A ⭐ from Kirkus for Yours in Books!
A ⭐ from Kirkus for Yours in Books!
The first trade review is in for my next picture book, Yours in Books, and it's a starred review from Kirkus! Kirkus says Yours in Books is "a very funny sendup of epistolary novels." You can see the full review here. There's still plenty of time to preorder Yours in Books -- preorder links are here, and you can get a signed copy from my local independent bookstore, Print: A Bookstore.
I'll be at two virtual events with great independent bookstores: on August 17th, I'll join my friend Lindsay Leslie through Book People, and on August 24 (publication day!) I'll be doing an event through Print: A Bookstore.
New Book Alert!
I am very excited to have another book coming out with my friend Ruth Chan. Look for Rick, the Rock of Room 214 to come your way next year.
Thoughts and Links
I enjoyed this article about the lost art of analog browsing. I've started to feel an annoyance toward how much of my choices are trackable -- my purchases, the movies I watch, the books I read, the clothes I buy. I generally don't mind the modern lack of privacy -- I have nothing to hide -- but I miss the randomness of pre-digital life, and I feel like my ability to write books that are imaginative and different and can only come from my head relies on disengaging from algorithms and following thoughts that can only occur in random and analog processes.
I'm enjoying the Difficult Artist podcast (I've listened to the first two episodes so far), which is all about creative processes. Interviewer Lizzy Goodman says it's about "how creative life is so much less exciting than people think it is, and it's really just about struggle and failure and rigor and boredom." Maggie Rogers talks in the first episode about being in a song-a-day group during quarantine, where everyone in the group had to upload a new song every day, and the next day you'd get a playlist. AND, if you didn't upload a song, you'd get kicked out of the group. I love that concept of joining this group with forced productivity, and the accountability built in. I liked hearing Trent Reznor, in the second episode, talk about how he has trouble balancing creative work and parenthood, how he wasn't as productive as he wanted to be during the pandemic and felt guilty about that, and how he learned "as a dad, there are a million ways to feel guilty...an infinite amount of ways you can feel like 'could I have done a better job with that? Could I have been more present?'" There's nothing new there, but it's nice to hear I'm not the only person struggling with that balance, and the guilt that accompanies the feeling of not giving enough attention to any of the important aspects of my life. But here is the quote I'm really thinking on. Lizzy Goodman talks about drive and stubbornness in creative people, and says: "I often think this is part of the dichotomy that is at the heart of the creative process itself, which is that you have to have this stubbornness and will and determination to get to the thing you believe you came here to say, and...that's an insane thing to believe about yourself before it happens. It's an insane thing to believe that people need to hear the inner workings of your mind, on record, or in print, or on canvas. That's a very bold belief, and to get it out requires a level of faith and will that can dovetail into stubbornness pretty quickly." I'm feeling that way, and have felt that way. I have something to say, and it does take faith and a certain degree of stubbornness which is, I imagine, annoying to the people who live with me. And so often it's typing into a dark hole, typing words that might never be seen, typing to get to the point where it's good, so much time, all on the vague and bold belief that someone, somewhere, needs to read it. It's terrifying and ridiculously egotistical, and, somehow, how I choose to spend hours every day.
I finally took Instagram and Twitter off my phone. I'm feeling better already. Although a few hours after I did that, I saw a tweet about an interview with picture book author Katelyn Aronson about her new book Clovis Keeps His Cool. Katelyn is asked about what books she has found most inspirational about writing, and she responds not with a book, but with SOME STUFF I TWEETED THREE YEARS AGO. WHICH SHE FOUND INSPIRING. So I'm conflicted about whether to keep Twitter off my phone, or try even more to tweet inspirationally. Mostly I'm honored and delighted, charmed and boastful about Katelyn listing my tweets in lieu of an inspirational writing craft book. I mean. That's pretty cool, right?
