Lookfar
Stories are boats. They can be plain or they can be beautiful, but they are all vehicles, and their job is to take you somewhere. I got that from Lookfar, Ged’s boat in A Wizard of Earthsea. When I...
View ArticleSCIBA Children’s Award luncheon talk
Last Saturday (10/20/18) I had the honor of giving a talk at the SCIBA (Southern California Independent Booksellers Association) trade show during the Children’s Awards luncheon. I talked about my...
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Norse Code is 10
Yesterday was May 19, 2019, ten years from the release date of my first novel, Norse Code. It’s the story of people resisting powerful jerks who conspire to spark a cosmos-spanning apocalypse for...
View ArticleFlotsam
Flotsam They roll in with the waves at the end of the spring storms. Coughing, sputtering, tangled in seaweed, they trudge across the beach toward the boardwalk, where they take up residence in stalls...
View Article2019 – Well, that happened.
I’m not going to make a great big deal out of this, but any year that starts with a cancer diagnosis is going to be weird. 2019 was weird. What began with a late-2018 visit with my GP turned into...
View ArticleNeil Peart
I’m stunned at the news that Neil Peart died. He was the drummer and lyricist of my favorite band, Rush. Their music got me through rough days and made good days better. I was privileged enough to see...
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A boy and his uke
One year ago today I bought my first ukulele. We were staying downtown at Comic-Con, and I’d been playing my guitar quite a bit, but I’d left it at home and wanted something to strum. So I hoofed it a...
View ArticleI remain a placeholder
I still don’t know what I’m going to do about Twitter, but quiet and vacant though this blog has been, it’s still my house. I’m too slammed with deadlines to spruce it up, but I’m setting a goal of one...
View ArticleBrief Notes on Middle-Grade Voice
I thought I might start posting writing craft tips. I don’t have the time or energy to write actual articles or essays, but I can summon up enough goomph to grab some bullet points from various talks...
View ArticleWriting in 2022
There’s a large and not very cheerful discussion to be had about writing and publishing in 2022, but that’s for another blog post. This one is about what I wrote this year. Our value is not based on...
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Happy Town – Excerpt
Dear Reader: Want to take a look at my upcoming middle-grade novel, Happy Town, coming out October 22, 2024 from Harper Colins? Well, scroll your way down and you can read the first four chapters. Or...
View ArticleHappy Town review from the Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
The September 2024 issue of the Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books has a nice review of Happy Town. Keegan doesn’t like anything about his new home, Happy Town, apart from his new pals...
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