Newsletter
Laurie Ann Thompson

Writing Life

February 2026 news (and 2025 year-end review)

by

It’s been a long time since I’ve sent out a newslet­ter, so this is way over­due. Sorry!

I’ve been work­ing on a few dif­fer­ent projects: sev­er­al pic­ture books and a mid­dle-grade non­fic­tion pro­pos­al. I expect I’ll be dust­ing off my nov­el man­u­script this year, too. I’m look­ing for­ward to a bunch of upcom­ing speak­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties and a new book com­ing in May 2027: Newton’s Paws of Motion!

I’ve also been keep­ing busy with cli­mate advo­ca­cy volunteering—including coor­di­nat­ing a recent trip to Olympia for 15 stu­dents and 13 adult chap­er­ones, where the stu­dents lob­bied 10 of our state leg­is­la­tors for four dif­fer­ent cli­mate-friend­ly poli­cies. It was a suc­cess­ful trip, and it felt good to make a difference—for the cli­mate and for the kids.

In per­son­al news, my old­est kid­do just fin­ished their Master’s degree in bioin­for­mat­ics and bought a house in Den­mark, so I’m look­ing for­ward to vis­it­ing them there again this year, along with some oth­er fun trips to places I’ve nev­er been before!

I hope you and yours are safe and well. 💜

The whole series, now in board book!

You Are a Robin! and You Are a Garter Snake! both recent­ly released in board book for­mat, so now your lit­tlest read­ers can own the whole set. All the books in the Meet Your World series use move­ment and pre­tend play to intro­duce young read­ers to ani­mals that most like­ly live in their neigh­bor­hoods… AND to the joy of reading!


Buy now

2025 in review:

I always like to sit down and reflect on the past year as we move into a new one. Here are some of the highlights:

  • I got back on my feet after break­ing and bad­ly sprain­ing my ankle at the end of 2024.
  • I got to vis­it my fam­i­ly in Wis­con­sin and lat­er in Michigan.
  • I led the event plan­ning for and mod­er­at­ed a pan­el at the Cit­i­zens’ Cli­mate Lobby’s Greater Pacif­ic North­west region­al conference.
  • I sold a man­u­script (Newton’s Paws of Motion, com­ing in May 2027 from Source­books Xpress)!
  • I par­tic­i­pat­ed month­ly in a cit­i­zen sci­ence pro­gram to mon­i­tor amphib­ian pop­u­la­tions in a near­by park.
  • I bought a new car (an all-elec­tric Hon­da Prologue).
  • I got to spend time with my old­est kid­do when they came back to the U.S. to attend a friend’s wed­ding on Orcas Island.
  • I lob­bied for cli­mate poli­cies in per­son in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., and virtually.
  • I researched and made progress on a mid­dle-grade non­fic­tion pro­pos­al, but have since shelved it (at least for the time being). 🙁
  • I fin­ished one non­fic­tion pic­ture book poet­ry man­u­script and start­ed anoth­er one (alas, poet­ry pic­ture books are a tough sell these days!).
  • I researched and start­ed draft­ing anoth­er non­fic­tion pic­ture book (NOT poetry).
  • I revised an old non­fic­tion pic­ture book (but it still needs more work).
  • I wrote an arti­cle for the SCBWI’s Essen­tial Guide to Pub­lish­ing for Children.
  • I got a let­ter to the edi­tor pub­lished in the Seat­tle Times.
  • I pre­sent­ed at five school vis­its, one library event, five Meet Your World sto­ry walks, the Wash­ing­ton Library Asso­ci­a­tion con­fer­ence, Kin­dling Words West, an adult writ­ing for chil­dren course, and the Pouls­bo Book Festival.
  • I plant­ed dozens of trees and removed inva­sive plants in our local parks.
  • I saw a ton of spec­tac­u­lar plays and musicals.
  • I got to spend lots of qual­i­ty time with fam­i­ly, friends, and pets. ❤️

Favorite reads of 2025:

I enjoyed a lot of great books last year, so I want­ed to share a few of my favorites with you. In no par­tic­u­lar order, here they are:

Pic­ture book fiction:

Pic­ture book nonfiction:

Mid­dle grade fiction:

Mid­dle grade nonfiction:

Adult fic­tion:

Adult non­fic­tion:

