Tag Archives: events

Book Tour: Bay Area Edition

Finally, I’m getting a chance to post some fun pictures from phase two of the West Coast tour I was on with Elana K. Arnold to promote our new young adult and middle grade novels. We were hosted by Elana’s sister and nephew, who I fell in love with. Plus, I got to see one of my cousins too. I loved hearing about her geology dissertation project! (Be scared of earthquakes, people!) Here are some highlights from our Bay Area swing!

#1

We did a school visit at a lovely school in Davis, California, called The Peregrine School. Fun fact: The Saw Whet School in Elana’s book,  A BOY CALLED BAT, was based on Peregrine. The kids were great and so was the paper mache sloth in the entry way!

#2

We had a very lively and slightly argumentative crowd at Logos Books, which is a nonprofit bookstore that benefits the Davis Public Library. Ask us sometime over a drink (hint, hint).

#3

We took this picture with a giraffe for Heidi Schulz because we love her and her book GIRAFFES RUIN EVERYTHING!

#4

Avid Reader in Davis did an amazing window display for our middle grade event, which was attended by a very enthusiastic young girl and her parents. (Yeah, just one! Sometimes that’s how it goes.) Elana and I thought she was the bomb!

#5

Stephanie Kuehn is exactly as smart and insightful as everyone says. We had an amazing discussion in Oakland at A Great Good Place for Books. But you should know that I bought a copy of her book THE SMALLER EVIL and it freaked me out. (Read it! You’ll see!)

And that, my friends, is how we rolled on Book Tour: Bay Area Edition. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if you have a chance to go on tour with Elana, TAKE IT! She couldn’t be more delightful to travel with! XO

Book Tour: Southern California Edition

This spring, I have teamed up with the lovely author Elana K. Arnold for a book tour. We’re a great match up because we both have new middle grade novels (A BOY CALLED BAT and the QUARTZ CREEK RANCH series) as well as new young adult novels (WHAT GIRLS ARE MADE OF and POINTE, CLAW). For each stop on our tour, we are doing both a middle grade event and a YA event. I’ve just returned from the Southern California leg of our tour, and I am bubbly with things to report!

#1

Elana has a bird named Bird, a cat, and two dogs, including this endearing fluffball, who won my heart even though she ate my toothbrush!

#2

The Getty Museum is an architectural marvel perched on a hill overlooking Los Angeles. The paintings inside and the gardens outside were spectacular.

#3

Highland Park has vegan tacos and vegan donuts and men in high-waisted plaid pants. The Pop-Hop is a very cool bookstore, and I got to hang out with Antonio Sacre, one of my favorite writer-storytellers.


#4

Once Upon a Storybook in Tustin has reading nooks, a mouse door, and a wall of fame for authors to sign. I saw lots of my fav books on the shelves including VOLCANO RISING, THE MUSIC OF LIFE, THE SOMEDAY BIRDS, and RAMBLER STEALS HOME.


#5

Gatsby Books in Long Beach has a store cat, a Carrie Fisher super fan, and was hosting a Night Vale event right after Elana and I talked about Feminism and the Female Body. I regret that I did not buy a t-shirt!

#6

Planning an extra play day turned out to be a stroke of brilliance. The beach had whales and dolphins and lots of teeny-tiny bath suit bottoms.

#7

We ate at Snow Monster, and I found my new life motto.

#8

Being with Elana K. Arnold is incredibly inspiring. She’s a brilliant, deep thinker, and her books are some of the best I’ve ever read. We wrote together every day,  talked about our new WIPs, and debriefed this weird business we work in. She fed me donuts and let me hang out with her super cool family. I am grateful to call her my friend.

#9

We are coming for you in the Bay Area, Portland, and Seattle. Click here to go to my events page for details.

Repeating the Ancient Tale

On Saturday, my sweet daughter will be called to the Torah as a bat mitzvah. She will lead our community in ancient prayers and chant ancient words, and more importantly she will find her own meaning in them.

As Jews, our task is to wrestle with narrative–to preserve history, to reinterpret the past, and to write new stories that will carry us into the future. It’s a tradition that resonates with me as a writer and as a person who has seen again and again the power of stories to change lives.

Also on Saturday, in a beautiful intersection of occurrences, my next novel, POINTE, CLAW, enters the world. Somehow it seems fitting that this book, which wrestles with the challenges girls and women face in our culture, is born alongside my daughter’s passage into adulthood in the Jewish community. It’s a fierce story and she is a fierce girl.

I hope you’ll understand that I’ll be focusing on my daughter this weekend. Book celebrations will follow later in the week. I’ll be posting a series of answers to questions posed by early readers of POINTE, CLAW–some serious, some goofy, some revelatory–also I’ll be sharing a mind-blowing review by a teen reader. Lots of book events to come in Los Angeles area, the Bay Area, Portland, and Seattle. Details here.

To close, I want to leave you with one of my favorite poems. (I honestly don’t know the author. It’s been attributed to multiple people.) I’ve shared it before. These are words I return to again and again. I offer them in love.

We are simply asked
to make gentle our bruised world
to be compassionate of all,
including oneself,
then in the time left over
to repeat the ancient tale
and go the way of God’s foolish ones.

This weekend we repeat the ancient tale and go forth to make gentle this bruised world. Join us.