Well, it’s official—The Song of Orphan’s Garden, my very first book baby has been born! And what a long labor it was! I got my publishing offer for this book at the end of August 2022!! For those of you who’ve been part of this blog for years, thank you for all your support. For… Read more »
Book Events
That’s a Wrap! (My Wrap-Up of the SCBWI 2019 LA Summer Conference)
Hey, everybody, I’m back! I’ll confess that my brain feels a bit like pudding after all the amazing things I learned at the summer SCBWI conference—I think I need to give it all a little time to set. But so much wisdom was shared, and I’m feeling reinvigorated when it comes to my writing, which… Read more »
Recap of the YA Lit Conference at Anderson’s Bookshop
This past weekend, I had the pleasure of attending the annual YA Lit Conference at Anderson’s Bookshop with my mom. We look forward to this event every year! It’s technically geared toward teachers and librarians but book enthusiasts are welcome as well. 🙂 I thought I’d give you a little rundown of the featured speakers…. Read more »
Epic Reads Meet-up Recap
Last night my mom and I got a chance to go to a stop at the Epic Reads tour at Boswell Book Company up in Milwaukee. The featured authors were Kendare Blake, Mackenzi Lee, Elana K. Arnold, Claire Legrand, and Anna Godbersen. (I somehow missed getting a picture with Anna, so she’s not in my little collage… Read more »
Top 10 Writing Tips I Learned at WIFYR
I took in a lot of fantastic writing advice at the WIFYR conference. I thought I’d share my some of the lessons I learned with all of you. All of these came from the breakout sessions or keynotes. I tried to keep these specific to writing advice rather than publishing/querying advice, but I’ll probably do… Read more »
Anderson’s Children’s Literature Breakfast Recap
This past Sunday, my mom and I got to attend the Children’s Literature Breakfast hosted by Anderson’s Bookshop. This is the first time I’ve gone to this event, and I was excited to see what it was all about! KEYNOTES: Peter H. Reynolds – Peter introduced us to his newest children’s book The Word Collector,… Read more »
ALA Annual 2017 Event Recap
Last weekend was ALA Annual, and what a whirlwind it was!
A Recap of the YA Lit Conference & Fandom Frenzy 2016
Anderson’s annual YA Lit Conference is a gathering of authors, educators and librarians (with some bloggers thrown in) to discuss … well, books. Then, the next day is the YA Fandom Frenzy—this day is geared toward fans and includes lots of fun games and activities. This year 33 authors were in attendance, including a few… Read more »
BEA 2016 Day Three Wrap-Up
Day Three The third day of BEA was much more laid back than the first two. (By the way, if you haven’t seen my recap of Day One or Day Two – and giveaways – check them out!) By Day Three, we’d gotten almost all the books that we really wanted to snag and I was feeling like everything… Read more »
BEA 2016 Day Two Wrap-Up
Day Two The second day of BEA was, by far, the most tiring and crazy! (By the way, if you haven’t seen my recap of Day One and that giveaway, check it out!) This day was all about the books, and I have to tell you that by the end of the day, I had… Read more »

