Newsletter
Laurie Ann Thompson

Laurie Thompson

Announcing the Emmanuel’s Dream audiobook!

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Emmanuels Dream cover with sticker

Emmanuels Dream cover with sticker
I have some great news to share today! I’m thrilled to announce that Lis­ten­ing Library at Pen­guin Ran­dom House Audio will be pro­duc­ing an Emmanuel’s Dream audio­book edi­tion!! This is super excit­ing to me for two reasons:
First, I love lis­ten­ing to audio­books! I lis­ten when I’m walk­ing the dog, dri­ving, doing house­work, basi­cal­ly any­time it isn’t prac­ti­cal to have my nose in a book. 😂  So trust me when I say that hav­ing one of my books be made into an audio­book makes me squeal for joy and bust out my hap­py dance!
The sec­ond rea­son, how­ev­er, is far more impor­tant. Emmanuel’s Dream was award­ed the 2016 Amer­i­can Library Asso­ci­a­tion’s Schnei­der Fam­i­ly Book Award for embody­ing “an artis­tic expres­sion of the dis­abil­i­ty expe­ri­ence for child and ado­les­cent audi­ences.” One of the things that moved me most about win­ning the award was learn­ing that it meant that a braille edi­tion of Emmanuel’s Dream would be released. That still left some read­ers out, sad­ly, and I’ve been dream­ing of an audio­book ever since. Hav­ing an Emmanuel’s Dream audio­book edi­tion means more access for more peo­ple. It means those with vision impair­ments can hear Emmanuel’s inspir­ing sto­ry of social action. It means emerg­ing read­ers or read­ers with learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties such as dyslex­ia can lis­ten to Emmanuel’s exam­ple of per­se­ver­ance in the face of chal­lenges. It means all chil­dren every­where will have anoth­er way to appre­ci­ate Emmanuel’s mes­sage of accept­ing every­one’s diverse gifts.
So, it is with great plea­sure that I can now say the Emmanuel’s Dream audio­book is sched­uled to be released on Jan­u­ary 26, 2021, and you even can pre­order it RIGHT NOW!
I’m look­ing for­ward to work­ing with the team at Lis­ten­ing Library, and I’ll be sure to share fur­ther details (like who will be nar­rat­ing!) as soon as I get them.
Penguin Random House Audio header

#AtHome learning using my books

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The inspir­ing image above is a spread from my upcom­ing pic­ture book, ELIZABETH WARREN’S BIG, BOLD PLANS, illus­trat­ed by the amaz­ing Susan­na Chap­man and releas­ing on May 5 (hooray!). These days, it often feels hard to con­ceive of big, bold plans. I’ll admit, some days just get­ting out of my paja­mas feels like a vic­to­ry. And for those of those par­ent­ing or teach­ing young­sters and attempt­ing #AtH­ome learn­ing for the first time? Hats off to you!
To try to help you with your big, bold plans–or even the just-get­ting-through-today plans–I’ve been work­ing to cre­ate and assem­ble what­ev­er mate­ri­als I can that might be of assis­tance. I’ll con­tin­ue to add to this list as I get more requests (feel free to reach out if there’s some­thing spe­cif­ic you’d like!), ideas, and time. Hope­ful­ly, you can find access to the books via an online read-aloud, ebook down­load, inde­pen­dent book­store, or your own book­shelves. I hope these resources are help­ful for your #AtH­ome learn­ing efforts!

Emmanuels Dream cover with sticker
EMMANUEL’S DREAM: THE TRUE STORY OF EMMANUEL OFOSU YEBOAH

Two Truths and a Lie coverTwo Truths and a Lie: Histories and Mysteries coverTTL3 Forces of Nature coverThe TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE series

Be a Changemaker coverBE A CHANGEMAKER: HOW TO START SOMETHING THAT MATTERS

MY DOG IS THE BEST-coverMY DOG IS THE BEST

Again, my goals here are to be as help­ful as pos­si­ble for YOU to con­tin­ue lead­ing #AtH­ome learn­ing, so please email me if there is any­thing spe­cif­ic I might be able to do, includ­ing ways to con­nect with your stu­dents. We’re all in this togeth­er, even while we’re apart. So, until we meet again, stay safe, #Stay­Home… and stay sane. xoxo

Empower kids and teens during COVID-19

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girl looking out window at virus
girl looking out window at virus
Image by enriquelopez­garre from Pix­abay

Why empower kids and teens during COVID-19? They need it!

