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Last weekend and this weekend.
Last weekend I taught at the Young Writers Workshop, an annual conference for elementary school students grades 3-5. We talked about characters, setting, conflict, and the power of the blurb.
This weekend I am packing for Disneyworld.
It can't get better (or more different) that that!
I've been meaning to do a video of me playing the veena for quite ( Read more... ) -
Not giving your 100 percent, and what makes a good actor...or writer.
I'm still charging away on my WIP -- just a few chapters from the end -- writing furiously as the expression goes.
But I came across this interview I just had to share. Just a few days ago when Christopher Plummer won best supporting actor for Beginners, and I thought, Wait a moment! This can't be the same Christopher Plummer from The Sound of Music ( Read more... ) -
Me with my oversized instrument
This video is probably a little too long and betrays the fact that I don't know how to film myself. But there you have it. A bona fide video of myself with a very hefty, but beautiful stringed instrument brought back home from a recent trip to South India.
Many thanks to those of you who brave the 4 minutes of footage here. And yes, for about half ( Read more... ) -
Edgar nomination
Yesterday, I was in the middle of writing a scene in my novel -- a culminating scene where we finally begin to understand something important about the main character -- and I was beginning to have my doubts. It was clear my MC had his own ideas about things, and I was finding it hard to get him to say what I wanted, or to even stay put in one room ( Read more... ) -
Books of Wonder signing tonight + Voracious Reader signing tomorrow
If you're in NYC, I'd like to invite you to join me and 6 other YA/MG authors to hear our Stages on Pages stories about how the performing arts have shaped our lives as writers.
Where: BOOKS OF WONDER
When: 6-8 pm THU NOV 10
Here's the link to the event as well.
We will also be at Voracious Reader FRI NOV 11 in Larchmont, NY, from 6-8 pm. Hope you can ( Read more... ) -
Fairy tales + 3 giveaways + Boston = goodness
I have two items and 3 middle grade giveaways to blog about today, and strangely two of them have something in common - Boston!
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The mystery box
My 3 year-old got to bring home the mystery box from preschool yesterday. The instructions are simple - put something in the box, then give everyone 3 clues as to what's inside.
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It's all in your head.
Going downstairs now to check on the bread that was made early this morning in the bread machine. Not by me! By the elves who live in the house. I heard them arguing over how to level off the flour. But I did smell something wonderful at the top of the stairs upon waking up.
I'm so happy that I'm finally done with chapters 1-3. 30 pages of revising ( Read more... ) -
You don't know until you try it.
Just this Friday I spoke for the first time at a bookstore -- not counting my launch party, because that was me holding the party, and the audience were my friends coming out to support me. This was my second author event. And I find it so interesting to discover who I am when I'm not at home in front of my computer.
For authors, it's probably a ( Read more... ) -
Cambridge, MA and Fresh Ink
Fresh Ink is a special book club that Porter Square Books run in Cambridge, MA, where they invite young readers to read middle grade and young adult books (usually advanced reader copies or ARC) and then post reviews of them on their Fresh Ink Blog.
Here's what one Fresh Ink reviewer had to say about Vanished:
( Read more... )
