My third teen novel, now in progress, is flavored by the ultra-paranoid mindset that saturated our country in the days immediately following 9/11. In creating that flavor, I researched trivia about President George W. Bush this morning. I now know, thanks to the always credible Internet, that Bush’s SAT score was 1260,
Big Burgers, Big Eater, BIG MOUTH
Even if my second novel, BIG MOUTH, wasn’t about competitive eating, this news would’ve caught my eye: Joey Chestnut just ate 103 hamburgers in 8 minutes to win the Krystal Square Off IV World Hamburger Eating Championship. You read that right: 103 hamburgers in 8 minutes. That’s a world record. Or does that go without […]
Honk If You Love Biological Billboards
Biological Billboards. Human Directionals. Banner Shakers. Sign Twirlers. Whatever you call them, they’re eye-catching. And they’re in Honk If You Hate Me.
Hangin’ with the Girls
Last night I hung out with a great bunch of girls in a beautiful home built in 1893. Girl Scout Troop #6493 invited friends, moms, teachers, and a dad to join us in that grand house atop the hill for an evening of book talk, bookmark making, and cookies and lemonade. I’ve always loved talking […]
Attention Wal-Mart Shoppers
Hot diggity dog! A friend of mine just reported the third Wal-Mart sighting of HONK IFYOU HATE ME. Amazing. It’s still so incredibly strange to know that a book with my name on the cover sits on venerable bookstore shelves, but in Wal-Mart, too? Gosh. From my decade as an editor at Harcourt, I know […]
Watch My KUSI TV interview!
Today was my first TV interview–*live*. I have to say, it was fun to do. KUSI’s “Inside San Diego” hosts Sandra Maas and Joe Lizura are just as friendly and easy-going offscreen as they are on. In fact, everyone I met at KUSI today was incredibly nice and welcoming. It really was a great experience. […]
Will My REAL “Debut†Novel Please Stand Up?
I confess: I’m lying when I call HONK IF YOU HATE ME my “debut” novel. It’s not. My first novel actually flowed from my pen a while back . . . twenty-six years ago, to be exact. When I was ten.
Another Manuscript Bleeds?
I did it again. More than halfway into writing a novel, I knifed it. This time, I lopped off the entire first chapter of my Teen Novel #3. Ahh!
“Inside San Diego” TV interview Aug 23, 2007
I’ve just been scheduled for a live interview on San Diego’s KUSI News program “Inside San Diego.” What fun! The TV interview will be on Thursday, August 23, 2007, in the 10:00-11:00 morning hour. We’ll be discussing Honk If You Hate Me and the challenges of writing with young triplets running about. Hope you can […]
Power in Numbers
I spent yesterday with thousands of other children’s book writers at SCBWI’s summer conference in Los Angeles. And I came away with the renewed conviction that, if you are writing for children and don’t already belong to SCBWI, you must join. Now.
Writing without Training Wheels
It’s 4:57 a.m., and I just pressed “Send” on an e-mail. My revision of BIG MOUTH is zipping through cyberspace at this very moment, headed for my editor’s computer. Wait, no, a few seconds have passed. It’s probably already there. And I can’t get it back.
Honk If You Love Otter Pops
There’s a ton of food in HONK IF YOU HATE ME. The story is, after all, set in a town that owes its existence to the fast food industry, every other building has a drive-thru, the air reeks of French fry grease, and a mysterious, decade-long heat wave broils the town like a hamburger patty […]
8.3 million bookbuyers can’t be blind
8.3 million people bought Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows last Friday night. . . and they had to walk by my book to get to it. “Halverson” comes before “Rowling”, right? Now that’s exposure. Surely a few of their roaming eyes must’ve noticed Honk If You Hate Me‘s bright pink cover. . . .
66 hot dogs in 12 minutes?
Can you eat 66 hot dogs (and buns!) in 12 minutes? Of course not. You’re human. And 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes is not humanly possible. Or is it? That’s the very question I pondered on the Fourth of July as I perched atop a police barricade
HONK IF YOU HATE ME wins Gayle McCandliss Literary Award
My debut novel Honk If You Hate Me (Delacorte/Random House, ages 12 and up) has been honored with the Gayle McCandliss Literary Award by the City of Chula Vista’s Cultural Arts Commission as part of their Gayle McCandliss Art Awards program. The award, named in memory of the late Chula Vista mayor, was presented at […]
