Guest Post: Lesléa Newman on In Writing I Trust

By Lesléa Newman
for Cynthia Leitich Smith's Cynsations

Sometimes a book is years in the making. And the writer doesn’t even know that it is gestating.

Such is the case with my book, October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard (Candlewick, 2012). Unbeknownst to me, I started writing the book on October 12, 1998.

On that Monday morning, I flew to Denver, Colorado, where I was met by a University of Wyoming student who would be taking me to Laramie. The student and I didn’t talk much. She looked t...