Saving the Griffin is a nominee for the 2009/10 Georgia Children's Book Award and the 2010 Kentucky Bluegrass Award!

I started a blog. Nitz Bits is a place where I'll be sharing some informal opinions on reading, writing, researching and revising.

LATEST NEWS

I'm taking part in Peachtree's virtual author visits in schools program. If you'd like to see me in my office, click here.

Go behind the scenes with Saving the Griffin on my blog. Read about the people and places that inspired the characters and the action. Learn about how the people at Peachtree Publishers turn a manuscript into a book.

I added an essay on cafe writing to my section on writing advice. Natalie Goldberg wrote the definitive book on this technique in Writing Down the Bones. I've probably been using it for eight or nine years. I've never found a better way to really connect with a new scene.

Saving the Griffin didn't make the final cut for the Mark Twain Award list of nominees, but neither did books by Newbery Medalists Avi and Zilpha Keatley Snyder. I feel like I'm still in very good company!

Here's a wave to the students of Kenowa Hills Intermediate School. They were a wonderfully attentive audience last week. I wish them luck in their upcoming Young Authors Program.

Extra Helping, a bimonthly electronic newsletter from School Library Journal, included Defending Irene in a list of soccer novels where athletes make an impact on and off the field.

I'll be signing my books at the Barnes and Noble in Grandville, Michigan's Rivertown Mall from 11:00 to 1:00. I'm lucky to be spending this time with Sue Thoms, author of the charming picture book, Cesar Takes a Break. (Update: Here's a picture from the event.)

Wow! The Missouri School Library Association put Saving the Griffin on their preliminary list for the annual Mark Twain Readers' Choice Award. The judges will cut this group of 24 books down to 12 nominees. I lived in Missouri for seven years, so one of my writer's dreams has been for one of my books to be nominated. I'm not sure when the final selections will be announced.

I'm delighted to announce that Peachtree just bought my novel, Stand-in for Murder! This is how it was described in Publisher's Lunch: a YA mystery in which a teenage girl has a summer job at her grandmother's B&B where her duties include stepping into the role of the victim at the annual mystery weekend in a plot designed to unearth new clues about her mother's disappearance.

The March, 2008 issue of Library Sparks recommended Defending Irene as one of their 'insightful soccer selections.'

Profound thanks go out to my sister-in-law, Marje, who insisted that it was time this site had a complete redesign and then proceeded to carry one out. In a few hours, she pulled together something clean and simple that I could maintain myself. She also produced the new banner. Lovely!

I enjoyed taking part in the Michigan Reading Association's 52nd Annual Conference, Bound Together by Literacy . I gave two presentations and had the chance to hang out with a bunch of wonderful Michigan teachers and authors.