All stories are connected, new ones woven from the threads of the old. —ROBIN WALL KIMMERER, Braiding Sweetgrass I used the epigraph above in Making Seaker, my latest book—a contemporary Middle Grade STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) novel. Making Seaker was ... Read More  

When I wrote SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS, a middle grade novel set in a funeral home, I actually didn’t think much about the science around death. My book is about grief and friendships and what happens to us when ... Read More  

I never meant to write about a story about death; not in the traditional “I’ve lost everybody I love” or the “I’m about to lose someone I really love” sense. After writing several dark and relatively painful manuscripts, I ... Read More  

This world appeared to me as I stood looking out across an inlet of the Red Sea. It was night and the dark spread out in front of me like a void.  There was a far-off shore, contoured with ... Read More  

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, one author’s book is giving young readers and their families a chance to see the world through fresh eyes.  L.E. Carmichael’s newest book, The Boreal Forest: A Year in the World’s Largest ... Read More  

I remember the first time I heard about the use of pathetic fallacy in literature. You know: ascribing human emotions to nature in order to give the reader a sense of mood or a hint of what is to ... Read More  

This will be our final column on audience (at least for now). So buckle up for a crash course on age levels in children's literature! First, a caveat: the categories I'm presenting here are not absolute. Different people use different ... Read More