It’s Cat Monday! Once again! Oh Hooray! (Last year, I found this fantastic series of small cat videos that are funny and they will make you laugh. Even on a Monday.) And so, because I’m nice like that, I’ve been posting every single one I can get my hands on. And there are LOADS hooray!… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Creativity
Visiting Ann Voskamp
(Welcome to readers hopping over from Ann Voskamp’s A Holy Experience blog!) Ann and I knew each other via the Twitterverse and Planet Instagram and were each other’s big fans. (Ann has generously shared my books with children in Guatemala, in Africa, in other underserved areas of the world, working alongside Compassion International and returning… Read more »
Sticky Tape — Simon’s Cat video
It’s Cat Monday! Once again! Oh Hooray! (Last year, I found this fantastic series of small cat videos that are funny and they will make you laugh. Even on a Monday.) And so, because I’m nice like that, I’ve been posting every single one I can get my hands on. And there are LOADS hooray!… Read more »
Springtime — Simon’s Cat video
It’s Cat Monday! Once again! Oh Hooray! (Back in June last year, I found this fantastic series of small cat videos that are funny and they will make you laugh. Even on a Monday.) And so, because I’m nice like that, I’ve been posting every single one I can get my hands on. And there… Read more »
Billy Collins on poetry, obscurity and not being difficult enough
“I have spoken a lot about wilful obscurity in poetry – where the poet is hiding behind language, using it as camouflage – and I don’t have much tolerance for that kind of poetry,” Billy Collins It’s why I love Billy Collins. In writing picture books you can be generous or self-indulgent. If you’re showing… Read more »
Following Clues with Jane Dyer
With many picture book projects, the author and illustrator never meet — or even communicate with each other. And that was how it was with THE HOUSE THAT’S YOUR HOME. I didn’t share any notes with Jane about what I’d had in mind as I wrote. Jane was sent the text and then it was… Read more »
The front door of a book
I learned early on, as a picture book writer, that the illustration is like the front door of the book. If the illustration isn’t right, then no one will even pick up the book (let alone read your text). Without the illustration, my text would not stand a chance. So you can imagine how grateful… Read more »
Smitten — Simon’s Cat (Valentine) video
It’s Cat Saturday! (Well it used to be Cat Monday but today is Saturday so it’s Cat Saturday.) (Back in June, I found this fantastic series of small cat videos and so, because I’m nice like that, I posted almost every single one I could get my hands on. And there were LOADS hooray! this… Read more »
From a child’s mouth
I trust the idea that I get from a child. And never more than in this book because, one day on the corner of Amsterdam and 76th Street in New York City, I heard a little girl, riding her father’s shoulders, say: “A girl is Daughter And a boy is a Son.” And I knew… Read more »
Hope beyond the walls of the world
We’ve had The Polor Vortex and Juno, The Storm Of The Century Of The Entire History Of NYC EVER! (not). It’s been frigid and freezing in New York City–and it was just such a winter a couple of year’s ago that inspired my brand new book. (And I can hardly wait. It’s coming out tomorrow!)… Read more »