Writer, teacher, blogger and mom.
So I showed you all my book pile last week. You’ll be happy to know it’s smaller by six books! Here’s the tweet-down: @AGSmith_Author LOCKDOWN:ESCAPE FROM FURNACE was so f-ing good. I can’t wait to read the rest of the series. Dark, wild and unputdownable!!! EVERMORE by @alysonnoel Pretty hard to put down, towards the … More Bookpile: The Revenge
For this week’s Road Trip Wednesday, YA Highway asks about names. Not character names, writers’ names. Pseudonyms, in other words. First I should point out that my sister browsed my blog the other day and complained that on the Why Angelhorn page I didn’t give some background as to my own name, Gabrielle. You can … More Road Trip Wednesday – Gabrielle by Any Other Name
This from Huffington Post via Kristen’s Wolfe’s blog, www.sweetupndown.tumblr.com.is actually kind of a sad story. I feel for these boys with their narrow-minded dad. But what a terrific big brother. Just goes to show that sometimes the son has things to teach the father too. I hope they didn’t have a fist fight that night. Nevertheless this … More Terrific Teen Tuesday – Big Brother Rocks
For this week’s Marvelous Middle Grade Monday I’d like to look at “lower middle grade” books. There’s a lot of discussion about the difference between Middle Grade and Young Adult literature – this excellent post for example from Upstart Crow Literary Agency. While there are various sides to this discussion the issues of protagonist age … More Middle Grade Monday – All about “Lower Middle Grade”
So I’ve been collecting “Captchas”. You know, those odd strings of letters you have to type in to confirm you’re a human being commenting on a blog and not a bot? The first captchas I remember were a combination of two words, in blurry random fonts. Some are just random string of letters and numbers. … More Fun with Captchas and GIVEAWAY
YA Highway’s Road Trip Wednesday asks this week: Describe your dream writing retreat. Where would you go? Who and what would you bring? My answer may be surprising. I would step into my office, which is messy and disorganized, painted odd colors, piled with clutter and renovation and craft supplies, variously too hot or too cold, with … More Road Trip Wednesday and This Month’s Reading Pile brought to you by A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin
I get a fair bit of flack in my defense of teens (check out the comments on this post for example). In particular, I get into trouble when I suggest that many of them should probably quit school and start their lives. I have good reasons for feeling the way I do, though. I have … More Terrific Teen Tuesday AND Giveaway
I was going to focus this post on A WRINKLE IN TIME, a book I must have read about a million and two times when I was a youngster. But then I remembered that the last time I read it, I was slightly disappointed. That happens to us adult MG and YA readers. Books that … More Marvelous Middle Grade Monday – Madeleine L’Engle’s Time Trilogy
2011 has been one of those years in which a whole lot of things happened that I never would have predicted on January 1st. We sold our house. We bought a fixer upper. I got an agent and a book deal. I sold two articles to magazines. I wrote A LOT, probably over 200,000 words all … More Thoughts on 2011
This week YA Highway asks what were our favorite books of 2011. I don’t keep very good records of what I’ve read and when. I need to start doing that. I couldn’t tell you what books I read in 2011 and which were my favorites. Instead, to make it easier on me, I thought I’d … More Road Trip Wednesday: Five Books I’m Surprised I Liked in 2011
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