I had a fantastic time on my very first visit to Brooklyn. I signed copies of Jeremy Bender alongside one of my favorite authors, Emily Jenkins, at the Book Court in Cobble Hill. Emily has a new book out called Invisible Inkling which I am really looking forward to reading.


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Hows that for alliteration? We are one day away from the release of my newest novel (my first for middle-grade readers!) and the excitement is ramping up! I wanted to kick off this week of celebrations with a quick and easy contest, so keep reading!!!

Here is the cover of Jeremy Bender vs. the Cupcake Cadets which comes out on May 3rd:


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I was going to post an entry about one of the worst songs ever to plague mankind. It's this one called FRIDAY by Rebecca Black:

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This song is so fomulaic and thoughtless that it amazes me it ever sprang from the pen of someone who thought he or she was a writer of lyrics. I was in the process of thinking of a suitable comparison in the world of ( Read more... )

On Sunday night, they will be airing an episode on Celebrity Apprentice where the two teams have to write and create a children's book. It seems the two 'celebrity' teams will be assisted by an editor from Marshall Cavendish and the winning team will earn money for their charity.

Whenever serious children's authors catch a whiff of a celebrity book ( Read more... )

I am deep in the middle of a major revision of my fifth novel (no, I’m not going to tell you what it’s about... sorry). For this pass, I made the mistake of printing out this 70,000-word monster. There are so many edits and additions that keying in changes has become a monumental task.

But everything happens for a reason, doesn’t it?

In this case, ( Read more... )

Well, for better or worse, it's here. There has been much hoopla in the publishing world about Google and their attempts to digitize the entire compendium of human knowledge. Lawsuits, confusing emails to authors, you name it ( Read more... )

Although recipients of my "only once in a while" newsletter have already seen it, I have yet to reveal the cover of my forthcoming novel on my blog. So, here it is:


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A few months ago I was at a party and the person I was with introduced me to her friend. "He's a published author," she boasted. The man looked down his nose at me and said, "Anyone can get published these days, what with self publishing and all."

Now despite my badass author photos (thanks Chris Sawicki), I am not a confrontational person. I ( Read more... )

So, without any more ado, I give you Mark Shulman…


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I am so excited to be able to announce our winners for the JEREMY BENDER VS THE CUPCAKE CADETS contest. It was the first contest I've held for this book, which means it's the first time this book is out into the world... to anyone ( Read more... )