomorrow!! I’m always excited about editorial letters, but especially this one. I absolutely love this book, and to be honest, working on nonfiction for most of the summer has left me with a real ache to start making things up again.
3. Did you want to enter the GoodReads drawing for an ARC of SUGAR AND ICE? It runs through September 30th – a few more days to enter. And if you’ve read the ARC or want to add it to your to-read list, you can click here to do that, too.
4. The Author Spotlight interview I did with Mountain Lake PBS a few weeks ago is available online now. I talk about THE BRILLIANT FALL OF GIANNA Z and how my writing and teaching lives fit together. I was a little intimidated when the producer told me that his other interviews had been with Katherine Paterson and Steven Kellogg. (Warning: it’s kind of long, so probably only my mom will want to watch the whole thing) I’m Chapter 4, about 14 1/2 minutes in.
5. Speaking of Gianna Z, the book’s been out over a year now, but every so often, I come across a new review on a website or blog. This Gianna Z. review by a teen book blogger at has to be one of my all-time favorites. I love how strongly she identified with Gianna and that she took the time to write such a thoughtful review.
5.5 We had open house at my school tonight. In the half hour I had at home between school & the evening event, while I was making dinner for the kids, I whipped carefully removed a bowl of spaghetti sauce from the microwave. It splashed out of the bowl, across the stove, into the silverware drawer, onto the floor, and onto my skirt. I did not have time to change, so I just swiped at the mess on the floor and sort of shook off my skirt. Happily, the skirt was patterned with many bright colors, so I don’t think it showed. Much. But if you were at open house tonight and smelled tomato sauce, that was probably me.