Julie Swanson

April 23, 2025

I enjoyed this middle grade novel by Kyle Lukoff. Although it felt more like YA to me, more like it's for jr. high school readers and above and not for elementary school kids–the age range given for it is 10-14 years old–it was an interesting mix of realistic/fantastical, secular/Jewish, historical/contemporary (historical in that it's set right after the covid lockdown ended; contemporary in that that's barely historical and also in that it explores LGBTQIA+ themes such as transphobia that are unfortunately still as relevant today, five years later, …and probably will be for at least a few more by the looks of it). The story begins with a group of kids and their parents attending SOSAD (Save Our Sons And Daughters) group conversion therapy sessions, sessions the kids hate but must willingly attend or they're away (exactly where their defiant friends disappear to, they don't know). The main character, a trans boy named A, and his Jewish parents don't go to synagogue anymore, and A's notion of G-d is something he's not so sure about …until a golem starts showing up in his life at unpredictable times, in the form of a vaguely human-shaped being made of swirling refuse that comes to life wherever A might be at the time, made up of garbage or dirt or whatever's lying around outside or in the room A's in.

More weird things begin happening–A sees things he couldn't before, things people around him can't, and he becomes inhabited by other's spirits, evil spirits/demons whom he sort of takes in and exorcises– and A's convinced he's being asked to do things, big things, brave things. A gets kind of high on his horse and snarky once in a while, but I found it realistic, given his situation. I won't say any more except 1.) I learned a lot about Jewish mythology, and 2.) read this story.

March 17, 2025

So many fresh things about this young adult book (lower YA). I really enjoyed it! Being married to a college coach and knowing what that's like, and seeing what our kids' experience of growing up with a coach for a dad was like, I found the "coach's-kid" aspect of the book very interesting, and realistic. It's not something that's written about much.

I used to joke in my first decade or so of marriage that I should write a book called So You Want to Marry a Coach... and make it clear what that's like and what you'd better be ready to accept that comes with it. As a former college athlete, I felt I was fortunate to understand how a two-hour practice really means four or more; the time before needed to get ready and get out there early, and the time after to work with those who want a little extra help and to talk to players and trainers and deal with problems that come up and shower and come home. How could a spouse who hadn't played sports understand/believe that, have the patience for it, I wondered--as even I had been one of those athletes who came early and stayed late after practice. And someone considering marrying a coach needed to understand that games take even longer--not even including the game day office work and/or recruiting visits that often come before and after the game. And thenevery game must be watched again on video, usually that same night, and often not just once, and not just straight through either, but starting and stopping to watch things in slow-mo, to edit the video you're going to have the players watch. So take every game and double or triple the length of it and add on those hours, too... Don't forget the missed holidays and school events, the late nights, the non-existent weekends, the endless recruiting calls you have to listen to at night and in the car, vacations that often involve the sport somehow... The atmosphere in the house the morning after a big loss that feels like someone died. It can be more than a lot, and not many outside the coaching world can totally appreciate what it means and the lifestyle.

So when the two main characters of this book--both daughters of DI head men's basketball coaches--meet each other at the beginning of the story and find out they not only go to the same school and both love basketball but that their dad's are both college basketball coaches in the same town as well (Cincinnati; Xavier and the U of Cincinnati), they are like, "Someone who understands!"

FREE THROWS, FRIENDSHIP, AND OTHER THINGS WE FOULED UP is told from four points of view, the two daughters of the coaches, and their two dads when they were younger. The girls' story is contemporary, their dads' story begins in 1990 and is backstory until it catches up to and collides with the present. It's also an interesting book because it's a girls' basketball story and yet it's not. What I mean is that the girls' playing and enjoyment of basketball is secondary to the friendship, school, and family stories in the book (I kept wondering when I was going to get to "see" one of them practice or play! I finally did). The one girl has even given up playing basketball at the outset and just enjoys it as a super-fan of her dad's team. It's mostly a story about friendships and family within the sport-obsessed culture of their lives. But it's great--funny, heartwarming, thoughtful, with a bit of a mystery to solve, a little budding romance... The dialogue, basketball lingo, and description of basketball action are spot on. I particularly liked a couple quirky, unexpected characters, including a nun who coached and played and could dunk!

Congratulations and thanks to Jenn Bishop for this book!

