Lots of talk lately about the role books play in helping young readers develop empathy and expand their world view. I don’t have definitive answers on that score but I will be talking about all of those meaty book issues with some fellow authors this weekend. I’ll be hanging out with Fonda Lee the author of EXO, Tina Connolly the author of SERIOUSLY SHIFTED  and Mary Elizabeth Summer the author of TRUST ME I’M LYING. It will be lots of fun. There might even be cookies.

It’s a ANOTHER READ THROUGH, an indie new and used bookstore in Portland at 3932 N Mississippi Ave . We will be there at 1:30 this Saturday December 3rd. Hope to see you there

I’m so thrilled to once again be a part of Portland’s premier book event. I’ll be doing a pop up reading of The Turn of the Tide at the Portland Art Museum I spent a terrific afternoon scouting locations for it. With a little luck I’ll be able to involve a little bit of audience participation art as well.

But the big excitement is that I will be moderating a panel with the authors of these lovely books: local writer Kathleen Lane who wrote The Best Worst Thing and National Book Award nominee Jason Reynolds who wrote Ghost. We will chat about the joys and particular challenges of writing realistic fiction for young readers. It will be at 4:15 in the Miller Gallery of the Portland Art Museum. It’s going to be a day full of inspiring book talk. I hope you can join us Saturday November 5th at the Portland Art Museum!

I’ve got a busy fall. In addition to writing a new story that I’m absolutely over the moon about, I have a bunch of appearances in the next few weeks. I will be talking about bookstore events and what makes them work. I bring a perspective of a writer who has traveled to about a dozen bookstores in the last year. I’m also a bookseller at the Annie Blooms in Portland.

I’ll be chatting with writers at the Oregon SCBWI PAL meeting at the Belmont library Saturday September 24th at 3pm. It’s a gathering for published writers and illustrators. I will also be at the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Trade Show on the 30th of September. I’ll be part of a panel about making bookstore appearances work. The trade show is in Tacoma at the Hotel Murano. They have a full day of educational programing for writers, librarians, and booksellers.

And then on the 8th of October I’m so thrilled to be spending my day with the terrific teachers and librarians who come to the Oregon Council of Teachers of English conference at Wilsonville High School. I’ll be doing a workshop on using books across the curriculum with Deborah Hopkinson and one about New and Notable books for use in the classroom. I will also be on an author’s panel. Lots of good stuff. Hope to see you there!

Over the years, my family has watched tv less and less and we have spent more time at home making music. This week we finally took the plunge and got rid of the tv altogether to make more room for playing the piano, the guitar, the violin, and my beautiful new harp. I love everything about our new music room. It’s not that I dislike tv. I’ve just lost  interest over time and I’m eager to see what these new changes will bring to our lives.  I’m also feeling a huge debt of gratitude to the many music teachers and musicians my family has been privileged to know and who have steadily encouraged me and my husband and children in their music-making endeavors. I’m thinking particularly of Deb Burgess and Roberta Jackson of the Portland Symphonic Girl Choir, and the Boulding Family of Magical Strings, and Elizabeth Nicholson, my harp teacher, and Colleen Raney one of many Irish musicians who have inspired us all.  I owe a debt of gratitude greater than I could ever repay to the brilliant author and chamber musician Virginia Euwer Wolff who helped me believe that I didn’t have to choose between writing and music and that the two could enrich each other.

After many months on the road with book events and college visits and writers’ conferences I’m finally home for the remainder of the summer and writing a new story. As much as I love the process of starting with nothing but a blank page and an idea, I’ve been doing this long enough that I know how long its going to take me to get to a solid story that is ready to take into the world. And for that reason I have found great comfort in one of the birds that shares my yard.

Last year this bird built a nest above my porch. It looked like this–a marvel of avian engineering.

And this year I have seen no fewer than five failed attempts at a nest all over my yard. They look like this.

I kind of love it that even a bird doesn’t get something as elemental to bird-ness as building a nest right the first time. He did eventually succeed and we have baby birds about ready to fledge now. But I’m going to take these sagging collections of grass and twig as permission to make this first draft as messy as it needs to be. And I hope you will too.