Tak­ing action is one impor­tant way to make a prob­lem seem more man­age­able and less fright­en­ing, so get­ting young peo­ple involved can actu­al­ly help them cope with the sit­u­a­tion we are all fac­ing. Giv­ing them a pur­pose gives them some­thing else to focus on besides what they’ve lost or what they’re wor­ried about. And remind­ing them that we are all in this togeth­er (even while six feet apart!), can help them feel less iso­lat­ed and anx­ious dur­ing this chal­leng­ing time.

We need them.

Dur­ing a cri­sis, we need all hands on deck to get through it as well as we pos­si­bly can. And young peo­ple have a lot to offer, even in the case of the cur­rent COVID-19 cri­sis. But try­ing to come up with ways for a young per­son in your life to BE A CHANGEMAKER while com­ply­ing with social dis­tanc­ing guide­lines and keep­ing every­one safe dur­ing this COVID-19 cri­sis may feel like an impos­si­ble task. It’s true that life looks very dif­fer­ent now for most peo­ple, but there are still many use­ful ways for kids and teens to give back.

So, how can we empower kids and teens during COVID-19 in a safe and responsible manner? Here are a few ideas and resources for them to choose from:

    • Do you play a musi­cal instru­ment? Per­haps you can per­form a “dri­ve-by” con­cert to cheer up neigh­bors or sched­ule one for your apart­ment build­ing. I’ve even heard of one group let­ting peo­ple “hire” them for this pur­pose, and then donat­ing the mon­ey raised to orga­ni­za­tions in need dur­ing the cri­sis — win, win!
    • Do you have some durable mark­ers or paint? How about dec­o­rat­ing some rocks with pos­i­tive mes­sages to leave along the side­walk, in build­ing entrances, or on trails in your area? I’ve also seen a lot of fan­tas­tic chalk art on streets, side­walks, even the fronts of hous­es or build­ings (be sure get per­mis­sion before dec­o­rat­ing some­one else’s pri­vate prop­er­ty!). Art, espe­cial­ly that with mes­sages of hope and con­nect­ed­ness, can go a long way toward lift­ing peo­ple’s spir­its these days.
    • Write let­ters or draw pic­tures for senior cit­i­zens or any­one else who may be iso­lat­ed now. Reach out to your local senior cen­ters and ask if you can send pho­tos of the let­ters and pic­tures for them to share with their residents.
    • Clean your room! Seri­ous­ly. Now is a great time to tack­le that over­due chore. Some items to con­sid­er purg­ing include gen­tly used cloth­ing you no longer wear, sports equip­ment you’ve out­grown, toys, books, etc. You may not be able to donate them right now, but it’ll be nice to have them out of your way now, and orga­ni­za­tions will appre­ci­ate them when things open back up again.
    • Check in on friends and fam­i­ly. Use the phone or oth­er avail­able tech­nol­o­gy just to see how they’re doing. Talk about how you’re doing. No mat­ter how old or young you are, this is one that ben­e­fits every­one. It may seem triv­ial, but it may be just what the per­son on the oth­er end needs.
    • Be kind to your teach­ers. Whether your cur­rent teach­ers are your usu­al teach­ers, your par­ents, your grand­par­ents, or an old­er sib­ling, all of this is new to them (yes, even if you are home­schooled!) and they are doing their best to help you be suc­cess­ful while also doing all of the oth­er things they need to do right now, many of which are also new to them. Offer a word of encour­age­ment, a thank you note, or a gen­uine smile when­ev­er you can.
    • Youth Ser­vice Amer­i­ca has a bunch of oth­er great ideas here, includ­ing hold­ing a vir­tu­al dance-a-thon, orga­niz­ing a ted­dy bear hunt, rais­ing aware­ness for an issue you care about, and more!
    • For teens, look into mutu­al aid orga­ni­za­tions in your area and see if you can con­tribute. Not famil­iar with mutu­al aid? The basic idea is that every­one has some­thing to give and that we are all depen­dent on one anoth­er. You can read more about the idea here, but, in short, they are net­works cre­at­ed by indi­vid­ual com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­ers among spe­cif­ic groups of oppressed peo­ple or dur­ing local emer­gen­cies like nat­ur­al dis­as­ters. With the cur­rent pub­lic health cri­sis, how­ev­er, they’ve been sprout­ing every­where. Paired with the pow­er of today’s read­i­ly acces­si­ble tech­nol­o­gy, they are an even more pow­er­ful force. There’s a mas­sive list of exist­ing mutu­al aid orga­ni­za­tions here. If you can’t find one that fits, start your own with this Mutu­al Aid 101 Toolk­it, and be the hero of your community!

