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My motivation to begin writing had nothing to do with artistic goals. I wanted to become famous. Notice I didn't say rich and famous. See, as a kid I was a geek. The kind of geek the other kids hated and teased. I figured the reason I couldn't get kids to like me was because they didn't know me. And they didn't know me because they didn't want to get geek germs. So, I figured, if I become famous, they'd want to get to know me, so I read the Guiness Book of World Records to find a record I could break. Instead, I found out that a six year old was the youngest published author. I was eight. I thought, "Hey, if she can do it, so can I." And I started writing. Twenty years later, I published my first novel. But more importantly, I now love being a geek! And even better, as a published author, I can visit schools and encourage other geeks to follow their dreams and to tell the other kids to cherish their geeks. And if they're really daring, they could even try for geekdom themselves! And when I'm not writing, I'm also a assistant professor of English at California State University, San Bernardino. I teach children's literature and creative writing. At home, I love to garden, watch movies, read, and play board games. |
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Stella Stands Alone Stella Reid is fighting to save the home she loves. After her father is killed and her mother succumbs to yellow fever, it's up to Stella to run Oak Grove, her family's plantation. Unlike most Southerners, Stella sees herself as equal to the African Americans she works side-by-side with in the cotton fields. The white Southerners reject her, and the freed men can't trust her after generations of enduring the horrors of slavery. So Stella stands alone as she fights to follow through on her father's dream to leave Oak Grove to her and the slaves. His will is nowhere to be found. Now, the bank has foreclosed on the plantation—and the day of the auction is rapidly approaching. With no legal claim to the land, Stella is confronted with the possibility of losing Oak Grove, the only home she's ever known. |
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Worth After 11 year old Nate breaks his leg and cannot work on the family's farm, his father adopts an orphan named John Worth to take his place. Despite their feelings of jealousy, Nate and John become like brothers. A lively story of two boys set against a backdrop of the range wars and the Orphan Trains of 1870s Nebraska. Awards |
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The Year of the Sawdust Man Nissa's Place The Strength of Saints Three novels about Nissa Bergen, a young girl who grew up in a small segregated town in Louisiana during the Great Depression. In the first book (Sawdust), Nissa comes home to discover her Mama has left town without so much as a by your leave. She's left wondering if her mother could love her and leave her for good. In Nissa's Place, Mama is living up North working in a small theater company. She wants Nissa to come live with her. Nissa must decide if her place is with Mama or with her papa down home in Louisiana. In Saints, she must face the evils of segregation and determine if she has the strength to do the right thing. |
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Dad, in Spirit Ebon Jones has a problem. He's normal. Everyone one else in his family is goofy cool. Mom carves gargoyles. His older sister Joliet makes such groovy costumes she starts getting orders in January. His little brother Samuel memorizes his text books, then does all of his home work in a month which means Ebon is the only 4th grader with a younger brother in his math class. Then there's Dad. He does research for other writers. When he discovers how cool castles are, he builds one in the back yard, complete with a secret passage. He's too tall to go inside, so his job is to sit on their enemies and fart until they surrender. And when the book opens, Dad falls and hits his head while remodeling the local haunted house. The next morning, he doesn't wake up. He's slipped into a coma. But several days later, he returns to the house as a spirit. Now it's up to Ebon to find a way to bring his Dad's body and his spirit back together. |
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Strawberry Hill Raleia Pendle has hippie parents. She mistakes their lack of control as a lack of love. She wishes she was from the turn of the 20th century when everything had rules and regulations and your parents were involved in every aspect of your life. She gets a glimpse of what life was like back then when she meets a recluse who hasn't left his house since a tidal wave hit his town 65 years earlier. |
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Edith Shay Katherine grew up during the Civil War, dreaming of traveling. At sixteen she discovers an abandoned suitcase in a trainstation. On a fluke, she decides to return it, but because she's only sixteen, unchaperoned and has very little money, it takes her a year and a half to get there. |
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