What does my little boy’s bath time have to do with writing?
Let me start by describing Liam’s pre-bath routine: once the bath water is running, Liam grabs this basket of toys he has in the bathroom and starts pitching … Read more
“The greatest art offers us images by which to imagine our lives. And once the imagination has been awakened, it is procreative: through it we can give more than we were given, say more than we had to say.”
“We … Read more
Here’s the link to a guest post I did for Maggie’s Bookshelf in which I muse about what kind of issue novel What Can’t Wait would be if it were an issue novel and reveal how come there’s no glossary … Read more
There is a fantastic new reading challenge out there, and this one offers two bonuses: (1) the chance to explore diverse MG and YA lit and (2) a chance to win a crazy huge heap of YA & MG books… Read more
An alternative title to this post might be, “YA saves, but not like you think.” It’s about how the shouting match over “darkness” in YA has its roots in two very different ways of seeing the books in question (and … Read more
A Smithsonian.com article on gendering trends in clothing, “When Did Girls Start Wearing Pink?,” has me thinking about lots of things–from how I dress my son to how I portray children in my novels. Here’s the article’s answer … Read more
I didn’t know about Glogster.com back when I was teaching in Houston in 2004. Actually, I bet that it didn’t yet exist. But anyway, this online poster-making tool just screams “extra-credit.” I’m guessing that the poster for What Can’t Wait … Read more
Last week, Meghan Cox Gurdon’s article “Darkness Too Visible” denounced YA lit as trying to “bulldoze coarseness or misery” into children’s lives. Gurdon gets YA wrong on so many levels, and the kidlit world noticed. Massively. Most responses have been smart … Read more
-19. Damn it, what else am I going to cut?
If you use Twitter, you know what I’m talking about. I’m one of those people who (think they) need a 1,400 character limit. But that’s exactly why Twitter is good … Read more
I’m a writer. I’m a student of literature. I’m a teacher. In my literary bible, the words of Borges, Cortázar, Bishop, Hemingway, and company appear in red. (For you heathens, red-letter bibles have the words of Christ in red.)
Sometimes, though, … Read more
