sweeping the skulls
falling falling fall
i have a lot on my mind these days. the fall is a perfect time to let go of old thinking that might be preventing my horns from growing strong and stripey!!! please feel free to share…
Month: October 2014
summer says!
perspective on puerto rican children's lit
amazing window into puerto rican children’s literature via summer edwards blog as she interviews scholar carmen milagros torres! check out these two power houses! please feel free to share…
gender free multicultural children’s book!
call me tree!!! (a note to my readers)
You may or may not notice something different about my new book, Call Me Tree. Nowhere in the story are boy/girl pronouns used. No ‘he’ or ‘she’ anywhere! I found it easy to write this way because that’s how I think of kids, as kids, not boy kids or girl …
in front of the camera
the heart of it
all my life i have not loved the camera. as a child i was always the one making the weird face in photographs. my mother loved to tell me ‘you’re not ugly.’ but there was something in her voice that made me only hear the word ‘ugly.’ my face felt highly …
you have 8 minutes! GO!
kidquake san francisco
i shared the stage today with 4 fabulous kidlit makers. 3 of whom were there to share their first book! i was so HAPPY for them! emily jiang and april chu are the author and artist respectively, of ‘summoning the phoenix: poems and prose about chinese musical instruments.’ emily is …
michael brown reminded me of my dad
unfinished post, questions and the beginning of kidlitEquality
i found this post i wrote not long ago. it opens with my father. despite the fact that it isn’t finished i’m sharing it, as is. *august 9, 2014, 18 year old, unarmed michael brown was one of many young, black males gunned down by a white police officer I …
the losses that makes us who we are
the power of choosing yourself when you've been disowned
i’m sitting here with my one year old, sky. i have a radically different life than i’ve ever had before. i’m happy. i’ve had a lot to learn through in life. one of the biggies was being disowned when i was 20 for being queer. it was my mother’s doing, …
reclaiming my childhood literary influences
helen keller and the phantom toll booth
i have been asked what children’s or YA book influenced me most for an article. as much as i love children’s books now, i cannot say that i have a lot of childhood experience with them. i remember reading helen keller’s life story, a big 2 inch fatty that i …
i am kidlitcon
finding more people to play!!!
this year’s theme for KidLitCon was: Blogging Diversity in Young Adult and Children’s Lit: What’s Next? it’s always soothing to be around folks with whom i can relax and even play a bit. play is serious business to me. play means a quality of curiosity, openness, courage and innocence. today …
higher and higher
interview with r. gregory christie
i just got done having one of my favorite kinds of talks. one of those spans of time when i get to touch the creative force that flows through all of us and for a moment ride its beauty with another. it’s funny to call it a ‘talk’ because there …