S’Wicked Cool People, Vol. I – Betsy Barry
Next in my quest to Find My Style, I’ll be exploring colored pencil. And what better way to kick off that exploration, than with an interview with a real master of the medium—award-winning artist, Betsy Barry. The first time I met Betsy, she was teaching a rug hooking class at the Florence Griswold Museum. But, […]
FMS Bookcase, Vol. 1 – Graphite & Doodling
I’m a book person. Love everything about ’em. I don’t think there’s a room in our house that doesn’t have at least one book tucked away somewhere. Strangely enough, not a single one is dedicated solely to working in graphite pencil. So, I was challenged a bit trying to find books to share as part […]
Pencil on Paper
I’m kicking off my Finding My Style journey with the most elemental medium I know—pencil on paper. From the early days of bringing a box of #2 pencils to school and grinding them through the ancient wall-mounted pencil sharpener ’til I got just the right point, to today and my ever-growing pencil collection, pencils have […]
Pitch Wars #BoostMyBio
So, What’s This “Boost My Bio” All About? Some of you know I have a book I’m shopping around to agents. It’s an Upper-Middle-Grade Contemporary SciFi Horror—the type of book I would’ve firewalked for, when I was a kid. It features four main kid characters trying to survive the long, hot boredom of summer in a […]
Middle Grade Summer Reading Fun
It’s the last day of school in my neck of the woods, and that has me thinking about fun summer reading. And, given that Middle Grade has my heart big-time, I wanted to share some of my favorite summertime MG reads. The Season of Styx Malone, by Kekla Magoon, is a little bit madcap adventure, […]
S’Wanderings – NYC Books ‘n Art Supplies Day Trip – Part II
So, after gallivanting all around the city, I finally made it to… …drum roll… CW Pencil Enterprise! And, oh, is it one cool store. There are erasers… There are stickers… There is a fun wall of pencil happiness… And—oh, yeah—there are pencils! But, check this out. Against all odds, I visited the store at the […]
S’Wanderings – NYC Books ‘n Art Supplies Day Trip – Part I
There really is nothing like a trip into the City during the holiday season (especially when you a pick a clear December day with temps in the 50s). For months (maybe even years, now), I’ve been meaning to make a pilgrimage into New York to visit a store dedicated entirely to—wait for it—pencils! And, I […]
The Nutcracker—Crackin’ Good!
The Nutcracker is here and out and available and so very, very cool! After all the months of planning and writing and rewriting, and working with the paper engineer (the incomparable Yevgeniya Yeretskaya), to make sure the text supported the pop-ups without getting in their way, and then watching as Neiko Ng’s beautiful illustration work […]
NESCBWI Conference Packing
You can tell the NESCBWI Conference starts tomorrow. Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are humming with #NESCBWI tags. My office looks like a natural disaster blew through. And, small piles of “to-pack” items are scattered around the house. Here are two of those piles… The Paperwork Pile Here’s what’s in it: – Notebook. Given that you’re […]