Newsletter
Laurie Ann Thompson

EMMANUEL'S DREAM

A Starred Review for Emmanuel’s Dream!

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Emmanuel’s Dream received its first starred review, and it’s from School Library Jour­nal! They called the book,

“a tri­umph.”

And they also said,

“This pow­er­ful and win­ning pic­ture book tells the sto­ry of a young man over­com­ing the odds.”

and

“This uplift­ing account will res­onate with read­ers and sup­ple­ment glob­al and cul­tur­al studies.”

You can read the full review here!

And, just for fun, here’s a cool video that John Schu made of the win­dow dis­play at Unabridged Book­store in Chica­go. It’s in great com­pa­ny, don’t you think? It’s always excit­ing to see one of my books out in the wild, so if you spot one, please share!

Authors LOVE Teachers, with a HUGE book #giveaway!

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Teaching Is a Work of Heart
Teaching Is a Work of HeartHap­py Valen­tine’s Day to teach­ers and teacher/librarians!

 

I’ve nev­er been very much into Valen­tine’s Day, but when Lyn­da Mul­laly Hunt invit­ed me to par­tic­i­pate in this awe­some book give­away for teach­ers, I jumped at the chance! Authors do love teach­ers, and gen­er­al­ly, teach­ers love books, so it’s a per­fect oppor­tu­ni­ty for us to show a lit­tle love to those who are so often under-appreciated.

Just check out all of the amaz­ing SIGNED books that will be won by one lucky teacher:

Beetle Busters coverBlue Birds coverBrown Girl Dreaming coverEmmanuel's Dream coverFish in a Tree coverThe Gossip File coverHowto Outswim a Shark Without a Snorkel coverMark of the Thief coverOn the Road to Mr. Mineo's coverOne Witch at a Time coverPaper Things coverRandom Body Parts coverWalk Two Moons coverThe Way to Stay in Destiny coverWhy'd They Wear That coverWish Girl cover

To enter to win this fab­u­lous give­away, teach­ers and teacher-librar­i­ans just need to:
1) Leave a com­ment on Lyn­da Mul­laly Hunt’s blog about any­thing you wish.
OR
2) Share a post on Twit­ter with a link to this blog post and the hash­tag #MGAu­thorsLoveTeach­ers.
OR
3) RT some­one else’s tweet with both the blog post link and hashtag.

 

Rules:
***Give­away ends on Wednes­day, Feb­ru­ary 18th, at 11:59 p.m. Win­ner will be announced on the 19th.
1) This is to show our appre­ci­a­tion for teach­ers and librar­i­ans, specif­i­cal­ly. There­fore, the win­ner must have a school mail­ing address and be present­ly employed at that school.
***2) Please remem­ber this give­away is all about appre­ci­a­tion. We know that teach­ers do not get the appre­ci­a­tion they deserve. This give­away is a reminder that WE appre­ci­ate TEACHERS. They are often the ones putting our books into the hands of the read­ers who need them. For that we are tru­ly grate­ful. THANK YOU for what you do everyday–and for vis­it­ing our giveaway!

 

But wait, there’s more.… Sev­er­al YA authors have also band­ed togeth­er to show their love of and appre­ci­a­tion for teach­ers by giv­ing away their books, too! For more infor­ma­tion about the #YAAu­thorsLoveTeach­ers give­away, click here.

 

Whether you’re a teacher or not, please share this post with all of your favorite teach­ers and teacher-librar­i­ans so they can enter the give­aways, and don’t for­get to show them a lit­tle extra love!

Thank You

Fan mail for Emmanuel’s Dream

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It’s always a treat to receive an email like this from a parent:

Last night I read your book to my younger daugh­ter.… She loved the book, and decid­ed it was her new favorite and she want­ed to take it to school when it was her stu­dent spot­light week. Today she and [her broth­er] were fight­ing over it in the car, and I read it to each of them for a bed­time sto­ry. At least this week, it’s a house­hold favorite!