January 12 , 2025

The cover for my upcoming middle grade novel is finalized, and I'm excited to be able to share it! With images that fit my story well and striking color combinations (blues and blue-greens are my favorite colors), I'm really happy with it. The team at SparkPress, led by Art Director Julie Metz, did a great job. North of Tomboy is set to be published September 2, 2025. 

In an author interview a couple months ago, I was asked, What does "Reading with Pride" mean to you?" Which really made me think--not what do I think it means to others, not what do I think it's supposed to mean, but what does it mean to me? I came up with something like this (only shorter, since there were a number of questions I was to answer), and, June being Pride month, I thought I'd share it:

To me "Reading with Pride" means being happy about how far we've come in making books featuring LBGTQ+ characters available for kids ...and enjoying these books ...and being able to march into a library or bookstore and take such a book up to the counter to buy it or check it out without having to feel ashamed or afraid of what others might think. (Yes, there are still those who would judge you for having such a book in your hand, but these books are mainstream media now, not something most kids or adults feel they have to hide. Even straight and cis people read and enjoy these books.) The opposite of shame is pride.

Growing up, I couldn't find a book with anyone in it who was like I was in terms of my level of discomfort with my gender, and there was no one I knew like that in real life either. I felt like I was the only one in the world so unhappy to be a girl. Sure, there were a few books with tomboys in them—Caddie Woodlawn, Little Women, Zanbanger and Zanballer—but they weren't as an extreme a tomboy as I was, and it always disappointed me when those stories ended with the main character becoming more civilized or ladylike or falling in love with a boy. As a kid, I did not want to read about a tomboy giving in to being civilized and ladylike and being fine with that, or having a boy be the thing that made her happy to be a girl in the end. But now there are all sorts of books with characters representing every letter in the LGBTQIA+ acronym. SO many more kids are able to see themselves reflected in stories and know that they're not alone in how they feel. And that is something to be celebrated, to be proud of as a person who writes and/or publishes books with characters in them who would've never been read about in years past. 

May 29, 2025

After a little shipping snafu, my ARCs finally arrived–not the greatest timing, though, just as we were leaving on a trip to go visit our daughter in Italy. It was exciting to see them, and I was pleasantly surprised not to be at all disappointed about anything about them (I was expecting that I might have to adjust the front endpaper map where the pages meet in the spine)! But it also meant having to wait a week to do anything with them, and proofreading the book yet again before it goes to print for real. Which was hard to do when you're in Sardinia for the first time and there's so much to explore and beloved people you don't get to see often who you want to enjoy spending time with! On the plane ride home, I did manage to finish it, and only found two minor things I'd want changed, and I doubt anyone but me would see them as errors.

So we just got back and now I have to send these ARCs out to reviewers who've requested them, take them in person to the bookstores I contacted who've been waiting to see them…

Ollie in Between is so good!. I have a lot to say about this upper middle grade book. It's hard to know where to begin. But let's begin where I did, with its cover. The cover art misled me but, after reading the book, I think it mislead me in a good way.

I thought this was a boy on the cover, or an unhappy trans girl who hasn't been able to stop puberty and isn't allowed to present the way she wants to in the way she dresses (the hairy legs, mustache, clothes... I can't tell what's going on with the hair, all that dark stuff mounded on and around the head and neck. Even after reading the book, the way the hair's portrayed on the cover doesn't make sense to me, unless it's a huge exaggeration, showing how it feels to have so much hair). But it's not a boy or a trans girl. Ollie isn't even sure what she is, what they are; at the beginning of this first-person present novel, "she/her" pronouns are used and Ollie doesn't object to people using them, but at the end, she starts using "they/them." At least around her friends she's testing that out; Ollie's thinks it would be weird to have family use "they/them" with everything still so new and uncertain.

