Nine more sleeps until it’s pub day for Polar!  Kermit GIF from Kermit GIFs Today is World Book and Copyright Day, so I’ve been reflecting on how much time and work goes into writing just one children’s book. Time ... Read More  

“Write what you know.” Who said that? I’m not sure, but it’s a phrase – an instruction, really – thrown around as a guideline for writers. It suggests you should draw on what you know, mine your own life experience, ... Read More  

Once upon a time, I had a dream: I wanted to write nonfiction. Keep in mind, this was many years ago, and I came from a poetry and fiction background. I had been writing poetry since I was six, ... Read More  

For the last few months, we've been talking about the first two things we must do before we sit down to write: Identify our audience Who are we writing for? Kids, adults, professional peers, our teachers? What does that audience need from ... Read More  

How did I research The Boreal Forest? I read 238 books, scientific articles, and websites, adding up to untold thousands of pages of research (I didn't actually count). I took 72,400 words of notes (those I did count, or ... Read More  

  When I gave up a career in science to be a starving artist, I knew, without doubt or reservation, that I was doing the right thing.  I also knew it was a thing that would be difficult, if ... Read More  

I’ve blogged before about the importance of fact checking sources when researching nonfiction for kids. This post is about a slightly different research challenge that, in the age of the internet, is becoming a huge problem. I sometimes teach ... Read More  

Deadlines are swarming like a school of sharks in search of blood, so I hope you’ll forgive me for recycling some blog content. I wrote this a year ago to celebrate the release of my second kid’s book on forensic ... Read More  

Because I spent two days doing this with the awesome kids of Pine Ridge Middle School. We had a lot of fun talking about the books that have an impact on us, then practiced techniques for having that kind of ... Read More  

The video’s a bit long, but it’s worth watching the whole thing, especially if you (like me) fondly remember paper encyclopedias. It’s really incredible how quickly our relationship with information has changed (and will continue to change). For my part ... Read More