It’s espe­cial­ly great to know that Emmanuel’s sto­ry is touch­ing young read­ers as much as it touched me.

The Emmanuel’s Dream book launch party!

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poster

With the hol­i­days right before, I must admit that the launch par­ty day sort of snuck up on me. I was rush­ing to get every­thing ready, had to give up on some things that I want­ed to do, and did­n’t have as much time as I would’ve liked to pre­pare. Still, I think a great time was had by all. I know I enjoyed every minute!

poster
Check out the awe­some poster they had up!

books
Look at all those books for sale!

writing buddies
Local writ­ing bud­dies, includ­ing cur­rent Emu’s Debut blog­ger (and the next one of us to launch!), Kevan Atte­ber­ry!

presentation
Dur­ing the presentation

speaking
Clutch­ing the mic for dear life, apparently.

audience
The audi­ence lis­ten­ing to my talk.

line
Can you believe this line of peo­ple wait­ing to get their books signed?

signing
Sign­ing books is even hard­er when you have to stop and pose for photos.

J. Anderson Coats
Rec­og­nize this Emu’s Debuts emer­i­tus and found­ing mem­ber? It’s J. Ander­son Coats!

a young fan
Young fans are the best fans.

Many thanks to Emmanuel for inspir­ing me; to Sean Qualls for his beau­ti­ful art­work; to my fam­i­ly for sup­port­ing me all this time; to my cri­tique group for help­ing the man­u­script rise above the slush (espe­cial­ly Dana Sul­li­van, for tak­ing these great pic­tures for me!); to my agent, Ammi-Joan Paque­tte, for not giv­ing up; to the Uni­ver­si­ty Book Store in Belle­vue and their event plan­ner, Olivia Ahl, for throw­ing such a won­der­ful par­ty; and to all the friends, writ­ers, teach­ers, par­ents, neigh­bors, and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers who took the time to come out and cheer me–and the book–on last Tues­day night. You all ROCK, and I am one extreme­ly lucky gal! xoxo

EMMANUEL’S DREAM is available for pre-order!

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EMMANUEL'S DREAM cover

EMMANUEL'S DREAM cover
 
My first pic­ture book, EMMANUEL’S DREAM, will be pub­lished in Jan­u­ary, but it’s avail­able for pre-order now!
Here’s the descrip­tion from the pub­lish­er’s web page:

Emmanuel Ofo­su Yeboah’s inspir­ing true story—which was turned into a film, Emmanuel’s Gift, nar­rat­ed by Oprah Winfrey—is noth­ing short of remarkable.
Born in Ghana, West Africa, with one deformed leg, he was dis­missed by most people—but not by his moth­er, who taught him to reach for his dreams. As a boy, Emmanuel hopped to school more than two miles each way, learned to play soc­cer, left home at age thir­teen to pro­vide for his fam­i­ly, and even­tu­al­ly, became a cyclist. He rode an aston­ish­ing four hun­dred miles across Ghana in 2001, spread­ing his pow­er­ful mes­sage: dis­abil­i­ty is not inabil­i­ty. Today, Emmanuel con­tin­ues to work on behalf of the disabled.
Thomp­son’s lyri­cal prose and Quall­s’s bold col­lage illus­tra­tions offer a pow­er­ful cel­e­bra­tion of tri­umph­ing over adversity.

