Tonight You Are My Baby now on Target.com

very cool - my book is now available for pre-order from http://www.target.com/. That was certainly a fun surprise - although I'm not sure it will pay me as much as I have paid Target over the years! My husband will readily agree. Tonight You Are My Baby is also available for pre-order from http://www.amazon.com/ , http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ and http://www.borders.com/. Pre-orders are available at a discounted price. Do some early Christmas shopping!

How does an author get ideas?

Ideas for children's books are all around us. The beauty of being a mother is I get lots of ideas from my children. After all, I'm living with the readers of children's books. Or the kids say something funny and "Eureka! That would make a great title!" The ideas are the easy part, writing the book is the difficult part. My latest manuscript idea actually came from our dog, Harry Potter - who we usually call Harry. He is a 75 lb. mutt (mostly English Setter, hound and who knows?) that we adopted from Above and Beyond English Setter Rescue. As Harry was trying to squeeze onto my lap one day, the kids said "Harry sure would like it if he was a small dog." Another Eureka moment! My manuscript is now with my editor and I'm awaiting word on it being acquired. Take a look around...ideas are everywhere. Be open to the possibilities...think like a child...look at a situation from a different perspective. Your next great manuscript could be right in front of you! Oh, and if you are interested in adopting a wonderful dog, look on http://www.petfinder.com/ or adopt an English Setter from http://www.esrescue.org/ . The dogs in my life have served as best friend, running partner, babysitter, guard dog and couch potato. These incredible creatures get a second chance in life and you gain a lifelong friend.

Tonight You Are My Baby

Yay! The cover of Tonight You Are My Baby is posted. I'm thrilled with the cover and the illustrations. As strictly an author, I have no input on the illustrations. The publisher chooses the artist they feel is best suited for the book. The artwork is exactly what I had in mind when I was writing and I'm very thankful to Tim Ladwig for his talent. The book itself looks like a Christmas gift - beautiful colors with gold trim. Tonight You Are My Baby is available for pre-order on http://www.amazon.com/.

Author Day

Great group of kids! I read Tonight You Are My Baby and we spoke about what the kids would draw if they were the illustrator. The groups of kids also wrote rhyming stanzas for my next book. Very creative!! Thanks for the fun day!

"Soar to a Cure"

The "Write" Reason - At Least Kids is a foundation that my husband, Peter, and I started to assist/support kids with brain tumors. When our daughter, Quinn, was four years old she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. In a moment, our bubbly little girl was one of the 3,000 kids who was diagnosed each year with a brain tumor. Blessedly, it was benign and in thanksgiving for the wonderful health of both our children, we started At Least Kids (http://www.atleastkids.org/). Part of the proceeds from Tonight You Are My Baby will be donated to the foundation. The mission of At Least Kids is two-fold: donations are made to the neurology division at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) for innovative research into gene therapy and a tumor bank initiative to determine the cause of pediatric brain tumors. At Least Kids also provides financial support, through referral of CHOP's social workers, to families in the neuro-oncology clinic who are on this difficult journey with their children. These children are incredibly brave and our hope is that someday all kids will have the same wonderful diagnosis as our daughter. All kids "At Least" deserve a carefree childhood - a chance just to be a kid. I'm honored that Tonight You Are My Baby can help kids in some small way. A "shout out" to my editor, and HarperCollins, for promoting At Least Kids on the book jacket.

Such fun!

On Thursday, I was invited to make an author visit to a first grade class at Holy Family School. The kids were fun - great questions and very good listening skills. I read the Tonight You Are My Baby manuscript and explained how an illustrator has to create the pictures from the words. The kids told me what they would draw - very creative! I also read another manuscript, about animals in nature, and had the kids work in groups to create new stanzas. I was impressed with the kids' imaginations. I predict some talented authors/illustrators in bloom! Thanks to Ms. K for inviting me!

Creative Writing Class Valley Forge Christian College

Great class to speak to last night. Generally, my audience is the preschool-second grade kids, so this was a change. The creative writing class was a great mix of male/female, college age/older student. They asked a lot of good questions on the writing process, how the book gets published and method. I enjoyed speaking with them and thanks to the professor who invited me. Thanks also to Marianne, a member of my local critque group, who took a photo for the blog. I'll be posting it soon.