That's what I love about this book--the uncertainty. I was a kid much like Ollie in terms of gender--confused, feeling in-between but definitely not with enough "girl" in me that I could ever grow up to be a woman (like Ollie, I did NOT want to grow up to be a woman!). I knew I didn't like being a girl, didn't think I was all or even very much girl, but I knew I wasn't all boy either, and doubted I could ever be anything more or other than this boy-girl creature who leaned more toward boy. I've read a ton of LGBTQIA+ middle grade and YA fiction, and it's rare that a story leaves off with the main character still in limbo about what they are. They usually decide, find a label they can embrace, maybe even come out to family and friends announcing the label they're applying to themselves. Or it isn't a coming-out type story and instead begins with the main character more decidedly one thing or another, or at least sure that they're nonbinary. I always read these stories thinking, Really, at twelve or thirteen or fourteen, they all know exactly what they are and can swear that's what they'll be from now on? How can they be sure when they're that young? So I found Ollie's uncertainty refreshing. The only thing Ollie knows for sure is that they're uncomfortable being a girl, do not want to be a woman, and aren't really a boy either--even though they want to present more as a boy, probably to make their feelings about being a girl or woman clear. I could really relate! Beyond that, the book was just really thoughtful and funny. The characters were great. There's a touching scene with the dad near the end that made me cry. Puberty plays a big part in the story, and all of Ollie's musings on what it means to become or to be a woman--Ollie's million-dollar question for friends, family, friends' mothers, teachers. I don't want to give away anything about the plot and spoil things for readers, so...

Back to the cover and why I think it's misleading in a good way. It's honest: Ollie's got dark hair and lots of it (so does Ollie's older sister, who would have a unibrow if she didn't pluck her brow). Ollie's long thick hair hangs down and largely goes untended. Ollie doesn't shave or wear a bra yet. Ollie plays hockey on a boys team and doesn't love wearing dresses or skirts. So the cover is great at portraying a 13-year-old who looks like Ollie. Which made me a bit jealous, because when it comes to my own book cover (North of Tomboy, coming out September 2, 2025), which I like but would look a bit different if I'd gotten my way instead of having to compromise with my publisher's cover design team, I'd envisioned a girl who was built more like my main character. I had a lot of input in my cover design before they started working on it. Of the first six cover concepts they showed me, I liked one of them right away, except that the silhouette of the girl was wrong, needed fixing (see below, left). She looked like Barbie's little sister, Skipper--thin arms, narrow shoulders, a definite waist, curvy teenage hips starting already. She was too tall, too developed, too girlish, not hardy enough. She looked willowy and feminine with smooth hair that flipped out as if she'd just had it styled. I asked them to make her look younger, stronger, stouter, more athletic, give her broad shoulders, a waist not much smaller than her hips, and messy hair. My main character is described in North of Tomboy as a straight-bodied, rough-n-tumble 9/10-year-old who has a hard time fitting in jeans and shirts and dresses due to her broad shoulders and muscular legs... She's not 13, not neat and lady-like and all put together!

I searched online for a picture of girl who fit the bill, traced her outline and blackened-in her entire head and body. After creating a silhouette I liked, I sent it to my publisher in an email–they'd asked for feedback–basically, saying, "Here, something more like this (or exactly this if you want to use it!)" I think she was too much for them because they came back with a still tidy-looking girl (except her hair, which was a huge improvement) who was still too tall and thin, too narrow-shouldered, too broad-hipped, too small-waisted. Instead of holding a fern, she had her hands on her hips, which I liked, actually thought was better than my muscle-making girl. But the silhouette still looked too old and feminine in build, so I again asked them to make her shorter, stronger, and straighter in build. They came back with…

…my final cover, which I'm really pretty happy with. Though I would've made the girl's silhouette even more like my little burly wild-child, I thought this was a good compromise between the look they were going for and the look I was going for. I think they wanted readers to be able to look at a thumbnail of the cover and know that it's a girl, to not be thinking boy or being confused whether it's a boy or a girl. But I would've loved to have been able to be as honest in my cover art as Ollie in Between was. (Although I wonder if some girls are going to pass on Ollie in Between based on its cover, thinking it's about a boy. If I'd been able to put the figure I wanted on my cover, maybe people would've been confused, too, like I was about Ollie in Between and what and who it was about. Who knows, maybe only girls will want to pick up my book, while if it had a truly androgynous figure on the cover, both boys and girls would reach for it. But the word "tomboy" in my title might steer it toward girls… ???) In the end, I trusted that the cover designers knew better than me, from a marketing standpoint.

Anyway, this is a post about Ollie in Between, or at least it started that way. What I wouldn't have given to read a book like this as a kid (better late than never). Gender-wise, Ollie's so much like my main character Jess in North of Tomboy, only a few years older (as Jess will be in the next book in my series) and living in the modern world instead of 1973. I highly recommend this novel for readers ten and up. Thank you for writing this, Jess Callans!

