Writing Life

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 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:

• Chris Bar­ton, who came up with the idea for the BookPeo­ple Mod­ern First Library Pro­gram;
• Ann Bedichek Braden, who helped start Gun Sense Ver­mont;
• e.E. Charl­ton-Tru­jil­lo, cre­ator of Nev­er Count­ed Out and At-Risk Sum­mer;
• Corinne Duyvis,  co-founder of the Dis­abil­i­ty in Kidlit blog; and
• Lyn­da Mul­laly Hunt, who cre­at­ed Book Train.

Tues­day fea­tured sev­er­al videos com­piled by Megan Mor­ri­son, BE 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 Fri­day, Tama­ra 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!