Newsletter
Laurie Ann Thompson

Two Truths and a Lie

Happy book birthday to Forces of Nature!

by
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

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

Happy National Trivia Day!

by
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)!

Launch party recap for Two Truths and a Lie: Histories and Mysteries

by
Bookstore window display

I want­ed to share some of my favorite pho­tos from the Two Truths and a Lie: His­to­ries and Mys­ter­ies launch par­ty last Sat­ur­day at Brick and Mor­tar Books:

Bookstore window displayThis is the win­dow dis­play that greet­ed us when we arrived at Brick and Mor­tar Books! So nice!!

Bookstore table displayThey had loads of books ready for sale!

book signing The sign­ing line starts to form.

Laurie Ann Thompson signing a bookFun sign­ing books!

signing lineSign­ing line in progress.

Bookstore endcap displayBrick and Mor­tar even had a full end cap display!

What a great day! A huge thank you to Brick and Mor­tar Books for being such an amaz­ing host and to every­one who was able to make it. Brick and Mor­tar Books still has signed copies of all of the books, so feel free to stop in if you need any for your col­lec­tion! =D

Happy book birthday to Histories and Mysteries!

by
Two Truths and a Lie: Histories and Mysteries cover

Two Truths and a Lie: Histories and Mysteries cover
TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE: HISTORIES AND MYSTERIES is final­ly here! It takes a lot of peo­ple work­ing togeth­er to cre­ate a book, and this book had such an amaz­ing team behind it. 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!
So, what’s this book all about? Well…

Did you know that a young girl once saved an entire beach com­mu­ni­ty from a dev­as­tat­ing tsuna­mi thanks to some­thing she learned in her fourth-grade geog­ra­phy les­son? Or that there is a per­son alive today who gen­er­ates her own mag­net­ic field? Or how about the fact that Ben­jamin Franklin once chal­lenged the Roy­al Acad­e­my of Brus­sels to devise a way to make farts smell good?
You know the game: Every sto­ry in this book is strange and astound­ing, but one out of every three is an out­right lie. 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 root out the alter­na­tive facts. Don’t believe every­thing you read! (Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins, June 2018)

Reviews:
“With the phrase ‘fake news’ being tossed around a great deal these days, this col­lec­tion of sto­ries in which one out of every three is a lie is both time­ly and enter­tain­ing…. Read­ers with a taste for triv­ia and the strange-but-true aspects of geog­ra­phy and his­to­ry will find much to enjoy.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Even dyed-in-the-wool skep­tics will be hard put to spot the ringers: foot­prints embed­ded in sand­stone on the roof of Kentucky’s Mam­moth Caves, den­tal fill­ings more than 12,000 years old, or a trove of lead tiles embed­ded with ancient Roman curs­es? Along with sug­ges­tions for side projects and dis­cus­sions, the authors offer fact lists con­tain­ing one false fac­toid as extra chal­lenges to read­ers’ creduli­ty. Hap­pi­ly, the back mat­ter includes expla­na­tions that iden­ti­fy the baloney, as well as a savvy guide to eval­u­at­ing infor­ma­tion sources.” —Book­list

Amazon logo Barnes and Noble logo indiesRed1_161x41_10-26-15 Powell's logo HarperCollins logo

Signed copies are avail­able from Brick and Mor­tar Books! 

GIF of Peanuts celebrating
 

Launch party for Two Truths and a Lie: Histories and Mysteries

by
Two Truths and a Lie: Histories and Mysteries cover
Two Truths and a Lie: Histories and Mysteries cover

Please join me for the West Coast Launch Party for

TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE:
HISTORIES AND MYSTERIES

Saturday, June 30th, 2 PM **

A trivia-style game-show challenge… with prizes!

Q&A, exclusive behind-the-scenes gossip, and outtakes!

Book swag!

Charitable giving!

Free snacks and drinks!

Books, books, and more books!

Brick & Mortar Books
7430 164th Avenue Northeast
Redmond, WA 98052

To RSVP, please visit the event invitation here. Thanks!

** Come ear­ly to enjoy the fab­u­lous Red­mond Sat­ur­day Mar­ket before the event!

And, if you can’t make the par­ty but would like to order a signed copy, please call Brick and Mor­tar Books at 425–869-0606.

Two Truths and a Lie: It’s Alive! (now in paperback)

by
Two Truths and a Lie cover

And I want to be a paper­back writer
Paper­back writer!
(cue music by the Beatles)

Two Truths and a Lie: It's Alive! cover
Now in paperback!