What­ev­er you do, be sure to check fed­er­al, state, and local guide­lines to make sure you are com­ply­ing with the most recent advice. And… stay safe, stay home!

Thoughts on Writing Poetry

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Gleams When Wet cover

I’m strug­gling to write a poet­ic pic­ture book. To fill me with the metaphor, imagery, rhythm and meter that I’m striv­ing for, I’ve been read­ing oth­er books of poet­ry. Two inter­est­ing things hap­pened dur­ing today’s readings…
Gleams When Wet cover
First, I was read­ing Gleams When Wet by Debra Spencer. I had picked it up at Half Price Books on a whim, since I’m most­ly search­ing for ideas that have to do with water. Inter­est­ing­ly, it’s most­ly set in the Monterey/Santa Cruz, Cal­i­for­nia, area, which is where my old­est child is cur­rent­ly study­ing marine biol­o­gy, so that was a fun con­nec­tion. There are some beau­ti­ful and intrigu­ing poems in here, as well as insight­ful com­men­tary on life. It made for quite an enjoy­able after­noon. (Yes, sit­ting and read­ing poet­ry all after­noon is some­times actu­al­ly my job. How lucky am I!?) What par­tic­u­lar­ly struck me, how­ev­er, is the inscrip­tion from the author (“To XXX, anoth­er adven­tur­ous father, with love from Debra”) and the hand­writ­ten card still tucked inside: “Hap­py birth­day, XXX — I think you’ll enjoy this. Her poems are won­der­ful! See page 54! I also love Old Sailor’s Man­i­festo (p. 34) — and many oth­ers. Enjoy! Love, Mom” (*Note: Name changed to XXX to pro­tect the innocent. 😉)
When I first read these words, I was instant­ly sad­dened. His mom had poured so much love into this thought­ful gift (not to men­tion it was per­son­al­ized by the author)! How could he have giv­en it away to end up on the shelf at my local HPB? But then I thought, self­ish­ly, how lucky I was that he did, else I would nev­er have hap­pened upon it in my ran­dom HPB trea­sure hunt! Then I thought, maybe he read them and they just did­n’t con­nect. It’s kind of sad that Mom missed the mark, but hey, it hap­pens. Hope­ful­ly, he appre­ci­at­ed the thought, at least. Or maybe he read them and loved them, tak­ing pic­tures of or typ­ing up his favorites to file them away dig­i­tal­ly rather than clut­ter­ing up his phys­i­cal space. In the end, I’ve decid­ed, it does­n’t mat­ter why he did­n’t trea­sure it. The real gift was in the giv­ing. No mat­ter what XXX felt about the gift or his rea­sons for pass­ing it on, it warms my heart to think that his mom loved him, that she also loved words, and that she want­ed to share them with him. As I strug­gle with my poet­ry project, I have often thought that per­haps it’s not worth it, per­haps it’s too far out­side of my wheel­house and I should stick to what I’m good at, per­haps no one will ever read or care about my words. Per­haps Debra thought that, too, before Mom came to get Gleams When Wet signed for her son. Per­haps, if I keep strug­gling, some oth­er Mom will lov­ing­ly buy my poet­ic pic­ture book for her child, and I’ll to get sign it, “To XXX, with love.”
River of Words cover
Anoth­er book that struck me was Riv­er of Words, edit­ed by Pamela Michael. It’s a col­lec­tion of poems writ­ten by young people–many as young as 6 or 7–about the nat­ur­al world. And. it. is. so. good! Not only did it do exact­ly what I was hop­ing for–filling my artist’s well with even more water images and metaphors to poten­tial­ly use in my own project–but it was incred­i­bly inspir­ing as well. Yes, these young writ­ers are clear­ly very tal­ent­ed, but they are cer­tain­ly not pro­fes­sion­al poets.  Yet, their poems sing with mean­ing. The depths of what they are able to say with so few words reminds me why I’m try­ing to com­plete this project in the first place, to con­vey some­thing that is deep and mean­ing­ful to me to young read­ers. And the suc­cess the poems achieve in con­vey­ing each indi­vid­ual author’s essence gives me hope that per­haps my poet­ry can one day make that kind of con­nec­tion with read­ers, too.
So, thank you to the poets out there strug­gling to make your words and mean­ing flow. Thank you to pub­lish­ers who still believe in cre­at­ing beau­ti­ful poet­ry books for chil­dren and adults. And thank you to every­one who buys books to share with those you love. 💛

