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My first newsletter went out over the weekend. If it didn’t arrive in your inbox, please check your spam or promotions folder; if you would like to join my mailing list, please use the box to the right. The newsletter can be viewed here. My two new picture books, I Love Snow! and A Wave Came Through Our Window, can also be purchased as e-books in the Kindle Store.

Last night I wrote over 600 words and that pushed me past the 100,000-word mark on this novel. I’m somewhat obsessed with my progress, so it was troubling to find that as soon as I hit six figures, MS Word stopped displaying my word count! Maybe that’s the universe’s way of telling me to stop counting and just keep writing…

My illustrator for Dayshuan’s Gift, a middle grade time-travel novel, sent the first four finished illustrations last night. The book covers some serious subjects—divorce, food deserts, and race riots—so at first I wanted the illustrations to make my characters look serious and “dignified.” But I later decided to go in a different direction, and I think Alex has done a good job making the characters look fun and appealing to kids. Here’s the back cover blurb for Dayshaun’s Gift:

Summer vacation has just begun and Dayshaun wants to spend Saturday morning playing his new video game. But Dayshaun’s mother has other plans: she volunteers at a nearby community garden and that means Dayshaun has to volunteer, too. When Dayshaun puts on his grandfather’s grubby old gardening hat, something unexpected happens—the hands of time turn backward and Dayshaun finds himself in the free Black community of Weeksville during the summer of 1863! While helping the survivors of the New York City Draft Riots, Dayshaun meets a frail old man who entrusts him with a precious family heirloom. But will this gift help Dayshaun find his way back to the 21^st century?

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My illustrator in Hong Kong is almost done with Billie’s Blues—just one more illustration to go! And Charity has finished half the sketches for our Xmas book, Let the Faithful Come. She’s drawing inspiration from the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean. More details will be in the next newsletter so if you’re not on my mailing list, sign up now!