I’ve tech­ni­cal­ly already had one paper­back release, since Be a Change­mak­er: How to Start Some­thing that Mat­ters came out in hard­cov­er, paper­back, and e‑book all at the same time. That does­n’t make it any less excit­ing that Two Truths and a Lie: It’s Alive!, which came out in hard­cov­er last year, is now avail­able in a paper­back version!
Even bet­ter is that the paper­back ver­sion is awe­some, IMHO. Some of the things I love most about the hard­cov­er of this book are the vivid col­ors of the pho­tographs and graph­ics and the high-qual­i­ty paper they are print­ed on, so I won­dered how the paper­back would mea­sure up to that high bar. I need­n’t have wor­ried, because the paper­back is every bit is beau­ti­ful and sturdy.
In fact, the only dif­fer­ence is that it’s sig­nif­i­cant­ly cheap­er. And that is great news, because it means more kids will get a chance to own it! 🙂
Two Truths and a Lie: Histories and Mysteries cover
Avail­able June 26, 2018!

You can pur­chase the brand-new paper­back ver­sion from your local book­store, or find infor­ma­tion about order­ing the new paper­back ver­sion here.
In case you missed it, there’s a short inter­view with Ammi-Joan and me over at the Cybils blog, fol­low­ing our win in the Mid­dle Grade Non-Fic­tion cat­e­go­ry. You can check that out here.
And, if you’re so inclined, you can now pre-order TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE: HISTORIES AND MYSTERIES, which will be avail­able on June 26, 2018. You can get all of that infor­ma­tion here.
Final­ly, just for fun, here’s our SCBWI West­ern Wash­ing­ton play­ers, a.k.a. Band: Books, per­form­ing Pic­ture Book Writer (our spin­off ver­sion of the Bea­t­les’ song above), last May 10, 2017, fea­tur­ing Vikram Madan and Mike Cressy on gui­tar; Janet Lee Carey, Kather­ine Grace Bond, and Karen Lewis on vocals; Dana Sul­li­van on drums; Dori Hillestad But­ler on key­board; myself on bass (low­er right-hand cor­ner); and Dan Richards as pro­duc­er, stage man­ag­er, and road­ie. Many thanks to Vikram Madan for cap­tur­ing us on video!

Great news for TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE!

by

2018 is off to a great start so far with a bevy of awards and acco­lades for Two Truths and a Lie: It’s Alive!, and I’m so excit­ed to share the lat­est good news with you here!

TLA Topaz list logoFirst, the Texas Library Asso­ci­a­tion include it on their 2018 Texas Topaz Non­fic­tion Read­ing List. Accord­ing to TLA, the Topaz List “high­lights recent­ly pub­lished non­fic­tion gems for read­ers of all ages. Adult ser­vices and youth ser­vices librar­i­ans serve on sep­a­rate com­mit­tees that con­sid­er hun­dreds of non­fic­tion titles for adults and youth respec­tive­ly. The librar­i­ans debate the mer­its, appeal, and impor­tance of the works to curate a list of engag­ing non­fic­tion titles intend­ed to reveal new or lit­tle-known infor­ma­tion, open doors to oth­er worlds, or intro­duce fresh voic­es. With titles for adults and chil­dren PreK-grade 12, there is some­thing for every­one on the Topaz list!”
Texas librar­i­ans ROCK, and being on this list is an incred­i­ble honor! 
Nerdy Book Club bannerNext, the Nerdy Book Club announced their 2017 Nerdies for Long Form Non­fic­tion. I love read­ing this blog, and their pas­sion for chil­dren’s books real­ly comes through. Plus, some of my favorite books and authors are on this list, so I lit­er­al­ly gasped out loud when I scrolled down far enough to see the cov­er of Two Truths and a Lie: It’s Alive! Thank you, Nerdy Book Club! So exciting!!
Cybils 2017 bannerThen, the Cybils announced their 2017 Elementary/Middle Grade Non-Fic­tion Final­ists, and Two Truths and a Lie: It’s Alive! was on their list, too! Again, there are some amaz­ing books here (includ­ing Zoo Sci­en­tists to the Res­cue and Fred Kore­mat­su Speaks Up, which I reviewed in past posts here), and I have been a Cybils judge in the past (so I know how seri­ous­ly they take their work!). Being a Cybils final­ist is an unbe­liev­able thrill!
Booklist Lasting Connections bannerFinal­ly, Book­list shared some love, in both their Spe­cial Fea­ture: Last­ing Con­nec­tions 2017 and Edi­tors’ Choice: Books for Youth, 2017.
Last­ing Con­nec­tions high­lights their top 30 choic­es for the K–8 class­room, all pub­lished in the pre­vi­ous year and all select­ed for their nat­ur­al con­nec­tions across the cur­ricu­lum and to the Com­mon Core State and Next Gen­er­a­tion Sci­ence Standards. 
Booklist Editors' Choice bannerAnd the Edi­tor’s Choice list is select­ed by the Books for Youth edi­to­r­i­al staff, who are “com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing a broad selec­tion of out­stand­ing books that mix­es pop­u­lar appeal with lit­er­ary excel­lence,” as best-of-the-year non­fic­tion and fic­tion books and pic­ture books. Wow!

