OCTOBER

It's been a busy and exciting October. Earlier in the month I held a writing workshop at Page One Bookstore. Yesterday I spoke at the NMCTE conference for English teachers and today I met up with fellow SCBWI writers for a Halloween Booksigning at Bookworks. Bookworks is participating in our book drive for THE JOY OF READING, a collaboration between our local SCBWI chapter and several Albuquerque bookstores to collect books for children at risk. That's Connnie from bookworks on the far right holding up my book, COMFORT. I'm next to her dressed like a Texan and holding TAKE ME THERE. On my left is Kersten Hamilton with her brand new goblin book, TYGER, TYGER. I bought my copy today and can't wait to start reading it. My neighbor, friend, and critique buddy Lois Ruby is showing off SHANGAI SHADOWS and Chris Eboch, our regional SCBWI advisor, unfortunately has a thumb across her face, but at least you can see her book from the HAUNTED series. A random man in the bookstore was nice enought o try to figure out my cell phone camera.


In between all this fun author stuff I was still able to fit in a trip out to the McCall's Pumpin Patch, Haunted Corn Maze, and Haunted Barn with my daughter and her friends. We stood in line for two hours just to get the pants scared off of us in a barn filled with characters from Saw, Friday the Thirteenth, and a several other movies I've never had the guts to see. While we stood in line we were terrorized by some psycho dude in a hockey suit.


And the best news of all came last Friday when Simon Pulse made an offer on my new verse novel,
NO WAY OUT. No, it's not a story about a haunted barn, but there is a haunted hallway that plays a key role in the story. Hooray! I can't wait to work on a new book with my editor, Anica Rissi.