Last week was one of my busiest ever!!Things started in Milwaukee at Barbara Vey\’s 1st readers luncheon. I was there Monday night for her library event, and then for the Tuesday luncheon. I especially thank the lovely, hardworking WisRWA ladies who greeted everyone when they entered. I shared a table with another YA author, Erica […]
Barbara Vey’s luncheon. Read More »
A number of my friends in various writing groups received word yesterday that they are finalists in RWA contests – either the Golden Heart for unpublished authors, or the Rita for books published in 2011. Being ineligible for either (I am published, but my book is from 2010) I was surprised and pleased to get another
Eliot Rosewater Indiana High School Book Award Read More »
I presented a workshop at the 2012 Illinois Reading Council in Springfield on March 15, to a room full of teachers and librarians, all interested in the subject of attracting reluctant teen boy readers. I feel i\’ve come full circle from 2008 when I attended a discussion about the same subject at the AWP (Association
Illinois Reading Council Read More »
On February 15, I visited the Oswego East High School\’s Reading Club where I did a book talk with members of the club and other individuals. There attentive audience watched the Book Trailer for PULL, listened to a reading from the book and learned some inside secrets on how the book came to be. There were questions about
School visit to Oswego East High School Read More »
Last Tuesday my local library, the Arlington Heights Memorial Library, sponsored me as their guest at the Illinois Library Association conference in Rosemont Illinois. While there, one of my readers came up to me and told me he was almost finished with my book and he loved it. Part of my goal in writing PULL
Men like YA books too Read More »
Last week I discovered something about my novel, PULL. Somebody out there really likes it. And, they have nominated the book for two really big honors. PULL is a nominee in the Cybils Awards Young Adult Fiction category. This is the Children\’s and Young Adult Bloggers Literary Awards, and some blogger or fan liked the
Doing The Happy Dance Read More »
Advertisers will tell you, it\’s always easier and more cost effective to keep an existing customer than to go out and find a new one, or try recapturing a lost one. So it is with readers. No, I\’m not talking about my readers (well, yes I am, but only as a tangent) I\’m talking about
Growing old means growing in wisdom, I guess. But it also means loss, and I have lost a dear friend–again. His name was Ernie Swirles, and many years ago we agreed to disagree about the Chicago Cubs. He ushered at my Church, Trinity United Methodist in Mt. Prospect, and was the kind of character everyone
Maybe I should have been a teacher the way my high school instructors claimed. I enjoyed teaching my on-line Man Talk class with the Low Country RWA chapter. And last week I loved being part of the guest faculty at the DePaul University Summer Writing Workshop. (As the new kid on the block I got the
Those that can…teach Read More »