Blog Tour: Growing Up Gorilla by Clare Hodgson Meeker

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Growing Up Gorilla cover

Today I’m thrilled to be a part of the blog tour for Clare Hodgson Meeker’s new book, Growing Up Gorilla!

Growing Up Gorilla cover

GROWING UP GORILLA
by Clare Hodgson Meeker
Millbrook Press/September 3, 2019
Grades 3–6, 48 pages

Here’s what the publisher says about Growing Up Gorilla:

This heart­warm­ing true sto­ry chron­i­cles what hap­pened after a moth­er goril­la gave birth for the first time and then walked away from her new­born baby at Seattle’s Wood­land Park. The ded­i­cat­ed staff worked tire­less­ly to find inno­v­a­tive ways for moth­er and baby to build a rela­tion­ship. The efforts were ulti­mate­ly suc­cess­ful, as baby Yola bond­ed with her moth­er and the rest of the fam­i­ly group.

And here are my thoughts about Growing Up Gorilla:

This beau­ti­ful­ly pho­to-illus­trat­ed non­fic­tion is both metic­u­lous­ly researched and lov­ing­ly told. Meek­er does a fan­tas­tic job of bring­ing this true sto­ry to life in a very kid-friend­ly way, bring­ing us into the world of both the goril­las and their keep­ers in a way that keeps read­ers thor­ough­ly absorbed at all times. There is some­thing for every­one here, with plen­ty of dra­ma and sus­pense as well as heart-tug­ging emo­tion and (spoil­er alert!) a hap­py ending.
The book also con­tains a table of con­tents and exten­sive back­mat­ter, includ­ing an author’s note, fur­ther reading/websites/videos, glos­sary, index, maps, pri­ma­ry source quotations/images, side­bars, and more.

AND, here’s my interview with the author of Growing Up Gorilla, Clare Hodgson Meeker!

LAT: Can you describe your writing process? Did Growing Up Gorilla require any particular changes to how your typical process?

