Rumblegut

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...

Author Mary Cronk Farrell tagged me to be one of the Next Big Thing Blog Hop authors. This traveling blog started in Australia. Each author answers ten questions about his or her work in progress and "tags" from one to five others to be The Next Big Thing. Many thanks to Mary for inviting me to participate .   I actually have two WIPs, so I'm going to shamelessly tell you about both of them.   Book one:   What is the working title of your book? My working title is FREELAND Where did the idea come from for the book? That's a bit of a story. Originally the idea was a takeoff from a manuscript I had just finished. I wanted to put my education, a PhD in History to some use, but not in as a straight historical fiction. I wanted pirates and weird steampunk technology, and came up with an idea about a brother and sister working as spies for George Washington during the 1790s. That got tossed around and reworked quite a bit. FREELAND is now set in an alternate...

Author Mary Cronk Farrell tagged me to be one of the Next Big Thing Blog Hop authors. This traveling blog started in Australia. Each author answers ten questions about his or her work in progress and "tags" from one to five others to be The Next Big Thing. Many thanks to Mary for inviting me to participate .   I actually have two WIPs, so I'm going to shamelessly tell you about both of them.   Book one:   What is the working title of your book? My working title is FREELAND Where did the idea come from for the book? That's a bit of a story. Originally the idea was a takeoff from a manuscript I had just finished. I wanted to put my education, a PhD in History to some use, but not in as a straight historical fiction. I wanted pirates and weird steampunk technology, and came up with an idea about a brother an sister working as spies for George Washington during the 1790s. That got tossed around and reworked quite a bit. FREELAND is now set i...

I love getting personal reviews more than anything. Here's a letter I received from a 3rd grader who read Roll Up the Streets!    Five stars!

Just recently I did both a reading and a bookstore signing of my book, Roll Up the Streets. I’ve been giving it some thought as to which is better for an author to do. I think most people would assume, and I always have, that a reading is better than a signing. You get to sit down with a group of interested listeners, read a couple of chapters—I did a bit of acting with props and a squeaky voice I worked on, don’t ask why I gave my villain a squeaky voice—interact with the audience and actually see and hear their reaction to your story. My reading at the Tinman Too bookstore went very well and I got to hear the laughs in person. That’s always rewarding for any writer used to working in isolation. I also spoke with a couple of 11-year olds, my core audience, both of whom wanted to be writers. So as well as being entertaining, I could also encourage future writers. I also managed to sell a few books. All in all it was as good of an experience as I expected. The signing was a bit diffe...

Stop by and see my book reading of Roll Up the Streets! Saturday, Oct. 9, 1:00 pm. Tinman Too Chidren's Book Store. 809 W. Garland Ave. Spokane, Wa. For more info call the Tinman Too Bookstore: (509) 325-3001 Or email: tinmanartworks@yahoo.com Directions: Map