Author of award-winning, adventurous realistic and historical fiction

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Hello, hello!

Oct 3, 2013 | , , , , , , , , ,


Hi! You made it over here to my blog’s new home.

I figured now would be a great time to mention how wonderful working with Biondo Studio has been. I was pretty scared about leaving my comfortable Blogger home and venturing into the world of WordPress and a static website. For a while, I researched web designers and drooled over other authors’ websites. It didn’t take that long of a while before I realized that my favorite sites were always created by–you guessed it–Biondo Studio. So I sent them an email, and here we are now, at my shiny new website, which I love.

Denise and John at Biondo Studio are awesome. When we first started discussing what I wanted my site to look like, I think it sounded like I was creating some kind of bizarre word-association poem: “Doughnuts. I love the beach. Orange cats are my favorite. I write historical and contemporary fiction. I live in NYC. Did I mention that I love doughnuts?” If had made a homepage from that, it would look like this:

bad art

But Denise and John took that jumble and made something perfect (and coherent) (and really cute). I hadn’t really known how to communicate what I wanted, but it didn’t matter: Biondo Studio has design ESP.

From there, it was smooth sailing. Denise and John were patient when it took me approximately twenty-seven tries to figure out a) who I had registered by domain with, and b) how to access it.  And they didn’t bat an eye when in true production-editor form, I kept finding the tiniest things to tweak, and tweak, and tweak.

So if you find yourself wanting a new website or a blog tuneup, I can’t recommend them highly enough. I’m grateful and happy that they created such a nice home for me online, and that they made the process so easy for someone as scattered and web-designophobic as me!

 

Class of 2K14 Launch!

Jul 1, 2013 | , , , , , ,

I’m so excited to announce that I’m part of the Class of 2K14, and we’re launching our website today!

We’re a group of 20 authors debuting in middle grade and young adult fiction in 2014. We’re diverse, with members across the country (and one in the UK!) and novels ranging from historical to sci-fi. Like the other classes before us (2K7 through 2K13), we’re working together to share our books with booksellers, teachers, librarians, and readers.

It’s already been a wonderful experience to get to know the nineteen other authors in the group, and I’m looking forward to sharing the debut experience with the other authors.

To celebrate our shiny new website, we’re giving away a $100 e-gift certificate to the book retailer of the winner’s choice (including indie booksellers!). To enter, head over to the website:

Class of 2K14 Launch Giveaway

WH Garden Tour in Pictures

Oct 22, 2012 | , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Last Friday I attended the White House Fall Social Garden Tour. In short, it was awesome. You can read more about how I lucked into the Social here, and you can see a wrap-up from the White House here: A Fall Social in the #WHGarden. (Excuse me while I freak out that my name/tweets/photos are on the White House’s web site.) My twitter feed from Friday is also chock full of observations and photos.

I’ll be posting some of my thoughts about visiting the setting of my book later in the week. But first, here are some of my favorite photos from the day:

 
The quiet before the public tour starts
The view from the South Lawn
The White House Beehive. Best quote of the day, from Executive Pastry Chef Bill Yosses: They didn’t add a second hive because then the bees might fight each other for territory and, “we didn’t want any more conflict in Washington.”
Veggies growing in the Kitchen Garden
The swing set. How badly did I want to go for a swing? (Badly!) See the Oval Office behind it.
The Oval Office. Guess who was inside working?
Me, thrilled to be in the Rose Garden and standing in front of the West Wing (Eisenhower Executive Office Building in the background, too)
Crowds of people outside
Who knew there were so many grills at the White House?

ETA: Thanks for all of the compliments on my dress! It was nice to fold up my writerly pajama pants for a day. 🙂 That dress was a gift from my mother in law, and she made it!

One-Word Wednesday

Oct 10, 2012 | , , , , , , , ,

“Gratitude and Rust” by Shannon Kringen (CC)

Thanks for all of the kind words yesterday! I’m overwhelmed in the best possible way with the support and enthusiasm of the writing community. 🙂

(Borrowing this meme today from Katy Upperman)

Some Good News

Oct 9, 2012 | , , , , , , , ,

From Publisher’s Marketplace today:



Click to read, or see below:



Rebecca Behrens’s debut WHEN AUDREY MET ALICE, featuring the thirteen-year-old First Daughter who finds Alice Roosevelt’s secret diary hidden beneath the floorboards of the White House and is inspired to “eat up the world” though one wrong step could mean tabloid scandal, to Aubrey Poole at Sourcebooks, by Suzie Townsend at New Leaf Literary & Media (World English).

Dude! My book is being published! It’s definitely surreal to write this post announcing my good news. The closest approximation to how I feel right now is this. I’m thrilled that When Audrey Meets Alice will be in print! I’m so excited to be working with Aubrey Poole and the rest of the Sourcebooks team. And I’m incredibly thankful to the amazing Suzie Townsend for being such a great advocate for my writing and finding a home for my book.

I’ll leave you with a slightly dorky picture of me at Alice Roosevelt’s childhood home, Sagamore Hill. I already had a visit planned for the weekend after I found out this great news, which was serendipitous and awesome. Happiest day trip ever! I don’t think I’ve stopped smiling since I got the call. 🙂

July in Pictures

Aug 2, 2012 | , , , , , ,

How I spent last month: living out of a suitcase.* I made it through 9 flights and 26 hours in the air! I currently have no idea what time zone my body thinks I’m in, but I can assure you that it’s not EST.

All that travel was so worth it:

I made friends with sea turtles.

And relaxed poolside.

Saw waterfalls.

Ate coconut everything.

Went to lots of beaches.

Saw lots of sunsets.

 But most importantly:

It was my best month, well, ever.

I’ll be back to semi-regular Internetting next week (thanks to all those flights, I have plenty of books to talk about).

What have you been up to? What awesomeness have I missed in the blogosphere?


*Actually three suitcases, and by the second half of the trip it had evolved to those three plus one hefty tote bag masquerading as personal item. I do not pack light.

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