To order your copy from an inde­pen­dent book­seller, vis­it Secret Gar­den Book­shop (if you add your per­son­al­iza­tion request in the com­ments sec­tion, I’ll sign it for you!) or check out IndieBound for a local book­store near you. Of course, you can also find it on Amazon.com or BN.com.
And, of course, you can always add it to your Goodreads shelf:

Emmanuel's Dream: The True Story of Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah


Emmanuel on US National Amputee Soccer Team

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Emmanuel Ofo­su Yeboah, the sub­ject of my upcom­ing pic­ture-book biog­ra­phy, EMMANUEL’S DREAM, is an ath­lete who was born in Ghana, West Africa, with a deformed leg. As a young man, he want­ed to change the way dis­abled peo­ple were treat­ed in Ghana, so he rode a bicy­cle near­ly 400 miles all around his coun­try to prove that being dis­abled does­n’t mean being unable. Since then, he has con­tin­ued to be an advo­cate for the rights of peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties and has launched his own foun­da­tion, with plans to build a school in Ghana for abled and dis­abled chil­dren alike. He now spends most of his time based in San Diego, CA, trav­el­ing the Unit­ed States as a moti­va­tion­al speak­er and rais­ing funds for his charity.
This spring, the Unit­ed States Nation­al Amputee Soc­cer Team invit­ed Emmanuel to play for them. He just returned to San Diego from a train­ing ses­sion in Mary­land, and he’ll join the team when they com­pete in the 10th Amputee World Cup in Mex­i­co in late November.
Good luck, Emmanuel, and to the rest of the play­ers on the US Nation­al Amputee Soc­cer Team!
Read more about Emmanuel and his World Cup Soc­cer expe­ri­ence here, includ­ing some great photos.

EMMANUEL’S DREAM popping up in some exciting places!

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My upcom­ing pic­ture-book biog­ra­phy, EMMANUEL’S DREAM: THE TRUE STORY OF EMMANUEL OFOSU YEBOAH, has been pop­ping up in a few excit­ing places lately!
First, I recent­ly got to see–for the first time–how the illus­tra­tions by Sean Qualls are pro­gress­ing, and the art­work is noth­ing short of amaz­ing! I was sit­ting in a qui­et cof­fee shop work­ing on my lap­top when I got my first glimpse, and it lit­er­al­ly brought tears to my eyes, in all the best ways. I want­ed to dance around the place and scream with excite­ment! I love the bold col­or palette he’s using, the expres­sions on the char­ac­ters’ faces, and the way he chose to show parts of the sto­ry in sil­hou­et­ted back­ground images. It’s breath­tak­ing! Unfor­tu­nate­ly, I can share any of it with you just yet, but I can’t wait to be able to. I hope you like it as much as I do.
Sec­ond, the book is now list­ed on Goodreads! I hope you’ll click on this link or the but­ton below and add EMMANUEL’S DREAM to your “Want to Read” shelf.

Goodreads button for Emmanuel's Dream

Third, the book is avail­able for pre-order! If you’d like to reserve a signed copy, you may now order EMMANUEL’S DREAM from Secret Gar­den Books (please leave an extra week or so after the pub­li­ca­tion date for deliv­ery, and indi­cate how you’d like it per­son­al­ized in the “oth­er notes about your order” field). It Is also avail­able for pre-order on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound, Powell’s, or direct­ly from the pub­lish­er, Schwartz & Wade/Random House.
Keep an eye out for more excit­ing news!

2013: What a year!

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EMLA Client Retreat group photo

I haven’t post­ed here for way too long, but 2013 turned out to be quite a year. I did man­age to squeeze in a few posts over at Emu’s Debuts, so I thought I’d share them here as a sort of roundup (and to par­tial­ly explain where I’ve been since the last post)…
In July, I had the amaz­ing expe­ri­ence of attend­ing my sec­ond Erin Mur­phy Lit­er­ary Agency client retreat, this time in Big Sky Mon­tana. Words can’t real­ly describe how won­der­ful these retreats are, but I post­ed a bit about it here.

EMLA Client Retreat group photo
The whole EMLA retreat gang (except me!)

