Good News! GONE CAMPING: A Novel In Verse is on the way.

I'm happy to announce that Gone Camping: A Novel in Verse is a project that I'm currently working on with my editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers. Gone Camping will be a companion to Gone Fishing and will feature a story told through a series of poems with the same two main characters: Sam and Lucy. Gone Camping is not only a family camping adventure, but is also the story of how Lucy struggles to overcome her fear of sleeping in the tent and away from home. I'm thrilled that Gone Camping will be illustrated by Matthew Cordell, the talented illustrator who brought Sam and Lucy to life in Gone Fishing. Gone Camping is scheduled to arrive in the spring of 2017. 

Gone Fishing Good News!

I'm happy to announce that GONE FISHING is going to be released as a paperback! It will arrive from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on March 24, 2015. It's now at Barnes and Noble and Amazon for presale.

This Old Band at Writer, Writer, Pants On Fire!

Today Mindy McGinnis helps me kick off my This Old Band tour by hosting me for a Successful Author Talk at her blog: Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire! Mindy is one of my Class of 2k13 classmates, and is one of the most successful writer bloggers that I know. She's also the talented author of NOT A DROP TO DRINK and the upcoming IN A HANDFUL OF DUST.

Here is an interview excerpt:

Are you a Planner or Pantster?

Most of my writing begins as one tiny nugget of an idea scribbled on a sticky note or receipt, so I definitely start out as a pantster. If an idea grabs hold of my imagination and won’t let go, then I begin to flesh it out, still by the seat of my pants, though, and often in my head. Sometimes that phase will last for days or even months depending on the project, and I make sure to jot down those ideas as they come. At some point, though, from the very shortest picture books to longer verse novels, I have to step back and ask what I’m doing and how I might make this lovely mess of ideas into a story or a poem that could hang together and actually become a book. That’s when my writing becomes more planful.

Click on one of the BIG BLACK CATS below to be whisked away to the full interview. Thank you for hosting me at Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire!, Mindy!