MORE 'WRITING' POSTS
Our heroes will survive to live another day, and even if the road is rocky, and even if their world doesn’t end up all rainbows and unicorns and Skittles, at a minimum the downpour will end, the sun will come out, and they will be left with that powerful thing called HOPE.
Everyone, including teens and tweens, should get to enjoy these fluffy books without judging themselves or feeling that these books somehow have less value than Crime and Punishment.
Life takes its own twists and turns, whatever the magic of the library intends. But the love of fantasy and writing and books ran deep, deep, deep. The power of the library would not be denied in the end.
Choosing to end a series is choosing to give your characters to your audience.
Science has shown that stories are engines for empathy. My hope is that with non-fiction, novels and picture books, we remind ourselves that stories are our best antidote to the spread of misinformation and disinformation.
My hope is that the book might help both protagonists and antagonists in the world give each other the time and patience to jump some horizons. My second, smaller hope is that it might soothe the aches and pains that come with the hard landings that sometimes follow those jumps.
They don’t have all the answers. They make mistakes. There’s no sugar-coating their pain or flaws here. And there shouldn’t have to be. Give me all the unlikeable girls.
I knew I wanted to convey insights into Jamaican life with YOUR CORNER DARK and now with BETTER MUST COME. So, when it came to showing YOUNG PEOPLE how economic policies, the issues of abandonment, police brutality, and others affected the island nation, I had to make the stories EXCITING!
I’m thankful that there’s room on our bookshelves for the vast array of teen-centered stories we have to tell, whether romantic or not.
I know I wouldn't be where I am today if it weren’t for the people who helped me get through that early, rough period of trying to figure out how to be a writer.
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