It’s all about belonging…

That’s the title of the latest episode of The Children’s Book Podcast featuring yours truly. It’s always a pleasure and an honor to speak with author/educator/librarian Matthew C. Winner. We first met four years ago when A Place Inside of Me came out; it’s one of Matthew’s favorite picture books and we got a lot of love last week during our Pittsburgh visit. Since it was Banned Books Week, I talked a lot about the two challenges to our book in VA and TN, and the way the community rallied around their kids’ right to read. Our presentations at Environmental Charter School were so well received that they’ve decided to make it an annual tradition! Noa and I were treated like rockstars, and one fan of mine was so starstruck she couldn’t read out the introduction she had prepared with her friends. Turns out one of my hosts, Betsy, has a sister who works at the school and SHE introduced Lana to the Dragons in a Bag series. I left a copy of the prequel for their school library, and The Oracle’s Door may be in more libraries thanks for Literacy Nation, Inc. President Richard E. Ashby, Jr. reached out after another Black mover-and-shaker librarian, Tracie D. Hall, tagged him on a Facebook post where I urged people to consider not just banned books, but the many books by marginalized authors that never get published due to bias in the industry. Here’s some great advice Richard offers to libraries:

Right now I have some interest from two editors at a boutique press but I’m not holding my breath. Purple has finished the 17 illustrations for The Witch of the Woods and today I’ll review them so she can make final revisions. Then we design the book and hope that IngramSpark sends me a perfect proof (ha)! It’s the first day of October so I’m still hopeful that the book can be ready by mid-month. Halloween is near…