(see my blog post on this if you want to see more of the pictures that were originally in this post. I was having trouble getting them all to be a part of this newsletter entry on my website)

I just read this book to my four-year-old granddaughter. She seemed to love it as much as I always have. This has long been my favorite Easter time story. Even as a little kid, I remember loving its empowering feminist message–that maybe like the Country Bunny, I could be a mama and have babies but I could also have other dreams and there would be time to pursue them as well, that those kinds of dreams weren't just for boy jack rabbits and Grandfather Bunnies. When Grandfather Bunny sees beyond Cottontail's role as a busy (and excellent) mother to recognize that she's "not only wise, and kind, and swift, but also very clever" and he picks her to take over as the next Easter Bunny, well, I remember finding that so unexpected, so unbelievably wonderful!

The Country Bunny, written by Du Bose Heyward and illustrated by Marjorie Flack, was published in 1939. It truly is a classic. If you haven't read it, or if the little people in your life haven't, get it and enjoy!

April 13, 2025

I'm a bit late in sharing this but click here to read--> https://canvasrebel.com/meet-julie-swanson

February 4, 2025

I recently saw a video on Instagram, in which a 25-year-old woman stood at a podium at some type of public forum talking about how she'd been groomed as a child to be transgender and claiming that her school had had a huge part in this. She said "media similar to the book Lily and Dunkin (a novel for readers 10 to 13-year-olds written by Donna Gephardt) had led her into having gender dysphoria at fourteen," and then she was suddenly surrounded by "trans everything" and this made her believe that her body "was wrong and needed fixing with surgeries and hormones." She said all she really needed was for someone to tell her it is OK to be a tomboy, but instead she was "walked down a path of suicidal ideations and anxiety" due to media like this book that is available to seventh graders. She asked why we want to teach children that their bodies are wrong, that self-hatred is good, that they need to chop off healthy body parts in order to find happiness. Why, she asked in addressing the audience, did "people like you need to tell me as a little girl that I needed to self-harm in order to be truly happy."

I doubt that's what the author of Lily and Dunkin wanted to teach children. I doubt that's what the librarian or anyone at her school wanted to teach children. The notion that there is this rampant phenomenon where people are preying on children in schools and trying to influence them to be transgender, well, that's pretty unbelievable to me. During this fall's election campaign, one of our presidential candidates would say things like, How would you like it if you sent your son to school and he came back a girl? Because that's what's going on...["Can you imagine your child goes to school and they don't even call you, and they change the sex of your child?... Your child goes to school and they take your child: It was a he, and comes back a she. And they do this. And they do it, and often without parental consent."] As a former teacher and now an author of book with a gender-confused character in it, that made me angry, such a far-fetched stretch of anything that could happen, a non-truth put out there to scare people. Sure, kids get confused (I did, without any media to blame), they take things the wrong way, they experiment with ideas that get into their heads one way or another. And, yes, sometimes it truly is bad; we know there are adults who groom children to take advantage of them sexually. But the vast majority of LGBTQ-friendly adults who work in and/or have influence in schools--counselors, teachers, coaches, parents, therapists, clergy, authors of books for kids--are simply trying to help children (not hurt them, not groom them) by talking to struggling students about what they might going through or pointing them to books which might help them feel less alone, less misunderstood, or which might help them understand what struggling classmates are going through. 

When I saw this video I immediately wanted to read Lily and Dunkin. I'd seen this book on various websites a number of times. It's highly rated, reviewed, recommended, won a lot of awards. Its Amazon page is prominently marked with the black banner of having been chosen as a "Teacher's Pick." Why hadn't I read Lily and Dunkin, I wondered, when I had so many other middle grade and YA books with LBGTQ+ characters in them? I'd considered buying it a number of times. Maybe it's because the book came out in hardcover 2016 and I'd been looking for more recently-published things. I'm not sure. But I ordered it the day I saw this Instagram post. I was curious to see what it is about it that could so influence a girl, that it would be the only title she mentions.

