Book Launch with Jo Knowles and Ellen Wittlinger!

I’m happy to be launching Finding Wonders at the Odyssey Bookshop on September 27 at 6:30 with my friends Jo Knowles and Ellen Wittlinger, both of whom will be celebrating new books of their own. Jo just published Still a Work in Progress and Ellen’s latest novel is Local Girl Swept Away. We’ll all read a bit and talk about inspiration and what keeps us going. Spoiler. The answer to that last part is partly: each other. But we’ll give more details.

I met Jo about sixteen years ago at an SCBWI critique group generously led by Jane Yolen in the basement of the Hatfield, MA library. People took turns reading new work, taking a break in the middle of the evening to pull out a carton filled with boxes of various kinds of tea from a carton kept under the stairway. There were also celebrations with champagne when someone sold their first book.

I’d read Ellen’s YA novels before I ever met her, but we became friends when she moved to western Massachusetts. Over the years, Jo, Ellen, me, and other friends sometimes met at each other’s houses or in coffee shops to write, inspired by each other’s quiet company, and discuss events that are dramatic in a writer’s life, though from the outside they might not seem like so much. We cheer for each success and wince together when we hear about hurdles. We’re all lucky with our families, but writers understand writers. And that is something to celebrate, too.

I hope you’ll come hear us talk about some of this and read from our newest books. There will be hugs, laughs, and cookies. What more fun could you have on a Tuesday evening?

Here we are three years ago when Jo had just published See You at Harry’s.