Camera Ready, Travel Prepared

I have a new camera—something sweet, small, and hot pink. Portable, plane-able, willing to travel with me. It's a Sony, because I'm loyal to Sony, and it's all charged, plugged in, and awaiting: Barnes and Noble Educator's Day, Fox Cities Book Festival, Philadelphia Book Festival, Children's Book World (thank you, Libby Mosier), Book Expo (unveiling Dangerous Neighbors!), Book Bloggers Convention (meeting so many of you), Rutgers-Camden Summer Writers' Conference (I'm teaching fiction), the ALA in Washington, DC.

I travel light. I bring my stories. I've got a camera to help me hold onto it all.

I'm not a shopper. I'm always here at my desk. Today was an adventure.

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The Heart is Not a Size: An Educator's Day and a Launch Party

The news from Juarez grows ever-harder to bear. This week, three U.S. Consulate Workers were murdered. Two were Americans, a couple shot down while returning from a child's birthday party. Their brutal murder left their own child orphaned in the back of their car.

Why?

I am eager to talk about this place, Juarez. Eager for The Heart is Not a Size to be released on March 30th. Eager to raise more awareness about what is happening, south of the El Paso border, where every life means something, where every life should be safeguarded.

I am grateful, therefore, to Maureen Montecchio, the community relations manager at Barnes & Noble Devon, who invited me to join her wonderful group of educators and librarians at her store on April 13th, at 3:30 PM. If you can, I'd love for you to be there.

I am grateful, too, to writer and teacher (and mom extraordinaire) Elizabeth Mosier, who reached out and said, We should have a party. She'd been saying that for months, but I'd been deflecting. Finally, she went ahead, she talked to folks, she circled back. We're having the party on April 20th in Haverford, at the beloved Children's Book World, 7 PM. We are going to have cake, because we love cake. We are going to talk about Juarez, because it matters, and about teens, like the two in my book, who hide dangerous secrets from each other. We hope that you will find time to be there with us.

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