Look what the UPS man just delivered! My sons were as excited as I was. “Where are they going to sell it, Mommy?” “In the bookstore.” “In the bookstore? Wowee!” The cutest fan club ever.

Click over to  Tina Nichols Coury’s blog Tales from the Rushmore Kid for a one-minute video tip from yours truly. The topic: Checking to see if your protagonist has completed a full character arc. Happy writing!

San Diego picture book writers: I highly recommend UCSD Extension’s “Writing Children’s Picture Books” class. Former Harcourt Children’s Book Senior Editor Diane D’Andrade is teaching it, and she’s amazing. She was my first boss in the children’s book biz, and I—along with many bestselling and award-winning authors and illustrators—have learned so much from her. The […]

I spent Saturday morning and afternoon talking to fifty writers about children’s books at SCBWI’s Cottonwood Revision Intensive Workshop. I spent Saturday night sitting with 100 children in a 737. As far as I was concerned, it was a lovely day all around. One gentleman did not share my opinion of the plane situation. When […]

Anderson Valley Post, the local paper of Anderson Valley, California, ran an article featuring me and my wonderful co-faculty for the Cottonwood Intensive Revision Workshop. To read about author Charlie Price (who just won the 2011 Edgar Award for YA Mystery!!), author/illustrator Dr. Mira Reisberg, and myself, click on over to Anderson Valley Post.

People say I pull off a lot of stuff in a day, but Katie Davis makes my head spin. When she’s not writing and illustrating picture books for young children, she’s podcasting and blogging and videoing and newslettering and plugging literacy on her regular TV news appearances….  Yowza! Katie is a whirlwind of energy and […]