Ancient Egypt and Me

VERY GROOVY ANNOUNCEMENT!!! I have the lead story in the March issue of Cricket Magazine. "The Mummy Tent" debuts with fantastic artwork and inspired the cover art, too. It's GORGEOUS!

Looky, looky . . . Here's the front cover!

An exotic golden back cover!



And here is the first page with my byline!



I feel like a kid when I get something published because it's so flippin' THRILLING!

I still remember those long ago days before I was published sending out dozens of short stories and dreaming about the day I *might* have a story in the most prestigious children's magazine, Cricket. Now I've had three with a fourth story scheduled for July.

Wednesday Wanderings

As I get to know the Live Journal community better I've enjoyed the writers out there who have *tagged* days of the week for certain topics to write about. Teaser Tuesday, Thankful Thursday, Five Things on a Friday, etc.

So I'm dubbing today as Wednesday Wanderings:

Wandering #1:
School To World Event on Saturday went great! 2,500 middle school kids came through the convention center in groups, or with their teachers and parents all wanting to look at my books and talk about writing careers and what to do while they're in high school. It was super fun to talk to them! Such a range of thoughtful and excited students. (Of course there were other areas to explore such as technological careers, but writing is way more fun!)

Sold a couple dozen books, and RAN OUT of ALL my handouts and business cards and candy by late morning! I had no idea there would be such a huge turnout or interest. Next year I will bring twice as many!

Since the event I've been contacted by a librarian wanting to buy 25 copies for a class set of Enchanted Runner, recently back in print. And another teacher who is arranging a school visit for May 1. Cool!

It was SO great to visit with Carolee Dean and Lois Ruby, too. I rarely get to talk with other writers so that was a real treat for me. They've both got some great books so check out these two wonderful writer women.

Wandering #2:
We don't get much in the way of conferences and publishers in our neck of the woods and our local SCBWI schmoozes are mostly populated by beginners so author extraordinaire Kersten Hamilton, has started arranging a luncheon for any published writer located in New Mexico or coming through to meet so that we can talk "shop". We'll have a chance to discuss school visits, editor/agent problems, the publishing business, etc with other writers who know the pitfalls and problems and angst of selling a book and having it published. Our first one was last month and it was a great start. Lois told me on Saturday that the discussion we had last month about her current WIP was most helpful and she is going back to rewrite the story with an older character and make the story YA instead of Middle-Grade. Good luck Lois!

Next meeting/luncheon is Tuesday, March 25th at the Jewish Community Center in Albuquerque. Straight up NOON, pardner.

Tomorrow - School to World!

I'll be at the Albuquerque Convention Center Saturday, February 23rd from 9 a.m. - 2 p.m. for the annual School to World Fair. I'll be in the Arts/Entertainment/Communications Cluster where students, families, teachers and librarians can learn about the various careers in these areas.

I'll have books for sale, Career Information about writing, Information about my school visits, Postcard magnets and lots of other goodies - along with authors Carolee Dean and Elsie Kreischer.

I'd love to see you! Please come say hello and visit with us!

A cute fan letter

I got this letter last week and am posting it exactly as I received it. I found it amusing that the salutation is not the usual "Dear Author" or "Dear Kimberley", but just "Hey".

hey, i am emailing you to inform you that i have jus finished reading your book entitled THE LAST SNAKE RUNNER. This book was a little bit interesting. it did kind of draw my attention, but at some times i did get distracted while reading it, as does any book. i really dislike reading, but this book inspired me to read more. i would like to take but 5 minutes of your time to ask you a couple of questions relating to this book. first off, i am wondering how you got so much information about Acoma. another question i have is, how long did it take you to get this information? i know that i am just another person in this world, but if you could jus take a few minutes to reply, please do. i really enjoyed the part where Kendall outran the horses. Please reply.

Fan letters are VERY FUN! I feel like a *real* author.

It's Friday and your LAST CHANCE TO WIN A BOOK!

Go here to AUTHOR2AUTHOR blogspot to enter the drawing for the YA novel Lost It by Kristen Tracy. Sounds like a verrrry interesting and funny book. A provocative cover, to say the least!