CHM: Nor­mal­ly I don’t start writ­ing a book until I’ve worked out the arc of the sto­ry from begin­ning to end and done enough research and inter­view­ing to feel ready to tell the sto­ry with excite­ment and con­fi­dence. Prepar­ing a pro­pos­al helps me orga­nize my thoughts — out­lin­ing the sto­ry with chap­ter sum­maries helps me think in scenes and how I’m going to thread in the fac­tu­al infor­ma­tion I think is rel­e­vant. Once I have that, I can begin writ­ing my first scene of the book and con­tin­ue chrono­log­i­cal­ly through the sto­ry. The only change in my writ­ing process with Grow­ing Up Goril­la was hav­ing to write a full draft before inter­view­ing the goril­la keep­ers who were direct­ly involved with help­ing Yola and her moth­er Nadiri bond. I was able to inter­view them once I had a pub­lish­er on board, which sat­is­fied the Zoo’s require­ments. How­ev­er, the zoo staff did give me some access to the Keeper’s Dai­ly Record book, which includ­ed their notes of what hap­pened dur­ing the first few months after Yola’s birth, to help me write the first draft.

LAT: What do you find most challenging about writing for kids? About Growing Up Gorilla in particular?

CHM: I’ve taught writ­ing in the schools to chil­dren for many years. When we talk about plot and what makes a sto­ry inter­est­ing, kids agree that there needs to be a prob­lem that has to be solved and a main char­ac­ter they can relate to who wants some­thing and/or has to solve the sto­ry prob­lem. In writ­ing a book about a baby goril­la whose moth­er ini­tial­ly refused to care for her after her birth, my chal­lenge was to get chil­dren to relate to these char­ac­ters and care about their prob­lems. Children’s books should be action-ori­ent­ed and avoid too much descrip­tion or flash­back. I had to choose care­ful­ly the places where I slowed down the action to describe a scene in more detail — like the night Nadiri went into labor where I want­ed to show the close rela­tion­ship between Nadiri and the infant care spe­cial­ist who had hand-raised her at birth after Nadiri’s moth­er reject­ed her. I don’t believe in writ­ing down to a cer­tain grade lev­el or lim­it­ing word choice to a grade-appro­pri­ate list. I think about pre­sent­ing the sto­ry in the most nat­ur­al way I can as though I am telling it to the read­er sit­ting next to me.

LAT: What authors and or books do you most admire, and why? Did you have any specific mentor texts that you looked at for Growing Up Gorilla?

CHM: Kather­ine Applegate’s mid­dle-grade nov­el The One and Only Ivan and her pic­ture book Ivan: The Remark­able True Sto­ry of the Shop­ping Mall Goril­la are fan­tas­tic exam­ples of a goril­la char­ac­ter and sto­ry that chil­dren can relate to and empathize with, in both a fic­tion­al ver­sion and in a more con­densed non­fic­tion format.
CHM: I am also a big fan of Sy Mont­gomery, who has writ­ten many of the Sci­en­tists in the Field series books pub­lished by Houghton Mif­flin Har­court. Her voice is so dis­tinc­tive as she takes you on an adven­ture shad­ow­ing biol­o­gists and nat­u­ral­ists who are study­ing ani­mals in the wild around the world and weav­ing in fas­ci­nat­ing facts about them.

LAT: Outside of the writing itself, what kinds of things do you do that you feel help your writing career?

CHM: I am a life-long learn­er. I love tak­ing class­es in dif­fer­ent writ­ing gen­res, from poet­ry and pic­ture books to essay and nov­el writ­ing. Hugo House in Seat­tle is a won­der­ful place to take class­es, get inspired, and meet oth­ers in the writ­ing and read­ing com­mu­ni­ty. I also enjoy writ­ing con­fer­ences where I can get tips on writ­ing and the busi­ness of writ­ing lis­ten­ing to edi­tors and talk­ing with fel­low children’s book authors.

LAT: What advice would you give to someone who is interested in writing nonfiction for kids?

CHM: Children’s non­fic­tion is a very pop­u­lar genre today, espe­cial­ly STEM sub­jects (sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, engi­neer­ing, and math). My advice is to choose a top­ic that you are excit­ed about and will­ing to immerse your­self in, so that you can feel con­fi­dent writ­ing a sto­ry that kids and pub­lish­ers will love. Think of cre­ative ways to present your book idea, like Lau­rie Ann Thomp­son did in her Two Truths and a Lie series. It also helps to include themes that reflect the cur­rent ele­men­tary sci­ence or human­i­ties cur­ricu­lum stan­dards so a pub­lish­er can mar­ket your book to schools and libraries.