I had other issues with this Instagram video (even before getting the book). When was it filmed? I couldn't find the date. It must be at least a few years ago, because in it the young woman says she's 25, which means it would've been eleven years ago that she was fourteen and first "led into having gender dysphoria." Eleven years ago from now it was 2014; Lily and Dunkin wasn't even published yet. So the video is either at least a few years old, and she really did read this book at fourteen or earlier, and it had a big impact on her, OR she read it after she was fourteen and had been led into having gender dysphoria and--for some reason--she singled this one book out as representative of the type of media she was taking in when she was younger. Maybe it seemed the perfect example to her, so she chose it as an illustration of the kind of book she's saying kids shouldn't have access to. Either way, it seems unfair to the book, to the author. And it seems unfair to her school, as well, to blame her gender dysphoria on ideas she got from the media available there and saying that her school had a huge part in her grooming. This same book would've been available at a public library. She could have found it there. She could've found it at home while searching online and then gone to a library to get it. Your school isn't the only place you're going to find books, videos, and articles if you're a kid looking for them. And, no, I'm not saying these kinds of books are bad or dangerous. Books shouldn't be banned even if people sometimes misconstrue the things they read in them.

To be fair, I don't know this young woman's entire story, exactly what happened in her situation, so I'm not saying she's wrong or lying, and I'm sympathetic to her struggle--I struggled with not wanting to be a girl for years myself. I'm just sticking up for schools and books that, in most cases, are not to blame, are not grooming kids to be transgender.

...I've finished reading Lily and Dunkin. [[SPOILER: don't read the rest of this paragraph if you don't want part of the story to be given away.]] It's not at all what I thought it would be based on the young woman's mention of it in the video. It doesn't come from a super liberal perspective--this teen doesn't decide on a whim to reject the gender she was assigned at birth; this kid has felt this way since earliest memory and, although everyone's picked up on that, it hasn't always been embraced, still isn't by certain family members, and definitely hasn't been by most schoolmates. The story takes things super slow (so slow you wonder if this person's ever going to be able to come out publicly), shows the pain and anguish of parents not on the same page about their child being transgender and not on the same page about kids taking puberty-blockers, etc. Though it does have a flashback to this character as a small child wishing a body part could be snipped off, it's not about self-harm (no cutting themselves, burning themselves, having suicidal thoughts) or chopping off body parts, it's not about surgeries, doesn't discuss those as things the character's considering. The story very poignantly shows the difficulty Lily (deadname Tim, although only her mom, sister, and best friend call her Lily at the beginning of the story) has being seen either as a "fag" boy (as some boys call Lily, who still doesn't go by Lily at school, or dress as she'd like to in public; her dad disapproves of that, fearing for her safety) OR being seen as a "girl" (also said in a jeering, derogatory way, as if being a girl is a bad, weak, disgusting thing). Lily's plain old "damned if she does, damned if she doesn't." The only way she wouldn't be harassed, bullied, and abused by her peers (yes, she's physically and emotionally abused at school) is if she were to be totally fake and act macho (even then, I don't think her act would be convincing—Lily doesn't seem to have it in her to know how to act macho), or if she moved to a different school or town maybe, somewhere with a culture more accepting of gender variance.

Anyway, long story short, the video posted on Instagram was unfair to Lily and Dunkin and Donna Gephardt in singling her book out (and unfair to other books and authors of books with LGBTQ characters in them). Lily and Dunkin is a story full of love and forgiveness and people trying to do the right thing in a world where kids can be unkind and things aren't always clearcut. It's a good book. So many banned middle grade and YA books are!

February 9, 2025

My middle grade novel NORTH OF TOMBOY (coming out in September) is now available for pre-order. So exciting to see it listed places online!

Simon & Schuster: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/North-of-Tomboy/Julie-A-Swanson/9781684633302 

Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/p/books/north-of-tomboy-a-novel-julie-a-swanson/0e541a49ac280ea2?ean=9781684633302&next=t&next=t

BARNES & NOBLE: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/north-of-tomboy-julie-a-swanson/1146922327?ean=9781684633302

amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1684633303?psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&ref_=chk_typ_imgToDp

February 3, 2025

Want to try some really healthy and delicious recipes for smoothies, protein lattes, desserts, snacks, breakfast bowls, and simple light meals? My daughter has always been into cooking and concocting things, and for the past seven or eight years, ever since she read Woman Code and In the FLO, both by Alissa Vitti, she's been really into cycle syncing (eating and exercising in a way that's in sync with--supportive of--what your body needs during the various phases of your menstrual cycle), especially from a nutrition standpoint. Check out her posts on TikTok and now Instagram, where she offers "easy recipes for each day of your cycle," as well as her Cycle Synced Protein Latte Recipe Book. She's an artist with food and has quite a following! We're really proud of her, and I'm always trying her recipes even though I don't have a reason to care about cycle syncing anymore. Even my husband who has a terrible sweet tooth likes them (they're a great way to cut back on sugar, using dates and other natural sweeteners instead).