Upcoming events:

  • Feb 4: Author vis­it at St. Louise Elementary
  • Feb 10: Lit­er­a­cy night at Apol­lo Elementary
  • Mar 1: Attendee at nErD­camp Bellingham
  • Mar 2: Author vis­it at Ben Franklin Elementary
  • Mar 17: Keynote speak­er at Taco­ma Pub­lic Schools High­ly Capa­ble seminar
  • Mar 31-Apr 8: Vacation! 🏜️☀️🌵
  • May 2: Break­out speak­er at SCBWI-WWA con­fer­ence
  • May 11–18: Attendee at Kin­dling Words West on Whid­bey Island
  • Jul 14–15: Library pre­sen­ta­tions at Sequim, Forks, and Port Angeles

I’d love to hear from you! Please drop me a line any­time. And thanks for reading!

Year-end reflection for 2023: Successes

by
Failure is success in progress
 
I love par­tic­i­pat­ing in chil­dren’s author Julie Hed­lund’s 12 Days of Christ­mas for Writ­ers as part of my year-end reflec­tion and new year goal-set­ting process. Day 3 of the series is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to reflect on our suc­cess­es dur­ing the past year. 
 

Here is my pro­fes­sion­al suc­cess list for 2023:

  • I signed a con­tract for a new pic­ture book and deliv­ered the final man­u­script text.
  • I draft­ed an infor­ma­tion­al fic­tion pic­ture book I’ve had in my head for quite a while (but am still work­ing on).
  • I re-envi­sioned and re-draft­ed an old­er infor­ma­tion­al fic­tion pic­ture book man­u­script I’ve been work­ing on for a long time (and am still work­ing on).
  • I fin­ished revis­ing a non­fic­tion pic­ture book manuscript.
  • I took Elana K. Arnold’s Revi­sion Sea­son course and did sev­er­al revi­sion pass­es on my first-ever nov­el (and still have more revis­ing to do).
  • I did a ton of pro­mo­tion for my new books, You Are a Hon­ey Bee! and You Are a Raccoon!
  • I deliv­ered many school vis­its and appearances.
  • I updat­ed my school vis­it presentations.
  • I updat­ed my web­site with the new book infor­ma­tion and speak­ing details.

Per­son­al­ly, I also:

  • spent a lot of qual­i­ty time with my adult children,
  • vol­un­teered as a nat­u­ral­ist with my city’s parks department,
  • vol­un­teered in a vari­ety of roles with Cit­i­zens Cli­mate Lob­by, includ­ing lob­by­ing Con­gress (twice!) to take action to pro­tect our climate,
  • got CPR cer­ti­fied, and
  • took not one but two dream vacations!

I often feel like I’m not get­ting enough done, like I’m not work­ing hard enough, like noth­ing is hap­pen­ing. It’s good to look back and see, wow, actu­al­ly, it was a pret­ty good year!

June 2023 news

by
You Are a Honey Bee! headband craft

Get your free activity kit!

There is now an activ­i­ty kit/curriculum guide for the first two books in the Meet Your World series, YOU ARE A HONEY BEE! and YOU ARE A RACCOON!, and it is adorable! The guide fea­tures cre­ative art projects, games, and writ­ing and sci­ence-relat­ed activ­i­ties to extend both the fun and edu­ca­tion­al val­ue of the books. You can down­load it HERE. Huge thanks to Deb­bie Gon­za­les at Guides by Deb for cre­at­ing these won­der­ful resources for par­ents and educators.

You Are a Honey Bee! headband craft You Are a Honey Bee! board game You Are a Raccoon! mask craft Habitat survival skills charades game

Recent appearances

I’ve been doing so many excit­ing school vis­its, sto­ry­times, and vir­tu­al and online events. Here are just a few!