LAT: Wow, thanks so much for that shout out, Clare! And thanks so much for including me in the blog tour for Growing Up Gorilla and for taking the time to do this interview for us.

Please check out the rest of the Growing Up Gorilla blog tour stops on the schedule below!

blog tour schedule

Emmanuel’s Dream wins CA Young Reader Medal!

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A few weeks ago I was hon­ored to trav­el to Pasade­na, CA, to the Cal­i­for­nia Library Asso­ci­a­tion con­fer­ence to receive the Cal­i­for­nia Young Read­er Medal for Emmanuel’s Dream. This is a very spe­cial award because the win­ning book in each cat­e­go­ry is cho­sen by the kids themselves.
First, the award tea itself. There were teas and sand­wich­es and all kinds of yum­mies, and look at the love­ly decorations:

stage decorations
The edge of the stage, with the book cov­ers and oth­er images inspired by the stories.

cup and saucer with tiny bicycle and horse
Bicy­cles for Emmanuel’s Dream, hors­es for The War that Saved My Life.

It was fun hear­ing the oth­er speak­ers and get­ting to chat with the librar­i­ans dur­ing the book sign­ing. And it all came with an hon­est-to-good­ness medal!

front of medal
The front of the medal.

back of medal
The back of the medal.

After the cer­e­mo­ny, I had some time to walk around and explore the city. The weath­er was per­fect, and Pasade­na is lovely.

Quote on electrical box
I loved the quotes paint­ed onto the elec­tri­cal boxes!

I stum­bled upon a street fair in hon­or of Day of the Dead. There were many tal­ent­ed artists sell­ing their wares, ven­dors, music, danc­ing, a pup­pet show, and chalk art! There were a lot of peo­ple out and about enjoy­ing the fes­tive atmosphere.
chalk artist at work
A chalk artist at work dur­ing the street fair.

A beard­ed drag­on named Robert, enjoy­ing the street fair with his pet boy.

I, of course, had to vis­it the local inde­pen­dent book­store, Vroman’s!

bookstore shelves
A nice dis­play at Vroman’s

The nice young women work­ing there rec­om­mend­ed Tre­jo’s Can­ti­na for din­ner, and it was so delicious!
Mexican rice bowl
Deli­cious din­ner at Tre­jo’s Cantina!

The Vro­man’s gals also told me not to miss the new ice cream shop in town, Wan­der­lust, which fea­tures fla­vors based on exot­ic trav­el des­ti­na­tions. They had me at ice cream! It was well worth the walk. I chose hon­ey laven­der, and it was divine.
So many inter­est­ing flavors!

As you can see, it was an amaz­ing trip. Thank you so much, Cal­i­for­nia young readers! 🙂

Happy book birthday to Forces of Nature!

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Animated GIF of TTL Forces of Nature cover
Animated GIF of TTL Forces of Nature cover

TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE: FORCES OF NATURE, the third book in the series, is final­ly here! So, what’s this one about? Here’s an overview:

Crazy-but-true sto­ries make this acclaimed non­fic­tion series per­fect for fans of curiosi­ties and wonders—and any­one look­ing to explore ways to sep­a­rate fact from fiction.

Did you know stud­ies have shown that too many fid­get spin­ners spin­ning in the same direc­tion could poten­tial­ly have an adverse effect on Earth’s grav­i­ta­tion­al field? Or that there’s a com­pa­ny that can turn your deceased loved one’s remains into a dia­mond? Or that the loud­est record­ed sound in his­to­ry was made by the erup­tion of a vol­cano in 1883, whose echo­ing blast cir­cled the plan­et at least three times?