Hav­ing a book that you’ve worked hard on appear on lists like these is tru­ly a dream come true, and I could­n’t be hap­pi­er with this news. Cheers to 2018!

TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE resources for teachers and #GIVEAWAY!

by
Educator's Guide cover

It is with great excite­ment and grat­i­tude that I give you this list of amaz­ing edu­ca­tion­al resources that won­der­ful edu­ca­tors and design­ers have com­piled to go along with TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE: IT’S ALIVE! and, hope­ful­ly, make it easier–and more fun–for teach­ers or librar­i­ans to put to use in the classroom!

Educator's Guide for teachersFirst up is the Edu­ca­tor’s Guide to Sup­port Infor­ma­tion Lit­er­a­cy, writ­ten by amaz­ing 5th grade teacher Melis­sa Guer­rette, M.Ed., NBCT. This guide is chock full of tips teach­ers can use to teach stu­dents how to eval­u­ate sources and fact-check any mate­ri­als they may encounter, whether they are read­ing the sto­ries from TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE or just about any­thing else.
It includes a print­able Fact or Fic­tion note-tak­ing work­sheet teach­ers can use to help read­ers ana­lyze a text to deter­mine if it is true or false and record evi­dence of their think­ing process­es along the way.
It also has a list of the Com­mon Core State Stan­dards sup­port­ed by the activ­i­ties in the guide, AND an impres­sive col­lec­tion of addi­tion­al resources for teach­ers of infor­ma­tion lit­er­a­cy concepts.
Down­load the PDF of the guide HERE.

TTL Stem Game for teachersBut wait, there’s more! Award­ing-win­ning Library Media Spe­cial­ist and STEM Coor­di­na­tor Suzanne Cost­ner part­nered with Curi­ous City DPW to cre­ate a STEM Card Game and com­pan­ion research activ­i­ties. “As a school librar­i­an with a pas­sion for STEM top­ics, I saw this book as an oppor­tu­ni­ty both to explore inter­est­ing sto­ries and to devel­op cru­cial infor­ma­tion lit­er­a­cy skills,” says Suzanne. Using sci­en­tif­ic top­ics pulled from the book’s side­bars, they cre­at­ed a 52-card card deck that teach­ers can print out for their class­room. In Round 1, Play­er 1 reads a state­ment to Play­er 2 from a card. Play­er 2 decides whether the state­ment is a “Truth” or a “Lie.” In Round 2, play­ers choose a research top­ic from their amassed cards and make three game cards of their own – two truths and one lie on their cho­sen top­ic. In Round 3, play­ers try to out­wit each oth­er with the game cards they have cre­at­ed. Each new game in the class­room grows the game deck with new STEM material!
Down­load the PDF of the Truth or Lie? STEM Card Game HERE.
Suzanne and Curi­ous City DPW also put togeth­er the Two Truths and a Lie: What’s Your Source?, which pro­vides teach­ers with links for stu­dents to explore for top­ic val­i­da­tion and gives them the chance to com­pare and cross-check the infor­ma­tion before mak­ing their final deci­sion on whether the sto­ries in TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE: IT’S ALIVE! are fact or fic­tion; Two Truths and a Lie: Reach­ing for Resources, which pro­vides edu­ca­tors with links con­nect­ed with the book’s chap­ters to build infor­ma­tion lit­er­a­cy lessons upon, and the Two Truths and a Lie: Ratio­nale, Cur­ricu­lum Con­nec­tions & Grad­ing Rubric.

To go along with all of this excite­ment, for a lim­it­ed time Curi­ous City DPW is host­ing a GIVEAWAY! Read all about it and ENTER HERE, but hur­ry! Win­ners will be announced Decem­ber 5, 2017!

I’m super excit­ed about how these might spur class­room dis­cus­sions around STEM top­ics and infor­ma­tion lit­er­a­cy. If you use either of them with stu­dents, please let me know! I’d love to hear about how teach­ers are putting into prac­tice and any sug­ges­tions for how it could be improved. And, of course, pic­tures would be fantastic!

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