My first review for The Goodnight Train recently appeared in Kirkus Reviews. As I read it I saw an odd word that almost seemed like a typo - hypnagogic. I rushed to Websters and found this word means “sleep inducing.” I can’t think of a better compliment for a bedtime story!

Why do I seem to get my golden phrases while I’m behind the wheel navigating the 101 freeway or the narrow winding ribbon of Malibu Canyon? Dare admit that I fish for scraps of paper and a pen at 60 MPH. Thank goodness I’m right handed. Could this be a test from the big smug writing muse in the sky? “Well, if she really wants to do this I can send some good ideas to her while she has both hands on the wheel.
Ha! Ha! Ha!”Anyway I cherish my messy car scraps as they often solve the problems that stump me when I’m sitting still staring at a blank page.

Yesterday I made my first author visits with SHIVER ME LETTERS for Los Angeles Public Library’s visiting author program. I was primarily “booked to read B IS FOR BULLDOZER as their summer reading theme was Building Stories. One of the library branches was in Boyle Heights which is not known to be one of LA’s safer areas. I had just heard about a drive by shooting there a few days ago. Ok - I’ll admit it - I was a little scared to go. What I found at the Benjamin Franklin branch was a warm heart behind a foreboding and orange fenced exterior. The multi-aged children in my storytime were well mannered, eager to learn and enthusiastic with their questions about my writing. It felt good to get out of my suburban comfort zone and connect with children who are taking a step in the right direction by bringing books into their lives. Kudos to their parents for taking them there!

Maira Kalman’s Principles of Uncertainty has to be “the best blog” - at least in my humble opinion. I guess you sort of have to pay for it as it’s in the NY Times Select
site. It appears the first Wednesday of every month and is disarmingly touching and beautiful. It has a spontaneity which probably results from hours and hours of hard work. The effort of effortlessness! A treat for the eyes and soul!

Yesterday I went to see the incredible David Hockney portrait retrospective at LACMA. A master draftsman. He says his portraits have ” to be directed through my heart to my eye to my hand.” One of the most curious parts of the exhibition were the cases of open sketchbooks. A computer screen displayed the hidden pages of all the sketch books. Most of the quick drawings, paintings were not very good. I hesitate to call them junk. Even a master does many, many unhoned mediocre works. I saw a parallel to my writing. All those notebooks of unfinished words. Out of that sometimes grows a treasure, a fully formed finished work.

I was so pleased to see SHIVER ME LETTERS mentioned in the July 3rd issue of US News & World Report in an article called Books to Battle Brain Freeze. I guess my book can help kids from becoming complete fog heads over the summer!

Today I spent a wonderful day connecting with my community. The city of Thousand Oaks just opened an incredible children’s library wing complete with a 3,600 gallon fish tank. I shared a booth with our local nationally acclaimed authors Alexis O’ Neill, Joan Graham and author-illustrator Carol Heyer mainly to promote our “existence” to our town. It was so much fun just to meet local families, teachers and book lovers. I must admit I relished seeing a two year cry because he couldn’t have B IS FOR BULLDOZER. I also enjoyed a child reminescent of Adam who could name every piece of construction equipment. I am always heartened seeing a crowd that will endure 99 degree plus heat to visit the world of books!

Last night my 14 year old son Adam and I went to see An Inconvenient Truth - Al Gore’s film about the urgent problem of global warming. I was more disturbed by the fact that Adam was the ONLY person in theatre under 30 than the message of the film. I was shocked and dismayed there weren’t any high school or college students in the audience. This was a small theatre so I had a good look around. Global warming is a more crucial issue for the next generation whose lives will be profoundly affected by these changes. I don’t know what it will take to wake up my sleepy suburbanite neighbors baking in their 100 degree backyards. Do they think a dip in the pool will save them from global warming?

It is our moral imperative to at the very least replace all our light bulbs with flourescent ones….or our great-grandchildren will be entertained by stories of that long lost curiosity called a snowman and those strange old sports of skiing and snowboarding!

Visit www.climatecrisis.net

“A story should be written for the sake of the last sentence and a poem for the sake of the last line.”
Edgar Allen Poe

“You must write for children the same way you write for adults, only better!”

Maxim Gorky