Another book deal: a how-to guide for teen changemakers!

Although we recent­ly spent a week in Dis­ney­land, last week was def­i­nite­ly the big­ger roller coast­er ride for me: I had surgery on Tues­day, then my sec­ond book deal was announced on Thurs­day! There’s noth­ing like good pub­lish­ing news to cheer up a writer who is feel­ing down, and noth­ing like a book sell­ing on proposal–with a short deadline–to make her want to recov­er as quick­ly as possible.
Here’s the announce­ment from Pub­lish­er’s Mar­ket­place:

Lau­rie Thomp­son’s CHANGEMAKERS, a teen hand­book for social activism and how to effect change, with tips, instruc­tion, and prac­ti­cal case stud­ies, to Nicole Geiger at Simon Pulse, by Ammi-Joan Paque­tte at Erin Mur­phy Lit­er­ary Agency (World English).

And here’s the fab­u­lous write-up my amaz­ing agent put up on the agency web­site:

Quick show of hands: Who here has ever dreamed of chang­ing the world? Okay, now one more: Who’s actu­al­ly sat down and put togeth­er a spe­cif­ic plan for chang­ing the world, com­plete with guide­lines, prac­ti­cal tips, and hands-on expe­ri­ence from those who have gone before and actu­al­ly done it?
Let me intro­duce you to Lau­rie Thomp­son. Last year, Lau­rie’s first pic­ture book was signed on by Schwartz & Wade. This week, Lau­rie has accept­ed a pub­li­ca­tion offer for her newest book, a non-fic­tion man­u­al for teens and pre­teens, ten­ta­tive­ly titled CHANGEMAKERS. Focus­ing on the expe­ri­ences of teens and young peo­ple who have made a con­crete dif­fer­ence in their own neigh­bor­hoods, coun­tries, and across the world, CHANGEMAKERS will be the defin­i­tive guide for kids who want to make a dif­fer­ence but don’t know how to get start­ed. And I have a feel­ing the rest of us non-kids will enjoy it too!
This book was enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly signed on by Nicole Geiger at Beyond Words Publishing/Simon Pulse, and is slat­ed for pub­li­ca­tion in Fall 2014. Huge con­grat­u­la­tions, Laurie!

Even though this is my sec­ond book deal, it looks like it will actu­al­ly be my pub­lish­ing debut. My first book, a pic­ture book, isn’t sched­uled to launch until spring 2015, but this one is sched­uled to come out in fall 2014. Since this one sold on pro­pos­al, how­ev­er, I have a lot of work to do in a short amount of time if that is going to hap­pen. So, please for­give me if I’m even qui­eter than usu­al for the next few months.  As soon as I am recov­ered enough, I’ll be back on my tread­mill pound­ing out words!