Mondays at CHICKS ROCK!

On Mondays I post at CHICKS ROCK!, the blog of The Women's Mosaic. Check out my posts there, too!
The Women's Mosaic is a New York City-based non-profit organization that provides education, inspiration, and motivation for women to rise up and rock the world! The Women's Mosaic unites and empowers women through programs that promote intercultural understanding and personal growth. We are a community of diverse, dynamic women interested in expanding our horizons by creating positive change that can individually and collectively enrich the world.

Mondays at CHICKS ROCK!

On Mondays I post at CHICKS ROCK!, the blog of The Women's Mosaic. Check out my posts there, too!

Mondays at CHICKS ROCK!

On Mondays I post at CHICKS ROCK!, the blog of The Women's Mosaic. Check out my posts there, too!

Sunny San Francisco

Okay, so it wasn't all that sunny in reality, but my recent visit to Northern California certainly left me with a nice sunny feeling inside.

I spent a week on the west coast, mostly in San Francisco with a few days spent up in Chico, California. Soon, I'll post about the actual work I did, which was the central purpose for my travels (four events during the course of the week!), but in between, I managed to find some time to just be a tourist.

I did some research on the Black Panther Party while I was in the vicinity of the area where the group was founded, and it turns out the legacy is alive in a lot of different ways throughout the city. The tastiest homage I ran across was Black Panther fudge at Z Cioccolato. It's their best seller. Yum!

I rode the cable cars everywhere they went! I didn't really know how cable cars worked until I went to the Cable Car Museum, and boy, did I learn a lot about cables. However, the cable cars do not go down this road, the "crookedest" street. This cracked me up. I've never seen anything like it.

Sunset on the Golden Gate Bridge. Turns out, the middle of the bridge (there's a pedestrian path) is as good a place as any to be inspired to scrawl an epic poem in your notebook, and stand there awkwardly, looking bizarre and gathering suspicious looks from passersby. Ah, the embarrasments we suffer to pursue creative arts.

Camo Girl on the Radio

I was recently invited to speak on NPR's Michael Eric Dyson show, interviewed by (you guessed it) Michael Eric Dyson, bestselling author, educator and radio personality. It's always fun and exciting to be interviewed, but it's even more so to be interviewed by someone whose books have been in my collection probably since before I really started writing. When I learned about this opportunity, it was pretty awesome for me to realize that not only had I heard of Mr. Dyson, but I could point out several volumes of his work on my own bookshelves!

I recorded the interview earlier this week in NPR's Midtown studio here in New York. Mr. Dyson was speaking to me from the D.C. studio. Now, I know radio is a relatively old technology, but it's still neat to think about having half a conversation in one room, in one city, when the other half is happening with someone hundreds of miles away, and have the capability to air that conversation nationally at the same time! (This wasn't a live broadcast, but still....I'm easily impressed by and in awe of technology at all levels.)

My interview airs today in selected markets across the country, but unfortunately I don't think it airs in New York! The good news is, a podcast of the show is available at the Dyson Show website.

It's an hour long show; my interview segment begins at 23:00, and lasts just shy of nine minutes. Check it out!

A Capitol Adventure

This weekend I traveled to Washington, D.C., and Charlottesville, Virginia, for a series of book events! First, I spoke to a cool group of middle schoolers at Politics & Prose Bookstore in D.C. And followed it up with a fun, rowdy auditorium full of sixth graders at nearby Deal Middle School. I got to share my Camo Girl slideshow for the first time--it was exciting to discuss new content in a school visit. Much as I love talking about The Rock and the River, it's really neat to have a second book out there that kids are reading, too!

Next, I traveled with friend and fellow author Tami Lewis Brown down to Charlottesville for the Virginia Festival of the Book. It's always great to spend time in the company of other authors, and it was an extra special treat to get to see my dear friend Ashley Bryan, an award-winning author and illustrator. I was invited to introduce him at the Sweet Reads book fair, where he received an honor for his work!

At the festival itself, I sat on a panel called Spinning Lives into Story, along with Tami Lewis Brown, Maha Addasi, moderated by librarian Louise Simone. We spoke about historical fiction, non-fiction, and multicultural fiction: all kinds of stories based on real lives and experiences that we as children's authors have a responsibility to make as true as possible. But what is TRUTH, when it comes to fiction? How much can authors make up, and how much should we keep perfectly true to life? What damage does it do to kids' understanding of history if authors falsify or embellish details in a biography? The discussion was lively and really drew people in. We could have talked for days!

It was particularly exciting to be able to speak briefly about my new non-fiction release, Today the World is Watching You (Lerner 2011), about the Little Rock Nine and the fight for school integration in the late 1950s, after the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark Brown v. Board decision. Here's the cover!

Kirkus Review of CAMO GIRL

...and it's STARRED! I'm so excited to share this blurb from Kirkus on Camo Girl: "This elegantly crafted story features strong writing and solid characterizations of both main and secondary characters. Ella and Bailey’s racial identity is one element in a full and richly textured narrative." To read the full review, CLICK HERE.