I’ve always wanted to be one of those people who have a journal. I like to picture myself sitting in the sun, using a fountain pen to scribble out my Deep Thoughts and Observations. I think a journal could boost my creativity. I think a journal could be a lot of fun. I think [...]
Recently, a friend of mine was bemoaning the fact that her middle-school-age daughter had recently announced that she wanted to shop at Abercrombie and Fitch instead of Old Navy. She was bemoaning this shift because 1. Abercrombie and Fitch is over-priced and 2. The store is dark and cologne-stinky. We didn’t even get into the [...]
A few months ago, while reading O, The Oprah Magazine (totally my favorite—don’t judge!) I came across an article written by Oprah herself, about a gratitude journal she used to keep. At the end of each day, she would write down the five things she was most grateful for that day. She included a sample [...]
When I was in the sixth grade, my social studies teacher asked everyone in the class to draw a map of an imaginary country. We were learning about topography and maps in general, so he encouraged us to label our imaginary rivers, lakes, mountains, historically important sites, etc. He showed us how borders and shorelines [...]
Do you see anything interesting on this cover? Something toward the bottom? Hm? Yes, that’s right–I co-authored a book with THE James Patterson, and it’s available in stores now! This is the third book in the hilarious best-selling Middle School series. The first two novels–co authored by James Patterson and Chris Tebbetts–tell the adventures [...]
Recently, my daughter suffered a sudden, unexpected health problem. My husband and I raced out of the house in the dark to the nearby hospital, where doctors and nurses descended on her in the kind of scene that is every parent’s worst nightmare. When she had recovered enough, we were transferred to the bigger hospital [...]
I got back from Writer Camp about a week ago and promptly got the flu. I shouldn’t have been surprised. They keep you busy, busy, busy during each ten-day residency at Vermont College of Fine Arts, besides which there was a horrible plague making the rounds at the dorm, taking out one writer at [...]
The question I am asked most—that every writer is asked most—is “Where do your ideas come from?” I have tried to answer this question before here. But, for some reason, when I received this question in my E-mailbox last week, I started to think about it again. It’s a frustrating question, not because it [...]
I got an interesting letter in the mailbag this week. The author asked me how many books I planned to write. She wanted to know if I had a goal in mind. I thought this was a pretty interesting question—it was one I’d never really considered before. But I knew the answer right away: One. [...]
Several years ago, I went to hear a panel of illustrators at the Eric Carle museum. Whoever organized it clearly did not have much experience with panels, because this had something like nineteen amazing illustrators crowded onto a single stage, among them, icons like Brian Selznick and Barry Moser. After a few questions, a woman [...]