  • Watch the #GreenPB2023 Cel­e­brate Earth Pic­ture Book Par­ty excerpt for You Are a Hon­ey Bee! here
  • Watch the #GreenPB2023 Cel­e­brate Earth Pic­ture Book Par­ty excerpt for You Are a Rac­coon! here
  • Click here to watch the SCBWI-WWA spring 2023 Inside Sto­ry excerpt for both books in the Meet Your World series
  • I pre­sent­ed an inter­ac­tive in-per­son storytime/signing event at the love­ly Invi­ta­tion Book­shop in Gig Har­bor, WA
  • I was fea­tured in this fun inter­view on YA and Kids’ Books Central
  • I was on the fac­ul­ty for SCBWI-WWA’s Great Cri­tique event
  • I pre­sent­ed a vir­tu­al You Are a Hon­ey Bee! read-aloud on Stream­able Learning
  • I was delight­ed to par­tic­i­pate in a pan­el called Full STEAM Ahead for SCBWI-Oregon
  • I was pleas­ant­ly sur­prised that Two Truths and a Lie was fea­tured in a list of “The best books to improve kids’ crit­i­cal think­ing” on Shepherd.com
  • I pre­sent­ed sev­er­al vir­tu­al and in-per­son author vis­its at schools, plus an in-per­son sto­ry­time event for preschool­ers at a local library. I wish I could show you their adorable faces and match­ing shirts, but to pro­tect their pri­va­cy you’ll have to set­tle for this:

I was also for­tu­nate to be able to attend Kin­dling Words West at the Whid­bey Insti­tute and spend a week work­ing on my mid­dle-grade fan­ta­sy nov­el in com­mu­ni­ty with oth­er indus­try pros. Here’s what my room looked like. Isn’t it cute?

What I’ve been reading… that you should, too!

Here are some of my favorite recent reads:

  • The Girl from Earth’s End by Tara Dair­man: Wow! This book blew my mind in the best kind of way. There is so much packed into this mid­dle-grade nov­el, but some­how it doesn’t feel over­whelm­ing. Instead, it feels just right, like a warm hug from a dear friend.
  • Shermy and Shake, the Not-So-Nice Neigh­bor by Kir­by Lar­son: A sub­tly sweet chap­ter book about an unex­pect­ed friend­ship, served up with equal parts humor and heart.
  • ALL of the #GreenPB2023 releas­es! Seri­ous­ly, if you have any inter­est in sci­ence, nature, ani­mals, or the envi­ron­ment (or know a young read­er who does), check out these won­der­ful new pic­ture books.

Writing (or life in general, really) advice

I was read­ing this inter­view with Abi Cush­man, author/illustrator of Wom­bats Are Pret­ty Weird, and came across this per­fect lit­tle tid­bit of writ­ing advice:

“…the impor­tant thing to real­ize is that feel­ing uncom­fort­able in the process just means you’re chal­leng­ing your­self, and that’s a good thing.”

I’ve always tried to live my life by that mantra, and I think it’s such a good thing to remem­ber. Dis­com­fort doesn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly mean you shouldn’t do the thing, or that you’re doing it wrong. It just means you’re push­ing your­self out­side of your com­fort zone, which is nec­es­sary for growth.

Thoughts on Writing Poetry

by
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. 💛

Emmanuel’s Dream wins CA Young Reader Medal!

by

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! 🙂

What I’ve Been Up To This Month

by

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

2018 CYBILS Round 1 judge

by

2018 Cybils Round 1 Judge logo
2018 CYBILS, here I come! I’m excit­ed to share that I’ll be a CYBILS judge again this year. The CYBILS Awards rec­og­nize authors and illus­tra­tors whose books for chil­dren and young adults com­bine both lit­er­ary mer­it and pop­u­lar appeal. In the past, I’ve always helped with judg­ing the younger non­fic­tion cat­e­go­ry (Non­fic­tion Pic­ture Books in 2011 and 2012, and Elementary/Middle Grade Non­fic­tion in 2014). This time around, how­ev­er, I’ll be a Round 1 Judge in the Junior/Senior High Non­fic­tion cat­e­go­ry, along with the fol­low­ing tal­ent­ed bloggers:

Nom­i­na­tions will open on Octo­ber 1st, and our short­lists will be due in Decem­ber. There are usu­al­ly around 70 entries, so I’ll be doing a LOT of read­ing in the com­ing months. (And hope­ful­ly a lot of blog­ging, too–get ready for those reviews!) Final­ists will be announced in Jan­u­ary, and win­ners are announced in February.
2018 Cybils logo
 