Wel­come to Two Truths and a Lie: Forces of Nature! You’ve heard of the game: Every sto­ry in this book is strange and astound­ing, but one out of every three is an out­right lie. Pick­ing out the fakes isn’t as easy as you think, how­ev­er. Some false sto­ries are based on truth, and some of the true sto­ries are just plain unbe­liev­able! Don’t be fooled by the pho­tos that accom­pa­ny each story—it’s going to take all your smarts and some clever research to fer­ret out the truth.

From a man who gave him­self an appen­dec­to­my to radio sig­nals from oth­er plan­ets to eagles that have been trained to take out spy drones, the sto­ries in this third install­ment in the Two Truths and a Lie series will amaze you! Just don’t believe every­thing you read.…

(Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins, June 2019)

Cre­at­ing a book is a high­ly col­lab­o­ra­tive process, and this book has had an incred­i­ble team work­ing on it from day one. Many, many thanks to my co-author, Ammi-Joan Paque­tte; our agent, Erin Mur­phy; our edi­tor, Jor­dan Brown; and all the won­der­ful folks at Walden Pond Press and Harper­Collins. It’s been an hon­or and a joy to work with you all on this book and the entire TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE series!

Buy it now, at your local inde­pen­dent book­store, or any­where books are sold! 

What I’ve Been Up To This Month

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The month isn’t even over yet, but so much has been packed into the last few weeks it feels more like two months already! That’s not exact­ly an excuse for neglect­ing the blog, but, you know, life hap­pens. Anyway…

Beachside Nonfiction Workshop

I start­ed out the month at the Beach­side Non­fic­tion Work­shop with Can­dace Flem­ing & Jen­nifer Swan­son. It was amaz­ing! The fac­ul­ty were all stel­lar, the loca­tion was gor­geous, and the atten­dees were love­ly. It was fun hang­ing out with oth­er non­fic­tion geeks for an entire week­end. We all strug­gled to answer the “So, what do you write?” ques­tion, how­ev­er, since we can usu­al­ly just get away with “Non­fic­tion,” and have that be the end of it! I did­n’t take near­ly enough pho­tos, but here’s the view from my hotel balcony…

Yes, it was hard work. There were a lot of ses­sions, and they were most­ly mas­ter lev­el, plus net­work­ing and cri­tiques. I came away with so much use­ful infor­ma­tion and new ideas to apply to my works in progress. There were obvi­ous­ly some oth­er perks, too! 

Seattle Reading Council Appearance

In the mid­dle of the month, some of the mem­bers of my cri­tique group (and all agency-mates at Erin Mur­phy Lit­er­ary, as it turns out!), did an appear­ance at the Seat­tle Read­ing Coun­cil. It was a billed as a “Books and Choco­late” event… what could be bet­ter?! We each talked about our books and process and then took ques­tions. The crowd was most­ly teach­ers and librar­i­ans, so it made for a won­der­ful evening of shar­ing book love (and choco­late!) among like­mind­ed new friends. 

School visits

I had an ele­men­tary school vis­it where I got to talk to sev­er­al third-grade class­es about my writ­ing jour­ney, grit, and writ­ing with emo­tion, as well as sev­er­al fifth-grade class­es about eval­u­at­ing sources and spot­ting fake news. It was an awe­some vis­it with super-engaged audi­ences, but alas, no pho­tos. You’ll have to take my word for it!

I have anoth­er vis­it com­ing up ear­ly in June (the last one of the school year!), so I’ve been mak­ing sure every­thing is ready for that one, too. 

SCBWI-WWA Spring Conference

Final­ly, I attend­ed and helped with the SCBWI West­ern Wash­ing­ton’s spring con­fer­ence, Imag­ine That! It was a great week­end: hear­ing from inspir­ing speak­ers, get­ting feed­back on one of my works in progress from a pow­er­house edi­tor, and catch­ing up with author and illus­tra­tor friends in the indus­try. I’m still soak­ing it all up and pro­cess­ing what was said! Good stuff.

Book Releases!

