Over the last decade I’ve published seven middle-grade novels with Random House and Scholastic, focusing my last four titles on contemporary magical realism stories set in the bayous and swamps of Louisiana with page-turning plots and a lot of heart and family issues.
But I also write young adult and always have.
By Lindsey Lane
It’s opening night. I am sitting in the audience at the debut of a play I had written.
I remember thinking as I watched, “This is as much as I know right now.” It wasn’t a negative thought. I simply knew that this play was the culmination of everything I knew up to that moment.
The seed of The White House is Burning: August 24, 1814 (Charlesbridge, 2014) was planted on 9/11.
Sometime during that day, as we all tried to get a handle on what had happened, a TV reporter compared the terrorist attacks with other national tragedies like Pearl Harbor.
This picture of my then three-year-old granddaughter Michelle inadvertently sparked the idea for Ship of Dolls (Candlewick, 2014) and a forthcoming sequel, Dolls of Hope.
My son and daughter-in-law had taken Michelle to visit her maternal grandparents in Japan in time for the traditional girl’s day festival of Hintamatsuri.
Continue Reading Guest Post & Giveaway: Shirley Parenteau on Ship of Dolls »
About The Texas Book Festival: “…celebrates authors and their contributions to the culture of literacy, ideas, and imagination.”
Author Michelle Knudsen and moderator Sean Petrie in the green room.
TBF committee member Carmen Oliver and moderator Anne Bustard in the green room. Continue Reading Event Report: Texas Book Festival »
Compiled by Cynthia Leitich Smith
Enter to win one of two signed hardcover copies of What Flowers Remember by Shannon Wiersbitzky (namelos, 2014). Eligibility: U.S. From the promotional copy:
Most folks probably think gardens only get tended when they’re blooming. But most folks would be wrong. According to the almanac,
Continue Reading Giveaway: What Flowers Remember by Shannon Wiersbitzky »
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Check out the cover for my upcoming novel, Feral Pride (Candlewick, 2015) and the book trailer for the Feral series, produced by Book Candy Studios.
From the promotional copy for Feral Pride:
Anti-shifter sentiment is at an all-time high when Kayla’s transformation to werecat is captured on video and uploaded for the world to see.
By Chris Barton
There’s never an answer I that I find quick, simple, and faithful to the full truth when someone asks what inspired one of my books.
Take Shark Vs. Train (Little Brown, 2010), for instance.
Yes, I’m sure the seed was planted by my now 15-year-old son’s love of sharks and trains.
Continue Reading Guest Post: Chris Barton on Writing & Cross-Generational Interests »
Yosemite’s Songster: One Coyote’s Story, by Ginger Wadsworth, illustrated by Daniel San Souci (Yosemite Conservancy, 2013). From the promotional copy:
A sudden rockslide in Yosemite Valley in California’s Sierra Nevada separates Coyote from her mate.
Readers journey throughout the valley observing its many famous landmarks on four paws with Coyote.
Continue Reading Author Interview: Ginger Wadsworth on Yosemite’s Songster: One Coyote’s Story »
