The Other Reality
I was an hour late to my son’s crew regatta Friday because I was writing and lost track of time. My husband tried calling me when I didn’t arrive to pick him up as planned, but I ignored the phone, and even when he walked home to find me, I just thought he was early and kept writing on the back porch. In short, the portal to this world was closed. Only awareness that my husband was eating lunch finally penetrated to my consciousness and brought me back.… Continue reading
Book People
Last week, Billie Levy and I figured out how to use the camera feature on her cell phone so we could ask our waitress at Rizzuto’s to take a photo of our happy lunch with Karen Romano Young and Kat Lyons. Billie and I huddled together, pressing buttons and switching through the menu layers in an ever deeper maze of tiny icons, and I must say, it was a kick when we hit the first instant the screen was clearly seeing through a lens.
Billie Levy, Caragh O'Brien, Karen… Continue reading
Raising the Stakes
Suppose your character is running late. If she’s late to class, or late to her sister’s wedding, or late to see her mother on her deathbed, the stakes are different. Suppose she needs to exit a room. It makes a difference if she can simply walk out, or the door is locked, or the room is on fire. Next suppose she needs to get out of a burning, locked room in time to save her mother from dying. We’ve just raised the stakes.
Locked in.
In… Continue reading
The Mirror Girls: Gaia at Seven
The following is a bit story about characters from the world of Birthmarked.
As Gaia’s father and his customer, a bride, stepped out on the porch, Gaia climbed down the loft ladder to gaze at the creamy yellow dress on the tailor’s dummy, admiring the flow of the gauzy fabric and the tiny, delicate embroidery on the bodice. She knew better than to touch it, but she leaned near enough to smell the trace of lavender that clung to it.
Through the sunny window, her father’s voice dropped… Continue reading
Behind the Scenes: Back Matter
Several weeks ago, Jessica Tedder, the editor of Square Fish, the imprint at Macmillan which is putting out Birthmarked in paperback, sent me a friendly email about a bonus section for the back of the book. Such a bonus section, aptly called “Go Fish” for this imprint, typically includes an excerpt from an author’s upcoming book (in my case, Prized), a Q&A with the author, and some discussion questions. Extras! If you’re interested in production timing, the paperback of Birthmarked will be released in October, so… Continue reading
The Missing, the Lost, and the Stolen
Now and then, when I’m taking a quick break from writing, I go to WorldCat.org, the free website that catalogues books in libraries worldwide, to see if anybody’s reading my book. Birthmarked is listed in 720 libraries. That seems like a lot to me. For a frame of reference, Harry Potter I (1998) is in 5,021 libraries, and Printz-winning Paolo Bacigalupi’s Ship Breaker (2010) is in 1625.
WorldCat.org NY Public Library, Birthmarked
One amusing thing about the site is that it organizes the libraries by distance… Continue reading
Ari & Milo, my serial novel, is now up on Wattpad! I drew illustrations to go with each chapter, and best of all, it’s free! Because of problematic themes, this novel is for mature readers age 17+.
Book Trailer for Promised