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And so we ride along the streets, immersed in stories. Who knows what the other people sitting at the traffic light are listening to—talk ...

During a lull at the library yesterday, I began to browse around for "best of" book lists for children, middle-schoolers and teens...

"Can you recommend a really good children's book?" I hear this at least once a shift when I am working as a substitute re...

It's Day 29 of the Picture Book Marathon  (which I signed up for on Feb. 1st). The goal was to have 26 picture books finished by the en...

I signed up for the Picture Book Marathon , pledging to write 26 picture books in February, because I thought it would be fun to delve into ...

In case you missed it, Maurice Sendak did a hilarious, curmudgeonly interview with Stephen Colbert this week. I'll embed it here because...

A friend asked recently if I intended to do NaNoWriMo this year. I said I wasn't sure. Since that time,  my potential answer has swung ...

I am finally revising my YA novel , moving from first draft to a sort-of second draft. This is where I am rewriting my too-much-telling-not-...

I met Pam Smallcomb at a SCBWI -sponsored ABC (Author Book Club) event in March and liked her good humor and practical advice so much, I as...

A week after I wrote my post, Five Arguments Against the Total Inevitability of E-books , the Washington Post Book World arrived with this a...

I’d never thought about writing a children’s picture book until I heard Pam Smallcomb speak at a SCBWI -sponsored ABC (Author Book Club) e...

Grab the time and do it—that's what I learned from NaNoWriMo 2010. Because of that contest, I wrote a 50,011 word novel in 30 days, a b...

How cool is this—I visited a local public library this morning and mentioned my YA novel-in-process to the children's librarian. She got...

Today, on my 21st day into National Novel Writing Month, I am 28,499 words in—which might sound impressive until I hit the Stats bar on my N...

I went to a terrific workshop given by Mary Amato yesterday for SCBWI's Author Book Club . Her topic was Revision, specifically the 56...

Assuming most young girls go through a Nancy Drew phase, I bought my tween the first two books in the series encased in a cute leather pocke...

As mentioned in a previous post ( The writer, reading/listening ), almost since our kids were old enough to understand one sentence followin...

My teenage son, Isaac, came up to me a couple of days ago with a funny look on his face; after pausing for a few moments, he finally asked, ...

A few days after I wrote my post on children's books, my eight-year-old daughter cleaned out her desk at school and brought home a colle...

“Read a lot” or “read widely,” writers are often advised. But most of my reading these days takes place in the car, with books on tape, and ...