December 6, 2024

A couple weeks ago I received some workups for ideas for the cover of my middle grade novel, North of Tomboy (coming out next fall in September of 2025). Although none of them were just right, I was pleasantly surprised that I liked things about almost all of the six or seven ideas I was presented with to look over and give feedback on, and one of them stood out to me as a favorite that I think could be really good with some changes that shouldn't be hard to do, as far as the artwork.

Why was I pleasantly surprised, am I a pessimist who expects the worst? No, but as someone who is artistic herself and has such a definite vision of what she wants her cover to project about her book, I was afraid I might be expecting too much. I can be a perfectionist, and this was one part of my book that I had to totally give over to someone else.

Would I have liked to design my own cover? No, not totally by myself, but I would like input, and the final say as to, yes, it's ready. I was and have been asked for ideas, lots of them--examples of book covers I like, stock images that seem to fit my main character, photos, ideas for images that might be used on it, fonts I like, colors, color combos, styles... I actually couldn't believe how much input the cover art team gives authors. But while I might have an artistic eye, I don't necessarily know what sells, what's current in the middle grade cover world. Yes, I looked at many recently published middle grade books (art vs. realitic photographs seems to be the thing now) and YA books, (again, art), but as to what kind of art? That was all over the place. In a world where so many books are sold online, a cover image the size of a stamp (on a cell phone or iPad) has to pop, so often the small, little details aren't as important or readily visible, don't show unless a person is interested enough to click on it and see it larger. I didn't want a cover that might look dated either. For those reasons, I really wanted my cover to be designed by someone who does this for a living and considers things in terms of 2024 and beyond. And the cover art team seems receptive to feedback, so I'm excited to see what they do with it. We'll see... Hopefully I can share the cover soon!

Last week I found out that my publisher's going to stick with the title I've been using for my middle grade novel that's coming out next fall. I hadn't heard, and many other authors in our SparkPress "cohort" of Fall 2025 authors were saying that their titles had been changed, or were going to be changed once they could agree/decide on a new one, but that you really couldn't be sure what your title was until they (someone at the SparkPress) told you they were keeping your title or changing it, and that if they wanted to change it, they would come up with suggestions, things they liked better, but that it was a collaborative thing and they were very good at coming up with title ideas. I haven't heard a thing about my title (sometimes for me, ignorance is bliss, and I'd rather be in the dark than ask and hear the scary answer; but there usually comes a point where I just really need/want to know...), so last week in a Zoom with the publisher to discuss my illustrations, I got up the courage to ask if they'd decided to keep my title or change it. She said something to the effect of, "Oh, we thought you knew; we like it." Phew. So, North of Tomboy it is. Smile. And she said they're fine using the endpaper maps and the little black and white sketches I drew (spot illustrations and vignettes are scattered throughout the book, usually at chapter headings)--they only asked me to improve upon two of them. Another smile. Now I'm curious to see the cover art they come up with for the book...

(...my new book that's coming out September 2025, that is; see my last Newsletter entry, below this one...)

September 4, 2024

I always wanted it to be middle grade, worked hard to make it middle grade and thought it was, but there was some talk that it might be marketed as young adult. I'm relieved that it's not. Nothing wrong with YA books (my first published novel was YA, Going for the Record, Eerdmans BFYR, 2004, 2021), but the main character of my story starts out at 9+ years old ends it at 10+, and the story's innocent and young in nature, so I just didn't see teens being interested in a story about a kid that age (not unless they were like my main character growing up). 

