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Children notice differences. I have never believed the answer is to teach them not to see it. The better lesson is to help them understand that difference does not diminish belonging. Lucy's Umbrella grew from that idea: that something as ordinary as an umbrella could become a way of talking about individuality, acceptance, and the wonderfully varied ways people move through the world. Picture books give us an extraordinary opportunity because young readers have not yet learn

September always feels like sharpened pencils and fresh margins. Classrooms open, syllabi are printed, and somewhere a student begins reading a story that may stay with them for years. When I write for young readers—or for the teachers who place books in their hands—I think about that student. The quiet one. The curious one. The one who feels invisible. I hope they find not just information, but recognition. Education is not only the transfer of facts. It is the shaping of em

There is a moment in research when the primary narrative runs out. The headline ends. The well-known name reaches its conclusion. And that is when the real work begins. Footnotes are where I linger. They lead to overlooked diaries, archived letters, overlooked contributors, small details that change the shape of a story. The margins are often more revealing than the main text. Writing is sometimes imagined as inspiration, but much of it is patience. It is tracing threads thro

Patriotism and honesty are not opposites. In fact, they belong together. To love a country deeply is to care enough to examine it fully — its triumphs, its contradictions, its unfinished work. History becomes dangerous when it is flattened into comfort. The past is rarely simple. It is layered with complexity, compromise, brilliance, and harm. When we allow that fullness to exist on the page, we honor both those who served and those who suffered. Truth telling is not an act o

Courage is often imagined as something loud — a speech, a protest, a dramatic turning point. But more often, it is quiet. It is the decision to live honestly when the world has given you reasons to shrink. Stories have long policed who is allowed to exist openly. Yet they have also been the first safe spaces where difference could breathe. A fairy tale reimagined. A child who recognizes themselves in a page. A character who does not apologize for who they are. To write storie

May always carries a heaviness. Memorials are laid, flags placed, names read aloud. But long after the ceremonies end, I find myself thinking about the quieter aftermath — the people who stayed behind when the guns fell silent. Wars are remembered in battles and treaties, but they are carried in bodies. They linger in letters never answered, in families reshaped, in hands that prepared the fallen for burial, in communities that rebuilt from ash. The end of conflict does not m

Children notice more than we think. They notice who is the hero. Who is laughed at. Who is brave. Who is allowed to belong. That is why writing for young readers is never small work. When I create whimsical worlds or gentle early chapter books, I am thinking about the child who may not yet see themselves reflected in their classroom, their community, or even their family. A book can become the first place they feel understood. If we give children stories that hold difference

As Women’s History Month arrives, I often think about the simple mechanics of record-keeping. Who wrote the documents? Who had access to paper? Whose voices were deemed worth preserving? So much of women’s history exists in margins: in recipes, in clothing seams, in side notes, in oral traditions passed down at kitchen tables. The absence in official archives is not evidence of absence in lived experience. When we write women back into history, we are not adding something new

There is a misconception that writing about history requires distance. But I have found the opposite to be true. The closer I get to the lives I am researching—the letters, the hands that dug graves, the women erased from footnotes—the more careful I must become. Telling someone’s story is a responsibility. It asks us to listen longer than we speak. To verify. To contextualize. To hold complexity instead of smoothing it away for comfort. Even when I write fiction, that same t

Every January carries the quiet pressure to begin again. New goals. New manuscripts. Clean notebooks waiting for ink. But I have learned that the most honest beginnings don’t start with ambition. They start with memory. Before I outline a chapter or sketch a character, I ask a quieter question: Who is missing? Whose name slipped from the record? Who carried the weight of the story but never stood at its center? Research, for me, is not excavation for novelty. It is restorati

We sometimes talk about reading as something we outgrow, but stories grow with us. The picture book that teaches compassion becomes the novel that explores identity, which becomes the history that helps us understand responsibility. Each stage prepares us for the next. Writing across age groups is my way of honoring that continuum. A child learning empathy today becomes the adult capable of justice tomorrow. The thread is unbroken. Stories do not end when we close the cover.

History is full of bright banners, famous names, and dates carved into stone. But just beyond the spotlight stand the people who carried stretchers, dug graves, wrote letters, mended uniforms, waited at home, or endured in silence. Their stories are harder to find, but they are no less essential. Researching hidden histories means following fragments. A photograph without a caption. A record half erased. A memory passed down in families but rarely printed in textbooks. These

Children’s stories are often the first maps we hand to young readers. Within their pages, forests open, animals speak, and impossible things become possible. Yet beneath the wonder sits something even more powerful: the quiet shaping of empathy. Whimsy is not escape; it is rehearsal for understanding others. When I write for children, I think about the moments that make them feel seen. A difference in appearance, a fear of being left out, the bravery it takes to try again—the

Fairy tales have always evolved. They were whispered beside fires, reshaped at kitchen tables, and rewritten for every generation that needed them. Today’s young adults deserve versions that honor tradition while making room for identities, questions, and futures older tellings never imagined. To reweave a tale is not to break it; it is to listen for who was missing the first time. What happens when the silent character speaks? When the villain’s wound is understood? When res

Self-publishing is often described as independence, but for many writers it is also responsibility. When you choose to bring a book into the world yourself, you become its advocate, archivist, and steward. You decide whose stories are visible. Inclusive publishing asks us to slow down. It asks who is represented, who is consulted, and who might finally recognize themselves in print. It means building teams with care, inviting authenticity, and understanding that accuracy is a