FIVE THINGS ON A FRIDAY:

1. It's a three day weekend and I get to sleep in on Monday. I'm so relieved, and I need sleep. BAD.

2. I've gained 5 pounds the last two days. At least.

3. The massage and girl talk yesterday was heavenly. And I got to play and read books to three adorable little girls, 18 months, 2 years, and 3.5. I always wished I'd had 3 girls to go with my 3 sons. I guess I'll have to hope for adorable daughters-in-law.

4. Watch Pride and Prejudice on Sunday night on Masterpiece Theater. Yes, it's the one with the devastatingly mysterious Colin Firth.

5. I'm going to go finish off my box of chocolate Turtle candy now. And have another piece of my fudge marble birthday cake. Here's to a SECOND 5 pounds!

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

I love having my birthday on Valentine's Day!!! :-)

As a kid, I always knew how to decorate my birthday parties.

I always received a heart-shaped box of chocolates from my grandpa until I turned 12 and he died later that year.

My darling husband picked up the tradition when we got married and he surprises me with it somewhere - like under my pillow. Today it was hidden under my computer keyboard when I got home from class this morning. Gosh, is my computer habit that obvious? Hubby knows what I like - Turtles! Gooey, chocolate, carmel-ly, nutty Turtles. I get the whole box. I usually eat nothing else all day until the birthday dinner.

When our three boys were younger hubby gave them instructions NOT to eat any of my birthday chocolates. But I get each of them their own box and everybody is happy. ;-)

Today darling husband got up at 5:30 a.m. to bake my heart-shaped Valentine Birthday Cake. Heart-shaped cake pans. My mom found them somewhere when I had my first birthday and passed the cake pans to my husband when we got married.

At 1:00 I'm getting a massage. And girl-talk. Aah, heaven.

Today I'm extremely grateful for my LIFE, my FAMILY AND FRIENDS and God's incredible blessings!

Go tell the people who matter most to you that you love them. Go eat chocolate, go read a great book - or go write one.

Author@Author Book Giveaway!

This is a great Journal to read about several recently published, soon to be published or aspiring writers. Very fun and intriguing women with good posts about the writing and publishing world. They're also running a book give-away contest every day this week. Some great YA books to snatch so run over and post a comment to enter the drawing. It's as simple as that. Hope you win! And I hope I win, too! ;-0

Author2Author book Giveaway Link HERE!!!

Envelopes

REJECTIONS always arrive in brown manila envelopes – unless you purchase the pretty white 9x12 envelopes which is only slightly better than manila because it’s still a REJECTION after all.

We hates seeing big manila envelopes in the mailbox. (I'm channeling Golum for some weird reason.)

GREAT things come in #10 size envelopes. I got two of them this week.

#1. A lovely fan letter from Abby, Age 10, who reads Cricket magazine and wanted to let the editors know that she liked my story “Rattlesnake Rain” from the August issue. Cricket made me a copy and forwarded it my way. Thank you!

#2. A second envelope from Cricket WITH A CHECK!!!

My story, "The Mummy Tent", about ancient Egypt will appear in the March issue and "Crawfish Boil on Alligator Swamp" will be in July - YAY!

That means two more #10s with MONEY coming my way. I’m so mercenary. But I like the cash validation. Who's with me?

You Get to Vote Today!

No, not American Idol or Survivor or Super Tuesday which is tomorrow, silly blog people, but THE FIRST PAGES CONTEST AT NATHAN BRANSFORD'S snazzy and very informative agent blog. And he's not anonymous which I do appreciate and admire, unlike Evil Editor or The Rejector. Don't get me wrong, Evil and Rejector are great to read, but sometimes the anonymous aspect just - BUGS.

Okay, so first off, I did not place. No crying or boohooing allowed, although you may allow a tiny tear in the private recesses of your heart if you need to.

Out of 675 entries, Nathan and his hilarious cohort Holly whittled it down to 6. They read them all and made their decision in a mere 5 days. Good golly, Miss Molly! They must have NO life, ha, ha!

Enjoy reading these fabulous first pages (actually 500 words was the cap which is really more like two pages and maybe next time Nathan will decide to limit the word count to 250 so he doesn't go blind.)

You get to VOTE FOR YOUR CHOICE. Winner takes all.

I'm off to revise my first pages. Again.