It's interesting that some books with younger main characters are marketed as YA, or even adult. I'll never forget when The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (by Kristin Kemp) came out in 2006 and was marketed as YA when it has a main character who's nine. Yes, it's about Auschwitz and the Holocaust and much of that might be a bit much for young kids, depending on how it's presented, how in depth, but I just wondered how many young adult readers would choose to read about a nine-year-old, or how the publisher was going to make sure younger readers or their parents would come to know about this book. Maybe they felt they had to do this, given the subject matter (I read somewhere that the author himself didn't recommend it for 9-year-old readers), so that parents could decide whether or not to let their children read this. My son was nine at the time it came out. We read books together nightly, a chapter or more at bedtime from some middle grade novel. So I decided to try this book out with him, thinking I could assess as I read to him, stop and talk over or explain anything that seemed difficult or too much for him. We devoured this book; he seemed very interested. We had some great discussions, and nothing brought up by the story seemed to be more than he could understand or handle (I mean who can really understand what happened there?). But I thought it was an interesting choice, to initially market that book as YA. It was reviewed by Booklist as for "Gr. 7-10" and by School Library Journal as for "Grade 9 Up," and I've read other places that it's recommended for teens and adults, but I see now on Amazon that the reading age, according to customers, is given as 9+. So maybe more middle graders are getting their hands on this book now, years after it came out. Books like this are tricky. I tend to agree that this might be one that's best read with a parent, and yet if my son had come home from the school library with this one as a 9-year-old or if I'd found out he was reading it at school all on his own during silent reading each day, I don't think I'd have been worried or upset, even if I knew what the book was about.
 
Having said all that about The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and a story theme that could be considered too mature/difficult for younger readers, I don't see my book as being in that catagory. Yes, my book deals with gender-identity, but in a totally non-sexual and historical way (by which I mean no one is discussing LGBTQ labels/issues or putting anything on the kid or in their mind as some suggest is happening currently; except for the misogyny inherent in my mc's culture, which isn't to be dismissed, everything else is coming from within the kid and how they feel/think/percieve things. I don't see my book ending up on a banned book list, but then I wouldn't have predicted a lot of the books that are on banned book lists would be!

August 30, 2024

I'm excited to announce that I have a new book coming out, tentative publication date of September 2, 2025. I don't want to say too much too soon, but it's juvenile historical fiction set in 1972-73, a semi-autobiographical novel. More to come as I can reveal title and cover. But it's been a long time coming and will be available everywhere books are sold.

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My favorite Writing Books:

The Virgin's Promise, by Kim Hudson

Big Magic, by Elizabeth Gilbert

The Magic Words, by Cheryl B. Cline

Emotional Structure: Creating the Story Behind the Plot, by Peter Dunne

ME, by Brenda Ueland

If You Want to Write, by Brenda Ueland

On Writing, by Stephen King

Walking on Water, by Madeliene L'Engle

The Forest for the Trees; An Editor's Advice to Writers, by Betsy Lerner

Take Joy, by Jane Yolen

Bird by Bird; Some Instructions on Writing and Life, by Anne Lamott

Plot, by Ansen Dibell

Beginnings, Middles & Ends, by Nancy Kress

The Writer's Journey, by Christopher Vogler

Picture Writing, by Anastasia Suen

Writers Dreaming, by Naomi Epel

Hooked, by Les Edgerton

Scene and Structure, by Jack Bickham

Save the Cat!, by Blake Snyder

The Plot Whisperer, by Martha Alderson

I don't pretend to have any writerly advice to give that you can't read a hundred other places. Read, write, write, write, get feedback, revise. Learn all you can wherever and from whoever you can. I would only add; pour it all out there, every little thing you want to, and then prune it, perfect it, ...however long that takes.

For me, it's all about patience and persistance. That's not a fun thing to hear when you are starting out (or when you've just published your first book and are trying to get someone interested in your other manuscripts!) but it's the truth. When I look back and think of some of the things I submitted and how I hoped and prayed that someone would publish them, I just have to say, "Thank God for unanswered prayers!" Time and waiting are really not your enemies; they are your friends. With them, you will only get better, and when that story of yours is finally published it will be so much better than it is now. And if that story means so much to you that you have years' worth of hard work invested in it, then don't you really want to do justice to it and have it be the best it can be?

So we write on, and we believe in what we're doing because we have this story we just have to share. Is it worth it? Is the story that important that we should invest so much in it when we could be doing other things with our time? If we are still working away at it years later (I've been working on one for 37 years, and I still have not lost any enthusiasm for it), then it must be that important to us. And if we are working so hard on something, then it cannot help but be good when it is finished. I don't think that sort of investment is selfish--quite the opposite, I think it is very unselfish to want to share something that badly. To put yourself out there in front of everybody, naked, and not to be doing it for money (most of us will never earn a living doing this), but because you have this story you just must share. That's work that is love.

I write for the child I used to be, and for all of them out there who struggle with the same things I struggled with, or love the same things I loved, the child who I know is dying to read the book I'm writing.

And in all honesty, I also write in the hope (however naive) that one day my writing will enable me to contribute financially to my family. Ha!