MY DOG IS THE BEST news and #giveaways!

MY DOG IS THE BEST-cover

MY DOG IS THE BEST-coverIt’s almost release day for MY DOG IS THE BEST, avail­able Tues­day, June 9th!
Here’s what the crit­ics have had to say so far:

“… the sim­plic­i­ty of both the words and the pic­tures cre­ates a charm­ing, tod­dler-sized ode to man’s best friend.” —Book­list
“This sim­ple, qui­et sto­ry con­veys the endur­ing bond between child and dog, with the added appeal of a joke that younger chil­dren just begin­ning to under­stand humor can enjoy.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Though ‘a boy and his dog’ may not be a ground­break­ing theme, it’s often a pop­u­lar one—and this gen­tle tale of friend­ship is no excep­tion.… While this is a famil­iar sto­ry, it’s a well-exe­cut­ed and charm­ing one.” —School Library Journal
“… sim­ple word­ing helps young chil­dren who are learn­ing to read.… I real­ly enjoyed this cute chil­dren’s book and enjoyed its depic­tion of man’s best friend.…or should we say ‘boy’s’ best friend!” —Curl­ing Up With A Good Book blog
#Booka­day My Dog is the Best by @LaurieThompson & @PaulSchmidBooks. Made me think of http://t.co/mlzJYBYVm1″ … “In my opin­ion, it is a per­fect can­di­date for The Bak­er’s Dozen.”  — John Schu (@MrSchuReads) Feb­ru­ary 26, 2015

The launch par­ty is Fri­day, June 12th, at Uni­ver­si­ty Book Store in the Uni­ver­si­ty Dis­trict. More info here.
There’s a give­away hap­pen­ing on Goodreads:

Goodreads Book Giveaway

My Dog Is the Best by Laurie Ann Thompson

My Dog Is the Best

by Laurie Ann Thompson

Give­away ends June 16, 2015.
See the give­away details
at Goodreads. 

Enter to Win


Our adorable pup and boy pair are going out on a blog tour begin­ning Sat­ur­day, June 6th. Here’s where to find them (and me) in the next few weeks (note, many of these will have give­aways, too–more chances to win!):

6/6/2015 Book­ing Mama http://www.bookingmama.net/
6/8/2015 Jean Rei­dy http://jeanreidy.com
6/9/2015 Watch. Con­nect. Read. http://mrschureads.blogspot.com/
6/10/2015 5 Min­utes for Books http://books.5minutesformom.com
6/11/2015 KidLit Fren­zy http://www.kidlitfrenzy.com/
6/12/2015 Unleash­ing Readers http://www.unleashingreaders.com/
6/16/2015 Anas­ta­sia Suen: Book­talk­ing #kidlit http://anastasiasuen.com/
6/19/2015 Kir­by’s Lane http://kirbyslane.com
7/1/2015 Library Lions http://LibraryLionsRoar.blogspot.com

 
And, last but not least, if you’d like buy a copy:
You may pre-order a signed copy from Uni­ver­si­ty Book Store.
Also avail­able on:

The Emmanuel’s Dream book launch party!

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

The Emu’s Debuts launch party for Be a Changemaker

Emu's Debuts bannerOne of the most reward­ing expe­ri­ences of being a debut author has been par­tic­i­pat­ing on the Emu’s Debuts group blog (for clients of Erin Murphy Lit­er­ary Agency who are in between deal and pub­li­ca­tion). Last week, my fab­u­lous friends and fel­low Emus threw me THE BEST LAUNCH PARTY EVER to cel­e­brate the upcom­ing release of BE A CHANGEMAKER! (They went a week ear­ly, since Lind­sey Lane’s EVIDENCE OF THINGS UNSEEN is releas­ing at the same time. I’ll be help­ing them cel­e­brate that launch next week!)
They were all so gen­er­ous, authen­tic, and hard-work­ing in bring­ing the dai­ly posts to life (as they are with every­thing they do!), and I was thrilled anew every morn­ing to see what they had put togeth­er. In case you missed them, please go check out their posts. They’re fun, infor­ma­tive, and inspiring!
Here’s the roundup:
On Mon­day, Lind­sey Lane (with some back­up sup­port from Tara Dair­man), post­ed Wel­come to the World: BE A CHANGEMAKER by Lau­rie Ann Thomp­son!, which includ­ed sto­ries of and inter­views with five oth­er Erin Mur­phy Lit­er­ary Agency authors who are chang­ing the world in their own mean­ing­ful ways:

Tues­day fea­tured sev­er­al videos com­piled by Megan Mor­ri­sonBE A CHANGEMAKER: Words of Wis­dom. The clips con­tain con­tri­bu­tions from fel­low Emu Debuts blog­gers offer­ing their own words of wis­dom, shar­ing quotes that moti­vate and inspire them, and giv­ing advice they wish they’d got­ten at the begin­ning of their jour­ney. Great stuff, and so per­son­al! It’s a great way to get to know these won­der­ful peo­ple a lit­tle better.
For the Wednes­day post, BE A CHANGEMAKER: Cel­e­brat­ing with Quotes!Jen­nifer Cham­b­liss Bert­man com­piled and cre­at­ed a col­lec­tion of gor­geous images fea­tur­ing quotes that inspire and moti­vate the mem­bers of the Emu’s Debuts blog team. If you want to spice up your Face­book or Pin­ter­est feeds (or your office walls!), there are some fan­tas­tic finds here. Plus, they includ­ed the expla­na­tions behind why the quotes are so mean­ing­ful for them, mak­ing them even more special.
For Thurs­day’s post, Pen­ny Park­er Kloster­mann, gave read­ers a sneak pre­view of Be a Change­mak­er with excerpts of the first 25 pages as well as the event plan­ning chap­ter. Her post, BE A CHANGEMAKER: A Tool for Change, gives a sense of how the book can be used as a tool by indi­vid­u­als, teams, and classrooms.
On Fri­dayTama­ra Ellis Smith closed out the par­ty with Music to Be A Change­mak­er By, an inspi­ra­tional and moti­vat­ing Spo­ti­fy playlist of songs rec­om­mend­ed by the Emu’s Debuts blog­gers, along with the expla­na­tions of why they includ­ed them. Span­ning gen­res and emo­tions, you’re sure to find some­thing of inter­est here–I know I did!
I’m so grate­ful to the awe­some authors at Emu’s Debuts! Thanks to them, the Be a Change­mak­er pre-launch week was bet­ter than I ever could have imag­ined. I’m look­ing for­ward to each and of every one of their debuts–coming soon!

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