Aside from that trip, I spent the sum­mer writ­ing, research­ing, writ­ing, inter­view­ing, writ­ing, revis­ing, writ­ing, revis­ing, revis­ing, and revis­ing to deliv­er the final man­u­script for BE A CHANGEMAKER. I wrote a bit about the process here.
A screen shot of the developmental edit
Tracked changes in the devel­op­men­tal edit stage

Despite the mad race to the fin­ish line, I feel real­ly good about how it all came togeth­er. And here’s a post about how it felt to get to THE END.
Done!
Then there was the dread­ed author pho­to, which actu­al­ly turned out to be sort of fun (and decent enough to share with the world, thank goodness!).

Laurie Thompson head shot

 
Oth­er news and high­lights from the year?

  • I got to see an ear­ly study for a scene from the pic­ture-book biog­ra­phy of Emmanuel Ofo­su Yeboah, illus­trat­ed by Sean Qualls.
  • The above book also FINALLY has a title, EMMANUEL’S DREAM!
  • I also got to see pre­lim­i­nary sketch­es for MY DOG IS THE BEST (sor­ry, I can’t share them here, but Paul Schmid’s illus­tra­tions are ADORABLE!).
  • I fin­ished anoth­er fic­tion pic­ture book man­u­script and it will soon be going out on sub­mis­sion (fin­gers crossed!).
  • I par­tic­i­pat­ed in and fin­ished PiBoId­Mo 2013.

Stay tuned for my next post on how I plan to tack­le 2014. 🙂

Fantastic news–my first book sale!

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Okay, so this post is a lit­tle late in com­ing. I’ve been care­ful­ly think­ing about relat­ed revi­sion notes as well as enjoy­ing just a lit­tle bit of bask­ing and cel­e­brat­ing (okay, a lot of bask­ing and cel­e­brat­ing!). Now that my feet are back on the ground, please allow me to share the offi­cial announcement…
I’ve sold my first book!
 

I can’t yet reveal all of the details (there’s a top-secret Awe­some Illus­tra­tor involved!), but I  can say that in my wildest dreams, I could­n’t have imag­ined any­thing bet­ter. My pic­ture-book biog­ra­phy about Emmanuel Oso­fu Yeboah (see pre­vi­ous post) will be edit­ed by the love­ly Anne Schwartz at Schwartz & Wade (Ran­dom House). Here’s a bit of a blurb about the book, cour­tesy of my amaz­ing agent, Ammi-Joan Paque­tte:

“When Emmanuel Ofo­su Yeboah was born, his right leg was short and twisted—completely use­less. It was 1977, and peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties in Ghana, West Africa, were con­sid­ered cursed, and left their homes only to beg for food or mon­ey. Emmanuel chal­lenged the norm from his youngest days. Then, in 2001, he decid­ed to prove that peo­ple with phys­i­cal chal­lenges could do amaz­ing things, so he bicy­cled across Ghana—almost 400 miles—with one leg. His ten-day ride helped make him a vir­tu­al celebri­ty, but also a nation­al hero. As a direct result of Emmanuel’s efforts, Ghana even­tu­al­ly enact­ed pro­gres­sive dis­abil­i­ty laws.”

Her full announce­ment is on the Erin Mur­phy Lit­er­ary Agency web­site, here.
Part of what makes this the ulti­mate dream come true for is that this is the sto­ry I could nev­er let go of. It’s the first book I ever tried to write and has been through at least 30 MAJOR rewrites, chang­ing gen­res and tar­get age groups sev­er­al times along the way, and vary­ing in length from 200 words to 1500 words and every­where in between. I’ve put it away, stud­ied and learned, pon­dered and thought, writ­ten oth­er things, and been pulled back to this one again count­less times, over and over, for almost 7 years. This project has been my own per­son­al 400-mile bike ride, one that I don’t know if I could have com­plet­ed with­out the inspi­ra­tion I’ve derived from the sto­ry itself. To have it be the first book of mine to sell AND to have it land in such a per­fect, won­der­ful home at S&W is tru­ly unbe­liev­able. But please don’t pinch me, because this is one dream I don’t want to end.

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