On fear, and how writing is like a guitar

by

Fear is fun­ny. Not fun­ny, real­ly. Mad­den­ing, frus­trat­ing, debilitating.
Ortega acoustic electric mini bassAfter a busy month or so, I had­n’t had time to prac­tice my bass gui­tar at all. I want­ed to. I missed it. So I took it out of the case and sat it next to my chair so it would be easy to grab when­ev­er I had a few free min­utes. And from there it mocked me. I was afraid to pick it up. Afraid I’d for­got­ten every­thing. Afraid I would suck.
Writ­ing is like that, too. I think the writ­ers who advise oth­ers to “write every day” do so for this rea­son most of all. The longer we go with­out doing some­thing the more room there is for doubt and excus­es, so we go even longer with­out doing it. It’s a vicious cycle that can be dif­fi­cult to break out of.
Some­times, the miss­ing doing the thing becomes greater than the fear and over­comes it. Oth­er times, we force our­selves past the fear. We have been here before and can see it for what it is.
I final­ly picked up the gui­tar today. I can still play. In fact, I think I played bet­ter today than I have in months. It felt joy­ous, both the abil­i­ty to make music and the let­ting go of the fear.
Soon, my sched­ule will allow me to get back to writ­ing again, too. And I am not afraid. In fact, I’m look­ing for­ward to it.
What goals are you avoid­ing because of fear? Per­haps it’s time to begin.
Begin

2017 in review, and a sneak peek at 2018 goals

by
2017

If you’ve fol­lowed my blog for a long time (or know me at all), you prob­a­bly know I can be a lit­tle obses­sive about set­ting goals and doing annu­al per­for­mance reviews. So, as 2017 comes to a close, I thought I should reflect on what I’ve accom­plished the past year and think about what 2018 might bring.
2017
One of my main goals for 2017 was to get more com­fort­able speak­ing in pub­lic.  It’s a good thing I was able to do that, since (and prob­a­bly because) I got a lot of prac­tice! Here’s a quick summary:

  • 24 keynotes, assem­blies, pre­sen­ta­tions, or work­shops for young people,
  • 17 Skype visits,
  • 7 pre­sen­ta­tions for adults,
  • 6 book­store appearances,
  • 2 round­table cri­tique sessions,
  • 1 radio inter­view, and
  • an 8‑week improv class.

The suc­cess I feel here isn’t so much from the quan­ti­ty, but from the qual­i­ty. First, it’s got­ten MUCH eas­i­er for me. I can do these talks in stride now and don’t stress out for a whole day pri­or and then need a whole day after to decom­press. That’s a big win! Also, the improv class was odd­ly ter­ri­fy­ing to think about, but so much fun and such a great expe­ri­ence in prac­tice. So, I’m real­ly glad that I pushed myself out of my com­fort zone.
I also had some suc­cess with major writ­ing goals and projects:

  • TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE: IT’S ALIVE! was released in June, and I put a lot of time put into pro­mo­tion, includ­ing devel­op­ing pro­mo­tion­al mate­ri­als like cur­ricu­lum guides and swag, and cre­at­ing new pre­sen­ta­tions around it.
  • We’re just now putting the final touch­es on the sec­ond book in the series, TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE: HISTORIES AND MYSTERIES, which we researched, draft­ed, revised, copy­edit­ed, and sourced pho­tos for all in the past year. This one is so good, I can’t wait to see it out in the world next June!
  • We have the out­line for the third TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE book just about wrapped up, too, so 2018 will see a lot of work (and fun!) on that front.
  • I wrote a brand-new pic­ture book from scratch, revised it, and it went out on sub­mis­sion! I’m hope­ful this one will find a home in 2018.
  • I revised my MG non­fic­tion project and sent it back out on sub­mis­sion. Alas, it looks like this one will need yet anoth­er fresh approach, which is also on the sched­ule for 2018. I’m mulling over a cou­ple of ideas about how to proceed.
  • I worked on revis­ing two oth­er pic­ture books, one fic­tion and one non­fic­tion, but nei­ther one is quite ready yet. More work to come on both of those in the year ahead, and hope­ful­ly they’ll be ready to send out soon.
  • I start­ed research­ing a new pic­ture book biog­ra­phy. I’m real­ly excit­ed about this one, and the research so far has only fueled my inter­est fur­ther. I hope I can com­plete a first draft in the com­ing year.
  • I had a new idea for anoth­er non­fic­tion pic­ture book and have start­ed research­ing that one as well. This one is still in the idea phase and will take some noodling to get just the right approach, so for now I’ll keep research­ing and think­ing and see what happens.

