One 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
To celebrate the United Nations’ International Youth Day, I wrote a guest blog for the Beyond Words blog explaining why I wrote Be a Changemaker specifically for young readers. Here’s an excerpt: We know that young people have always been at the forefront of societal change. Adolescence is a time when people begin to question and critique the morals and
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
Good news: There’s a giveaway going on right now on Goodreads for two ARCs (advance reader copies) of Be a Changemaker! This is a pleasant surprise, because a) I didn’t know there were any ARCs left, and b) the publisher set this up without me having to do anything (thank you, Simon & Schuster)! If you’d like to try to
Please come celebrate the release of my first book: Sunday, September 14th, at 2 p.m. Seattle Creative Arts Center 2601 NW Market St Seattle, WA 98107 (Click here for directions and parking information. Eat, drink, mingle, hear more about the book from the author, and—best of all—meet some local teens who are already changing the world! Loading… I hope to see you there! If you can’t
I’ve had great feedback from friends all along (you know who you are–thank you!), but I’ve been anxiously awaiting that first third-party judgement of BE A CHANGEMAKER: HOW TO START SOMETHING THAT MATTERS. The first professional reviews feel huge to me, kind of “make or break” moments, where the tone gets set for all that may follow for that particular
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 posted over on the Emu’s Debuts blog yesterday about what makes an “overnight success.” If you missed it, here’s a little excerpt: Both of last week’s posts here were about failure, or at least the constant perceived threat of failure that so often makes it hard for us to move forward. I’m going to continue the theme, but on
You may have seen this meme going around on various author and/or illustrator blogs where people answer questions about their writing process. I’ve been enjoying reading other people’s answers and learning from their thoughts about process, so when I was tagged by my talented author/illustrator friend, Jennifer K. Mann, I decided to add a post about my process here. Enjoy! Jenn
This is the second post in the series introducing the amazing young people who are profiled in my upcoming book, BE A CHANGEMAKER: HOW TO START SOMETHING THAT MATTERS (Beyond Words/Simon Pulse, September 2014). Today I’m introducing Edward Jiang, founder of StudentRND, and giving some behind-the-scenes details about our in-person interview.