Promised Comes Out Today!
I’m happy about Promised coming out today and hopeful that readers will enjoy finding out where Gaia’s adventures take her next. This trilogy was not a solo effort, that’s for sure. Special thanks to my editor Nancy Mercado and the team at Roaring Brook for all their brilliant ideas and help over the past four years. Thank you to Kirby Kim, my agent. I’m grateful to my family and friends, too, for ongoing support. My novels would not have happened without you!
Today I’m writing,… Continue reading
The Walls and the People
Several years back, I lived with my family in the walled city of Ferrara, Italy. The Castello Estense with its dungeons and moat dominates the center, and the medieval wall still surrounds the perimeter. For me, however, the real barrier was my stumbling Italian and my lack of friends. I joined a chorus, and as long as we were singing, I was unified with the others. The moment we stopped and the conductor began speaking in Italian, I was cast out once again by my inability… Continue reading
Mind the Gap
The short gap between Books 1 and 2 of the Birthmarked trilogy lasts about two weeks, but the break between Books 2 and 3 lasts nearly a year. The main reason I let so much time pass is because the action at the end of Book 2/Prized was leading into a lot of grueling, painstaking work, not dramatic problems. Tension and negotiations were likely, and plenty of quiet, happy scenes, but a book needs real conflict and these productive episodes wouldn’t have had enough. So I… Continue reading
Music to Write By
What happens to all those music lessons? When I was in high school, I took piano, violin, and voice lessons. I sang in my school chorus, the madrigal singers, the school musicals, and recitals. I played my violin in the school orchestra and in the Macalester College Symphony down the street. My family sang around the piano whenever we had the cousins over, from Verdi and Handel, through Berlin and Rogers and Hammerstein, and onto the Beatles and Webber and Rice’s Jesus Christ Superstar. I… Continue reading
The Mirror Trap
One of the most common ways beginning writers show a character’s physical appearance involves posing the character in front of a mirror. This setup lends itself to a quick list of eye color, hair color, skin color, and face and body shape, which can be efficient, but it also risks being boring or cliché. More fun is invading a character’s body, like when Gaia moves through a tight tunnel, bracing her fingertips against the walls, I can give a sense of how that feels for her. She… Continue reading
Bookish Friendships
My best friend moved in across the street from me when she and I were both five years old. For the rest of my childhood, she was there for me, silly, thoughtful, generous, and ready to play.
We giggled through countless sleepovers and she’s the one who first told me to read Fitzhugh’s Harriet the Spy. I once asked for a piece of her Hershey’s bar, and she broke it in half to share it with me evenly. We’re still friends, miles apart and decades later.
Today on… Continue reading