MORE 'WRITING' POSTS
I was working with the British Columbia Forest Service as a summer job that lasted only a few weeks. But the experience inspired my new middle-grade novel Fire on Headless Mountain and became a part of the story.
How a notebook I kept as a kid became the spark for my first novel, Frances and the Monster, twenty years later.
I struggled for several years to find a way to do “Goblin Market” justice, while still respecting my audience.
We can’t always understand the things that scare us, but scary stories are the safest places to experience our fears again and again, as many times as it takes for them to become comfortably familiar.
The Sea Knows My Name asks how our stories shape us. It asks us what happens when all our stories are about Zeus rather than Leda; Apollo rather than Daphne; Ajax rather than Cassandra.
I don’t think I’ll ever forget the things Hazmat has taught me, I don’t think I want to: I love thinking of book plots (and life!) without a beginning, middle, and end…but, instead, seeing moments and days as a wild quilt flashing by, a horizon that keeps opening and expanding …on and on.
While I wish I could say that burnout can be solved by writing a book, it can’t. But it was a good start and helped me realize how much I love education and teaching. It helped me find my way back to what I love.
Traditional educational methods taught me that my mind didn't work like everyone else's. But poetry helped me realize that was a beautiful thing.
Within BEATING HEART BABY, performances serve as checkpoints for the characters’ internal worlds and showcases for my version/vision of music writing. The roar of an audience cheering for you; the ozonic tang in the air as you prepare to (p)lay your heart on a stage.
It's my hope that Repairing the World, a book ostensibly about grief and healing, will also be a place for Jewish kids (Reconstructionist or not) to see themselves in a story. I want to illustrate how normal it is for kids to have help managing their mental health. And, that grownups and kids can be queer or questioning and it’s just part of life. It doesn’t have to be a big deal.
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