Happy Father's Day!

Today I'm thinking about how much my own father sneaked his stories into mine.

My daddy died way too young. But every single Sunday of my life until I left for college, we gathered after church around the dinner table. There were often a few guests. My friend Keith, my own grandmother (always!), Keith's grandmother (frequently) and at least once a month, the preacher came. Oh did those stories flow!

A couple of "dining" scenes from in my first novel,  Glory Be, began directly from those memories.

Last week on Twitter, somebody started a hashtag #iwritehere. It was fun seeing the writing spaces of favorite writers!

This is mine.

Yep. That's Dr. Jack, watching and inspiring me every day!

Happy Father's Day to a real-life character!

A Thing or Two I Love

This is the time to make vows for next year, to write thank-you notes, to appreciate so much in our rich lives.

Inspired by an excellent piece on "how to support an author's new book," it occurred to me that having a book appear around the hectic holidays has both challenges and advantages. 

So I want to send a special thank you to the teachers who've had time not only to read THE WAY TO STAY IN DESTINY during your busy, busy holiday break, but also to share that you've read it and even to beautifully and thoughtfully recommend it to others.

Like Holly:
"This is a story of family, home, and identity - all of which the characters need to define for themselves. Glory Be was a big hit in my classroom, and The Way to Stay in Destiny is destined to be, also, in 2015!"

And Terry:
"...the way that music plays a role has this musician singing its praises."

Enjoy the rest of your break, teacher and librarian friends. Here's hoping it's filled with good books, long walks, warm fires, and true friends. 

(Oh, and if you happen to sneak over to Goodreads this week, Scholastic is giving away Advanced Reader Copies of my book. Drawing ends on December 31st. )

And if you live in Florida or other warm climes, here's that fire to warm you as you read your favorite book!
Enjoy!

Twitter: My Friday Humor

I'm new to twitter. You can find me at

ARScattergood

But I'm feeling more in touch with these tweets than those.

I'll try to fire off a few tweets from the Mississippi Children's Museum today.
But they may be kind of like that little birdie's up there. Old School.

In the Newspaper

A perfect day to stay inside and read. So did I pick the new pre-pub novel I just started and can't put down? The kids' book everybody's talking about? The supposed funniest YA book of last year? Nope, I chose the newspaper.

And even though I've avoided Twitter, David Carr's article, Why Twitter Will Endure made me want to join in the fun.

Here's a bit from the beginning:
In the pantheon of digital nomenclature — brands within a sector of the economy that grew so fast that all the sensible names were quickly taken — it would be hard to come up with a noun more trite than Twitter. It impugns itself, promising something slight and inconsequential, yet another way to make hours disappear and have nothing to show for it. And just in case the noun is not sufficiently indicting, the verb, “to tweet” is even more embarrassing.

Then it gets better, and makes Twitter even more tempting to join:

At first, Twitter can be overwhelming, but think of it as a river of data rushing past that I dip a cup into every once in a while. Much of what I need to know is in that cup: if it looks like Apple is going to demo its new tablet, or Amazon sold more Kindles than actual books at Christmas, or the final vote in the Senate gets locked in on health care, I almost always learn about it first on Twitter.

But I'm a book person, so I turned to the Book Review. And guess what? I now know what resolutions a few best-selling authors are making in the new year.

Hint: Margaret Atwood "must finish the bird classic I'm reading- the unique and sublime 'The Peregrine' by J.A. Baker. Must continue with my plan to read all the Dostoyevsky novels I haven't read...I want to read Lorrie Moore's latest novel--she's such a good writer."

Nick Hornby vows to combat literary clutter. Atwood will stop skipping around (Bad habit to break: skipping around from book to book," she says.)

Now that's a novel idea. Stop skipping around! No literary clutter! I think I'll make these personal resolutions. Then again, what fun is that?