For the past 13 years, I’ve been writing about books on my blog, Feed Your Fiction Addiction. But I recently decided it was time to consolidate my efforts and move everything here to my author website. So, if you came here looking for Feed Your Fiction Addiction, you’re in the right spot!
Since I haven’t done any monthly recaps on the blog in awhile, I thought I’d jump in with a mid-year update! This is based off of past Mid-Year Freak-Out Tag posts (though I’ve updated a lot of the categories over time). I’m also including graphics of all the books I’ve read so far!
Instead of choosing one favorite, I chose books I loved for the rest of the questions. (Sorry, but I’m no good at choosing favorites).
As I say every year, I’ve adapted the book survey from The Perpetual Page Turner’s End of Year Survey!
This is the most I’ve read since 2019, which is amazing. Of course, it helps that I’ve read a lot more middle grade and graphic novels in recent years, and I listen to a lot of audiobooks. Still, I’m very happy to have read so much because I think reading widely is one of the best things I can do to improve my writing.
Book Sales/Signings: I had two local sales/signings in the past month, one at Sturdy Shelter Brewing and one at Blue House Books. Both went great – selling during the holiday season is a lot easier (and I find it much easier to pitch to people too, because you can always start with, “Hey, if you have any 4th-8th graders on your holiday shopping list, I’ve got a great book to tell you about). I actually left Blue House when I got down to my last book, which I left for them to have on the shelf!
IL Reads 2026 Kickoff – TSoOG got chosen for the 2026 IL Reads list, and we had a kickoff at Anderson’s Bookshop. Looking forward to a full year of events for this!
So You Want to Write a Kids’ Book Presentation – I presented at my library about the basics of kidlit writing and publishing. It felt like a great success, and I got really positive feedback on the presentation!
How Now Booking Company – I signed up with How Now Booking Company to help me coordinate school visits! If you know of any teachers or librarians looking for author visits for the 2025/2026 school year, let me know!
Book launch event for Sara F. Shacter – I attended the launch event for my friend Sara, whose book GEORGIA WATSON AND THE 99 PERCENT CAMPAIGN released on Oct. 14th.
AISLE Conference – I really enjoyed attending this conference for IL School librarians. Hopeful that I made some good connections there!
2026 IL Reads List – THE SONG OF ORPHAN’S GARDEN was chosen for the 2026 IL Reads List! Not only is this a great honor, the organization has several events associated with it throughout 2026 that I’ll get to attend!
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Check out this new review of The Song of Orphan’s Garden over at Always in the Middle! I love the way Greg ends his reviews with a “five more things to like about” format!
Turned a manuscript in to my agent! – I finally finished the ms I’ve been working on converting from prose into verse and sent it off to my agent. She loves it, and we plan to go out on sub with it, but the timeline is a bit unknown.
Picture book draft – I actually finished a first draft of a picture book! I’m super excited about the book. I have no idea where it might lead (the market is tough right now, and many people write tons of PB manuscripts before they ever get one published), but I’m hopeful that this is the first of many and that it will make its way into the world at some point!
LITaPalooza and KidLITaPalooza – I got to participate in LITaPalooza (and KidLITaPalooza) at Anderson’s Bookshop. I’ve attended these events at Anderson’s for years, so it was really exciting to be on the other side of it. This was the first event where I got to participate on panels, too!
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Pride Month is almost over, but I wanted to share some great middle grade LGBTQ+ reads for all year long!
