Though I always point to MOMMY, THERE’S NOTHING TO DO as my first book, that’s not quite accurate. Technically I wrote one and a half books before it. But I lacked the faith in myself to call myself a book author or pursue publication. MOMMY, THERE’S NOTHING TO DO was published in 1993, less than a year after I wrote it and sent it around to a number of publishers. But it was back in 1984 that a friend contacted me and told me she had been approached by a company that wanted her to ghostwrite a book she didn’t...

What are you going to read this year? While it’s always fun to reread favorite books, I’m sure you’re going to read plenty of new books, too. But here’s a suggestion: Don’t just read new books—read new kinds of books, too. Explore your bookstore and/or your library for books outside your usual spheres of interest.

“I’d love to be a writer,” someone said to me the other day, “but I have no ideas on what to write about.” She seemed to think it was that simple: Just think of an idea…and write it. Nope. Guess again. Yes, a good idea is crucial to writing a book (or writing anything, for that matter—stories, essays, poems, plays, song lyrics…you name it), but it takes much more than just an idea to result in a good story. Surely you’ve noticed that some writing plods while other writing sings and soars. Some writers have the gift, while other writers...

I’m sure it will come as no surprise to you that in my childhood one of my favorite presents—for Christmas, my birthday, or “just because”—was books. I absolutely devoured books, rereading my faves over and over, and pouncing on new books like a three-day-hungry feline on an unfortunate rodent. I still love books, only now I no longer just read them; I write them, too.

I called up a pre-school the other day. I was looking to book myself in for a reading of one of my books. “What do you charge?” asked the woman at the other end of the line. “There’s no reading fee,” I answered. “I just want to be permitted to hand out slips of paper with the website where the book can be purchased if the kids can persuade their parents to buy the book for them.”

Is a picture truly worth 1000 words as they say? Or is a word worth 1000 pictures? Case # 1 (a lack of pictures): I was reading one of the stories in Tuck-In Tales to a group of kindergartners-1st graders-2nd graders. They clamored to see the pictures. I told them there were no pictures. A collective “Awwwww!” of disappointment raced through the crowd. Turned out they loved the story, but clearly for them a picture (or several) would have indeed enhanced the words.

Lately I have been reading to the kids in an after-school program not too terribly far from my home. I go over there every week or 10 days or so. There’s no set schedule—the program supervisor and I put our heads together over the phone, consult our respective calendars, and work out dates that are good for both of us.

What am I grateful for this Thanksgiving? Many things indeed, and of course not all of them are related to reading or writing. But plenty of them are: First above all, I am grateful for my God-given talent for writing (and editing). Without that ability, I don’t know what I would be doing for a living, but I cannot imagine I could possibly enjoy it as much as I enjoy what I actually do. Second, I am grateful for publishers such as Roundtable who value my work and publish it.

A comment made online in the wake of the recent tragedy in Paris stated how very much the commenter wished to return to Paris—now more than ever. It made me stop and think. While surely nothing can take the place of a for-real trip to Paris—or Greece or the Himalayas or Fiji, or, closer to home, the Grand Canyon, L.A., New York, or wherever it is your heart yearns to wander, a book can “take us to Paris”—or, for that matter, 18th century London, a trip that isn’t even possible in real life, at least until someone invents a time...

I had originally intended this week’s blogpost to revolve around cursive (script) writing, and whether or not it’s a lost art or should be taught in the schools. I will still touch on that subject, but my blogpost, like Topsy, “just growed,” at least in my head, as I was formulating it. Here is the dilemma: