We write to taste life twice, in the moment, and in retrospection. –Anais Nin

Good News Update!

Twelve Girls, One Summer has been acquired by Feiwel and Friends!

The pub date is currently Spring, 2013, which sounds like a very long way off. And actually, it is. But that’s fine with me. A pub date’s a pub date.  And here’s a little bit more about the book:

One Summer, Twelve Girls

For the girls in Cabin 13, their month at Camp Tanglewood means very different things. For Lorraine, a loner who feels dumped at camp by her widowed father, it means finally discovering someone who “gets” her, even if it’s her crazy bunkmate, Hadley, who smuggles in candy stuffed in empty tampon tubes. For Chloe, whose identical twin sister, Selena, refuses to go along with the cabin prank, this is the summer she decides it’s time for them to truly separate. And for Gracie, camp becomes the place where she finally finds the strength to rescue herself. The distinct voices of twelve girls—confident, shy, fearful, funny, independent, and searching—are heard individually and together, in this collection of linked stories celebrating the powerful moments of self-discovery and friendship that often occur away from home.

Why I Wrote This Book: Bug juice and s’mores seem to run in my blood. My parents met at the sleep-away camp owned and run by my grandparents. I met my husband because he and my brother were friends at a Y sailing camp. And I spent many summers away at camp where my favorite activity was hanging from our cabin’s rafters. Later, I went to a different camp where I spent most of my days rehearsing for the musical and flipping my canoe upside-down so that my friends and I could talk privately in the lake. It was so much fun I eventually became a counselor there. I now have two daughters. One loved camp; the other hated it.

Some Things I’ve Written and Some Things I’m Still Writing:

Questions for Little Readers from The Horn Book Magazine, November/December 2008 page 1 and page 2