2018
As you can see from the above, I’ll have my work cut out for me in 2018 with one new book to pro­mote, one under con­tract to write, (at least) two pic­ture books to fin­ish revis­ing, the MG non­fic­tion to re-envi­sion, and the two new pic­ture books to research and draft. Phew — that’s a lot of big goals. Wish me luck! =D

Photos from the Two Truths and a Lie launch party

by

Okay, so it’s been more than a month since the launch par­ty for Two Truths and a Lie: It’s Alive!, and this post is _way_ over­due. In my defense, we’ve been hard at work on the sec­ond book in the series, and a writer has to have her pri­or­i­ties, right? Alright, so per­haps there’s no rea­son­able excuse for how neglect­ed my poor blog has been late­ly, but I’m vow­ing to try to do bet­ter going for­ward. And I def­i­nite­ly want to share some of the high­lights from the launch par­ty, so in the bet­ter-late-than-nev­er cat­e­go­ry, here we go! =D
First, the cake! In the flur­ry of activ­i­ty get­ting ready for a launch par­ty, I always for­get to take a pic­ture of the cake at the actu­al event, so this time I took a pic­ture of it in the shop­ping cart when I picked it up. It’s a good thing, too, because this is, sad­ly, the only pic­ture I have of it.
the launch party cake
There were also gluten-free cup­cakes with dec­o­ra­tions that said, “The cake is a lie.” (That’s a geeky gamer ref­er­ence, in case you haven’t heard it before.)
Before we even start­ed the actu­al launch par­ty event, I got to sign a book for a brand-new fan who just hap­pened to be in the store when we start­ed set­ting things up. Fun!
signing for a new fan
After thank­ing every­one who helped make this book pos­si­ble (in broad strokes, because I could go on all day!), I did a lit­tle read­ing from the book. (You can’t have a launch par­ty with­out a read­ing, right?) Since we were in a book­store sur­round­ed by books, I select­ed the sto­ry about book scor­pi­ons and book lice. What are those, you ask? You’ll have to read the book! And then you’ll have to decide if they’re real or not. 😉
a reading from chapter 4
Then we played a game show-style quiz game, using our smart phones. To my immense relief, it worked! Peo­ple could answer using their devices and the sys­tem would let me see who answered the most ques­tions the fastest.
setting up the game
Kevan won the first prize–a Big­foot Air Fresh­en­er for his car. (Is Big­foot a truth or a lie?)
Kevan wins a Bigfoot air freshener
She looks wor­ried! I won­der what was in her bag? Ah, yes… I think it was the Grou­cho Marx Dis­guise Glass­es (so she can fake her identity).
what will she win?
Dan was so excit­ed to see what he won that he ripped open the bag and sent his prize fly­ing halfway across the store! For­tu­nate­ly, it did­n’t hit any­one. If I recall cor­rect­ly, he got the Enchant­ed Uni­corn Ban­dages. (Are uni­corns real?)
Dan launched his launch party prize
This young guest was clear­ly thrilled to win the Glow-in-the-Dark Jel­ly­fish Orna­ment! (It’s as close as I could get to a Pacif­ic North­west tree octo­pus (see chap­ter 5) or the Praya dubia (chap­ter 6).
winner of the glow-in-the-dark jellyfish
What did Lau­ra Moe win? Was it the Dr. McPhee’s Snake Oil Soap? I think so!
what did Laura win?
And, final­ly, the grand prize win­ner… Alan won his very own Mike the Head­less Chick­en (see chap­ter 5)! For­tu­nate­ly, this one is just plas­tic and does­n’t require food and water through an eye dropper.
Alan with Mike the Headless Chicken
It was a great launch par­ty and such a mem­o­rable day. Thank you again to every­one who helped make this book hap­pen, to Secret Gar­den Book Shop for host­ing my launch par­ty yet again, to Cur­tis Man­ley for catch­ing all of these fan­tas­tic pho­tos for me (except the cake in the shop­ping cart, of course), and to every­one who came to the event. I love being part of such a sup­port­ive com­mu­ni­ty of writ­ers, book­sellers, and readers! 💙

NEWSLETTER
SIGN-UP