Welcome to my new blog, which now includes content from many of the blogs I’ve created over the years. You can now also access content via category from this one page instead of having to search for my individual blogs, which were scattered over various platforms and websites.
I met Patricia Storms through her Booklust blog and then the National Cartoonists Society, and have enjoyed watching her children’s book career blossom. She has illustrated 20 books, three of which she is author as well as illustrator. Patricia says she was twelve when her first cartoon was published in a . . .
Since Amazon announced its acquisition of Goodreads back in April, those of us who have been using Goodreads have been waiting in semi-dread for the inevitable sweeping changes that would end destroying a once-thriving book community. Except they haven’t happened. So far, Amazon appears to be wisely playing it cautious when it comes . . .
Speaking of more writing challenges, there’s also Robert Lee Brewer’s November “Poem A Day” Chapbook Challenge, which is lots of fun. Guidelines here.
For those of you who don’t know, every year there are thousands of people who participate in National Novel Writing Month, a.k.a. NaNoWriMo. The Goal: to write 50,000 words during the month of November. NaNoWriMo has grown over the years, and now includes a special section just for young writers. I participated . . .
November may be NaNoWriMo month for some, but it’s also Picture Book Month and Picture Book Idea Month (PiBoIdMo). Picture Book Month is an international literacy initiative that celebrates the print picture book during the month of November. Every day in November, there is a new post from a picture book champion explaining why he/she thinks . . .
I’ll bet some of you hadn’t heard about the time-honored tradition of All Hallow’s Read, whose origins some scholars have traced back as far as this Neil Gaiman post. Basic idea: In the week of Halloween, give someone a scary book. Here are just a few deliciously scary books for young . . .
Although I primarily illustrate using digital methods (Photoshop CS6 with a 7.5″ x 11″ Intuos Wacom tablet), I’m starting to experiment more with non-digital media on the side. Partly because I like to always be learning something new, to try different techniques, but also because I’m often inspired to try . . .