Posts

Book Ideas

Image
  Where do ideas for books come from? Anywhere and everywhere! They might come from experiences you have, travel, TV, overheard conversations, feelings you have, or something you heard on the radio. The other day, while listening to a news story on NPR, I learned about a woman, Toni Stone, who became the first female pro baseball player in the Negro Leagues. As I listened to her story, I thought, WoW, this could be a great picture book. It would be about her struggle to overcome gender and racial barriers.  I took notes about her life, and then I did some brief marketing research. Were there any books about her already written? Yes, there were a couple adult books as well as a graphic novel. Hmmm…a little more research revealed that the graphic novel is aimed at kids 9-13. Okay, so that would be the focus of the picture book I’d do, so there would be no use creating another book on the topic, right? Not necessarily    A few years back, I had an idea to do a book...
Post a Comment
Read more

Big Number Three Seven

Image
Another September, another new school year. For me, it means another year of author visits. This will be my 37th year visiting schools. I have had the good fortune to visit schools as close as my neighborhood and as far as South America. The picture above shows a visit I did with the Lincoln International School in Buenos Aires, Argentina.  My visits focus mainly on curiosity, the importance of writing, writing process, and the value of collaboration. I show slides, share my books, and provide tips and techniques to help kids improve their written skills.  Since I am writing song lyrics now, I often am accompanied by one of my talented music collaborators. We provide step-by-step guidance and have the kids write thier own lyrics. Then the music guys select a few to make into songs. It's really magical, and the kids (and teachers) love it! People often ask me, "When are you going to stop doing these visits?"  "Whenever it stops being fun," I tell them.  
Post a Comment
Read more

Greetings!

Image
Welcome to this blog. As an introduction, I’d like to catch you up to speed about this website, which has been in the making for about a year and a half. The journey began when my last book, Yogi Berra: Baseball Legend, was published in May, 2025. A marketing company reached out to me and wanted to help market the book. I was a little wary, as I get these “opportunities” all the time, but something seemed right about this company. In order to properly market the book, my website needed to be updated. So, they began with that. They worked on it and worked on it and worked on it. You get the picture now. It went on for months, and I saw definite progress. But, after a year, the site was not operable. And all that time, the Yogi book sat, no marketing, no nothing. Finally, I had enough and, through sheer genius and will, was able to get my money back. But that left me back to square one. I tried to set up a site myself to no avail. Fortunately, with the help of a former colleague and frie...
3 comments
Read more