Rumor De-Bunking

Just a quick post to squash a couple of stupid, silly rumors that I’m really sick of.  I’ve seen this rumor everywhere the past few months and this post probably won’t do any good because the kind of people that spread this garbage don’t believe me, anyway—but here goes: No, I am not writing a [...]

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Walking a Mile in Jo March’s Shoes

There have been many, many beautiful, kind, and selfless acts of service performed in Susan’s name since she disappeared.  People have served meals to the homeless…brought Christmas to those who couldn’t afford it…and some have even decided to do some extra kind of service every single day in honor of Susan.  When Chuck and Judy [...]

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Twisted Fairy Tale: Little Red

An author of several very popular young adult novels, Laurie Halse Anderson, put up a writing challenge on her blog at the beginning of August.  The challenge: write for 15 minutes a day, every day in August.  I decided to accept this challenge because even though I love to write I haven’t been making time [...]

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Compare and contrast: a couple of book reviews

Every time I finish a book (and that’s quite often…I usually read two or three novels a week), I write a review in my head.  It’s not even conscious—I just automatically re-play the best scenes and tell myself what I liked or didn’t like.  I always intend to write down the reviews but never actually [...]

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“Worst First Line” Contest

I just read on Twitter tonight that there’s a *yearly contest for the worst first sentence in a fake novel.  W-O-W, there are some howlers!  I gasped and choked and snorted until, breathless with laughter, I couldn’t stand it anymore and had to read one to my husband—it was the Spiderman entry that put me [...]

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Provo Children’s Book Festival: Part 4: Author signings

In the afternoon more than 30 authors had signings for their books.  It was very exciting to meet some of the authors of my favorite books!  My kids were very excited, too, especially my oldest daughter.  She’s inherited my love of reading.                  First up is Brandon Mull, author of the very-popular Fablehaven series.  Brandon [...]

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Provo Children’s Book Festival: Part 3: Shannon and Dean Hale Reading and Interpretive Dance

Shannon Hale needs no introduction.  If you haven’t read her books yet, they are wonderful and I highly recommend them.  She and her husband Dean co-wrote their first graphic novel last year, Rapunzel’s Revenge.  The sequel, Calamity Jack, will be out…possibly sometime next year?  I didn’t hear a date for that one yet.  It’s got [...]

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Provo Children’s Book Festival: Part 2: Fantasy Panel

Immediately after Laura Seeger’s presentation ended, the Fantasy panel started across the hall.  6 authors participated: Jessica Day George, Brandon Mull, James Dashner, Shannon Hale, J. Scot Savage, and Brandon Sanderson, who was also the moderator.  He asked the panel questions and gave each author time to answer.  Unfortunately, they were rudely interrupted before question [...]

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Provo Children’s Book Festival: Part One: Laura Vaccaro Seeger

Setting: the beautiful historic Provo library Time: 11:00 a.m., Saturday, May 16 Laura Vaccaro Seeger is a pretty, vivacious brunette with a passion for books and art.  She’s the award-winning author of beautiful die-cut (and regular) picture books such as: First the Egg Lemons Are Not Red One Boy The Hidden Alphabet Black? White! Day? [...]

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A new short story

I decided to post my “long” version of my recent short story for the Utah Children’s Writers blog.  I signed up to participate in a project where each person posts an original short story (or poem), 500 words or less, on their assigned day in April…one for each day.  My day was yesterday.  I originally [...]

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