focus

It feels like the world’s going to blow away…all night the wind was raging, and it’s still tearing stuff up today.  The golden leaves on the tree in our back alley are just about gone, and I wonder what the garden looks like—might have to head over and find out.  Something in the turkey, ham, [...]

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a voice from the other side…an editor speaks

The truth is, I don’t know that many editors; they’re mostly a mystery to me.  When they blog, it’s often done anonymously or they say things that drive me nuts (the Coretta Scott King Award is racist; black people are so blighted by racism they can’t produce literary fiction).  So in an effort to understand [...]

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London calling…

It feels like London today because Brooklyn is gray and gloomy with that cold sort of damp that chills you right to the bone…I remember being in London once in January and many houses had window boxes filled with pansies!  We were shivering and huddling together for warmth, and Londoners were running through Kensington Park [...]

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great day

The Brooklyn Museum Book Fair was FABULOUS!  Kudos to the thoughtful organizers and thanks to everyone who came out to support so many wonderful authors and illustrators.  We sold nearly all the books at our table, and sitting with Shadra and Greg Christie made the time (four hours!) fly by.  Afterward I went to the [...]

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“expensive curation”

A few months ago when I was first contacted by Amazon Encore, I did an online search to find out more about the venture.  This article came up; I read it with interest, and never forgot the (anonymous) author’s equation: “publishing = expensive curation.”
Publishers have controlled the direction and profits in the books market for so [...]

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give a teacher a hug…

…or better yet, give a teacher a BOOK!  Shadra directed me to this lovely, long review of BIRD by a teacher who’s pretty much seen it all: violence inside the classroom, violence out in the street, no textbooks, no desks, no a/c (resulting in 109 degrees in the classroom)…when are we going to make our [...]

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fair and balanced

Now, I’ve had a LOT of good news lately, so I’m just going to take this in stride.  An editor sent her comments on a couple of my stories…
[Story #1] really captures the mood and feelings that came up after 9/11, and I like the almost-magical realism of the world you’ve created. I can’t point [...]

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release

So I made a kid cry today…I didn’t mean to, of course, but we were doing a writing exercise and when I asked for volunteers to read their work aloud, her hand shot up at the end and then I saw teardrops falling onto her khakis.  What amazes me about kids is how open they’re [...]

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aftertaste

Sometimes I wonder about the timing of book releases…I just finished reading Flygirl by Sherri L. Smith, and found myself making endless comparisons to Mare’s War by Tanita S. Davis, which I read several months ago.  I’d heard great things about Flygirl and it was original and interesting, but it was hard to read [...]

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guess what?

Author Kelly Starling Lyons let me know that BIRD is featured in the December issue of Ebony!  We’re not sure if it’s only online, or in the print magazine, too, but you can check it out here.

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