I like to make fall resolutions. Since I have kids in school and I’ve worked on an academic schedule, fall always feels like a new beginning. I start to turn inward and get in touch with my senses. I cook more. I fix up my house. I notice scents like dry leaves and wood smoke. I enjoy the happy chaos of school starting and holidays brewing. It’s a good season.

One of my fall resolutions is to blog more. I miss the immediacy of taking my thoughts and news and sending it out into the world like a little boat made out of twigs. So here, I’m sharing now. I have lots of good news too, so much good news that in the neurotic corner of my mind, I sometimes wonder what bad luck is about to descend on me as I swim around in all this excitement. Crazy, I know, but true. 

WHOLE STORY keeps selling, which is a wonderful thing. I’m delighted with the emails I get from readers all the over the country--even internationally since I just heard from a reader in Canada! It’s a miracle to me that my little book has traveled so far. So keep on reading and sharing your thoughts on my contact page!

The biggest news is that my brilliant agent, Sara Crowe, recently sold my chapter book series to the lovely people at Grosset & Dunlap (Penguin Group). I can’t tell you how happy this makes me. It’s the kind of thing that I think about all the time, except for when I forget about it. Then when I remember again, it’s like discovering a special gift left for me on the kitchen table. The working (and possibly final) title is PHOEBE THE FOODIE, about a spunky second grader who actually likes to eat interesting things and slowly discovers this about herself when she befriends a new girl from France. Phoebe’s kind of the anti picky-eater who’s not afraid to be herself. This gets her into some trouble sometimes and I hope young readers will enjoy her unique adventures in food and in life! The first books will be out in about a year and a half.

Recently, I’ve also been lucky enough to contribute to the middle-grade series DEAR KNOW IT ALL. All books are published under the pseudonym, Rachel Wise, and I’ve written books #5, #6, and #8, the first of mine appearing in January 2013. The first two books by another writer are out now. It was a lot of fun and I wish I had been more like the brave, smart, but slightly anxious narrator Samantha Martone when I was in middle school!   

I’m also working on another middle-grade novel. More to come about that…

Because of all this good stuff, I have decided to pause my Montessori teaching career, but I know I’ll always carry what I’ve learned with me into my life and parenting and future writing classes. 

I’ve had many career paths, writing being the only constant, and now to have that part of my life move to center stage is quite amazing. I never thought it would happen and yet I always believed it would. So thanks for reading, thanks for sharing your thoughts, and I’m certainly enjoying the ride.


 

Pub Day!

01/10/2012

3 Comments

 
It’s finally here, pub day, the day when you can walk in a bookstore and buy THE WHOLE STORY OF HALF A GIRL. When I sold the manuscript back in 2010, I wondered where I’d be when the book actually came out. Well, I started teaching at a Montessori school. I’m a little older. My family is a little older. My daughter, who was a baby when I started writing this book, can now read the book. That in my mind is the most stunning milestone so far. When I received my box of shiny new copies a few weeks ago, I just kept running my hand over the front of it. This is it, I thought, the moment I hoped for since I started writing short stories in college. And it feels…great!! It is as awesome as I wanted it to be. My family and friends continue to cheer me on. I got some great reviews, from magazines, from bloggers, and from community reviewers. But what I haven’t experienced yet is feedback from my youngest readers.

I’m so looking forward to hear from the middle-grade readers that I wrote this book for. So if you’re out there, and this book rings true for you in any way, or if you have questions about the writing process, or the characters, please let me know! I’d love to hear from you. I remember how important reading was to me at that age. I hope this book can provide some, even just a drop, of the same companionship and pleasure all those books I read back then provided me. So thank you Roald Dahl, E.B. White, Judy Blume, Madeleine L’Engle, Lois Lowry, Patricia Reilly Giff, CS Lewis, Beverly Cleary, Katherine Patterson, Sydney Taylor, and J.R.R. Tolkien, just to name a few. I’m not putting myself in the same company, just saying thanks for all they gave and still give me. And a future thank you to my new readers who will honor me with their time and attention. I hope I can live up to your expectations!