At Write Up Our Alley I blog about winning awards and coming in second place. It isn’t the talk I gave at the Tassies on May 19th, but it does capture the essence of what I said. You can read the post here.

And yes, I do mention Jerry Spinelli.

Over at Write Up Our Alley I explain my love for A.A. Milne’s When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six. You can read the post here.

Happy National Poetry Month!

I blog about my workspaces at Write Up Our Alley. You can read about it here.

What do The Tree of the Dancing Goats, The Watsons Go to Birmingham–1963, and Once Upon a Time in the North all have in common? They are on a reading list of great read-alouds that fit this winter season. I blog about it on Write Up Our Alley. Go check it out!

We’re eight of us: Kate Duke, Deborah Freedman, Kathleen Kudlinski, M.W. Penn, Sanna Stanley, Leigh Ann Tyson, Cat Urbain, and me. Collectively, we’ve spent decades in the writing business, publishing over 75 children’s books. We write in different genres, covering nonfiction, picture books, middle grade novels, educational materials, historical fiction, YA, poetry. Despite our variety, we’ve discovered how many things we have in common.

We care about quality literature. And I don’t just mean our books — books that matter and that kids will enjoy. Our works explore similar themes, crossing age groups and genres. And more than anything else, we all want to get kids to read.

So we decided to form a group, Write Up Our Alley. We’ve pooled our knowledge and experience, and are building programs and resources for others who share our passions. We’ve put up a website — a work in progress — and on it started a blog where we will share what we’ve learned in the business, what we know about reaching kids, and our love of books. We post about once a week. It’s still an experiment, but we’ve been thinking about this for a long time. Come join us.

The Hudson Children’s Book Festival was a smashing success. Over 50 authors were present. Some 4,000 people from the Hudson Valley came. Over 2,000 books were sold.

Awesome!

And I’ve been busy writing a new novel. I’m in that hairy middle part where I get stuck all the time. But I love my characters. And I love the concept. So I’m plugging away.

My editor is getting my next published novel ready for copyediting — now if we could only come up with a title we’d all agree upon! I’ll announce it as soon as it’s been decided.

And then a chunk of my time has been working with some amazing authors — Kate Duke, Deborah Freedman, Kathleen Kudlinski, M.W. Penn, Sanna Stanley, Leigh Ann Tyson, and Cat Urbain. I promise to give you more news about the project we’re working on, next week.