Rumblegut

  It's always cool to see a FedEx truck pull into your driveway, but especially so when you're expecting something big. My author copies of Lost In Ghostville arrived today. That's a big day for any author--the day you get to see your published work on actual paper, not from your own printer, and bound, with a beautiful cover. Here's my experience opening my box of books.       Take a close look at the cover. The illustration is by Charlie Bowater. I think she made a fantastic cover, and most people who've seen it agree. You can see more of Charlie's work here: http://charlie-bowater.deviantart.com/ . We've never met, but she draws a mean mermaid.

Here it is! New cover for a  new book! This is the ARC cover for my new middle-grade ghost story, LOST IN GHOSTVILLE, due out Aug. 1 from Capstone .

I've known Jessica Young for about three years now. We belong to a critique group and every month she sends me a new piece of writing and returns the favor by struggling to read parts of my manuscripts. We've actually never met in person, but we've talked voluminously, including a two-hour conversation about quantum mechanics as it relates to story structure (yes, it was as thrilling as it sounds!). She's fun and smart and funny, and so are her books. Her newest,   Finley Flowers (Original Recipe)  has just been released, and it's fantastic. I've had the honor of reading Finley since Jessica first came up with the idea and I'm so happy to see it make its way into the world. It was a fantastic story idea from the start (and has the most awesomely named nemesis in all of kid lit, wish I'd thought of it) and has only gotten better through successive drafts. I'm eager to see if any of the joke ideas I tossed Jessica's way made it into print (none...