Along with all of that I’ve been get­ting ready for the Two Truths and a Lie: His­to­ries and Mys­ter­ies paper­back release on May 21 AND prepar­ing for the upcom­ing new release of Two Truths and a Lie: Forces of Nature on June 25th! I’ve designed and ordered post­cards and swag, sched­uled social media announce­ments, and made oth­er plans to get the word out. 

TTL: Histories and Mysteries cover
TTL: Forces of Nature cover
 

Works in Progress…

And, of course, there are those works in progress, too! Ear­li­er this month I sub­mit­ted both a non­fic­tion pic­ture book revi­sion and a graph­ic nov­el pro­pos­al to my agent. I’m cur­rent­ly revis­ing a non­fic­tion pic­ture book, a fic­tion pic­ture book, and a mid­dle-grade non­fic­tion man­u­script. I’m also work­ing on a brand-new non­fic­tion pic­ture book draft and a young-adult non­fic­tion pro­pos­al. Busy, busy!

Yes, I do love my job. More so every day, in fact! =D

Happy National Trivia Day!

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Two Truths and a Lie: Histories and Mysteries cover

Two Truths and a Lie: Histories and Mysteries cover
It may itself be a lit­tle-known fact, but Jan­u­ary 4th is Nation­al Triv­ia Day! To cel­e­brate, I thought I’d post some triv­ia tid­bits from Two Truths and a Lie: His­to­ries and Mys­ter­ies. Remem­ber, ONE of the claims in each set of three below fol­low­ing is false. Can you fig­ure out which one in each trio is the fake triv­i­um? (Did you know triv­ia is the plur­al of trivium?)
 

A.

  1. There’s an aban­doned cruise ship loaded with crazed, can­ni­bal rats drift­ing around some­where in the Atlantic Ocean. Beware!
  2. A banyan tree in Pak­istan was put under arrest by a British army offi­cer in 1898 and is still in chains today. Par­don, anyone?
  3. It’s ille­gal to chew gum in Singapore.

 

B.

  1. Ben Franklin wrote a trea­tise on why sci­en­tists should try to find a way to make farts smell better.
  2. Dog Island is an island oasis ded­i­cat­ed to let­ting dogs live out their wilder natures, undis­turbed by humans. Be free, Fifi.
  3. There’s an annu­al fes­ti­val in Spain cen­tered around throw­ing toma­toes at peo­ple. Food fight!

 

C.

  1. The old­est known den­tal fill­ings date back to between 12,740 and 13,000 years ago, and they were filled with, essen­tial­ly, tar. Ew.
  2. It’s ille­gal to own a pet tur­tle in Ice­land, and 1 in 10 chil­dren there grow up to become authors.
  3. I was once trapped in an ele­va­tor, alone, overnight. Scary!

 
If you don’t know all of the answers, go do some research and see if you can fig­ure them out! But be care­ful… things might not always be what they seem at first glance, and truth often is stranger than fiction.
For even more triv­ia fun, check out this post from Men­talFloss on Nation­al Triv­ia Day last year. I espe­cial­ly love the one about Ben & Jer­ry’s ice cream. (I’m a huge fan of their new Urban Bour­bon flavor!)
If you enjoyed these true (and not so true) triv­ia facts for Nation­al Triv­ia Day, or want to check your answers, make sure to check out the book: Two Truths and a Lie: His­to­ries and Mys­ter­ies!
Do you have any favorite triv­ia tid­bits? Please post them in the com­ments below (and be sure to warn us if they might not be 100% true)!

Happy holidays (and a gift idea)!

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Are you buy­ing any of my books to give as a gift this hol­i­day sea­son? If so, thank you!
I’d be thrilled to send you a signed book­plate and some book swag for you to include with your gift. Just send an email to laurie@lauriethompson.com with the details (which book, to whom it should be per­son­al­ized, and what mail­ing address you’d like it sent to), and I’ll pop them in the mail for you ASAP.
And, again, thank you! It’s like giv­ing a gift to me, too. =D
Be a Changemaker gift wrapped

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