Exciting news: The Disaster Days is now available across platforms as an audiobook, from Tantor Audio!
I love how actress and voiceover artist Jennifer Sun Bell has told Hannah’s story–and I hope listeners will, too.
This is the very first audio edition I’ve gotten for one of my books, so I’m eagerly checking that off my author bucket list!
The Warwick Children’s Book Festival was a great day! This was my first(!) in-person event since the start of the pandemic–and the only in-person event I’ve done since Alone in the Woods was released last fall. It was so great to be back with a fantastic group of children’s authors and to have a chance to meet and chat with readers. Here are a few favorite pictures from the day:
Me, with all my books. Not pictured–the bees that inexplicably loved my sweater and stalked me throughout the day.
For each book I’ve released, I’ve spent time in my home state of Wisconsin, visiting schools and talking with young readers. And during every single Q&A, the same question has come up: Have you written any stories set in Wisconsin?
It took me years, and four other books, to find the right story, but now I can finally answer: Yes!
The first trade review for The Disaster Days is in, and Kirkus loved it!
You can read the full review here, and if your curiosity is piqued, you can preorder a copy now from the following retailers:
Even though the winter seems long, time is flying by. Have I really not posted since nErDcampLI? Here’s what I’ve been up to lately.
I made a quick trip to Wisconsin for the holidays, where I managed to bake gingerbread cookies:
And check out the new ice-skating rink on the beautiful, not-quite-frozen-solid Lake Mendota:
Back in New York, a cool new subway opened:
But I haven’t spent much time riding it–I spent January working on my revision of The Last Grand Adventure. It was a lot of work, and a lot of fun, to get back into Bea and Pidge’s story. I took occasional breaks to read:
In early February I turned it in to my editor and then hopped a plane back to Wisconsin to meet my new niece:
I think she’s pretty adorable. 🙂 I made it back just before a snowstorm hit the city and gave us all a peaceful snow day:
What have you been up to in these cold, cozy months?
It’s summer! And if the saying is true, this week the corn will be knee high–it’s almost the Fourth of July. It feels like yesterday I was lamenting Arctic cold and unmelting snowpiles. Now I’m itching mosquito bites as I write.
Last week I traveled back to Wisconsin for a relaxing visit with family, including my favorite picture-book reader:
I came back to some editorial notes, and now I’m busy revising Summer of Lost and Found. (The heat and humidity is really helping me with the summertime atmosphere.) This is the fifth or sixth draft–I kind of lost track–and right now the document looks like this:
Writing is editing, right?
Soon I’ll have exciting news like a pub date and jacket copy and maybe even a cover to share. In the meantime, I’m sequestered with my revision.
What’s new with you?
I’m taking a break right now from revising–although one could argue that a break would be better spent not writing in another form, right? After this post, I’ll find something good to watch on my Netflix queue. But first, a two bits of news:
Scholastic Scope published my Jackie Mitchell short story in its January 2015 issue–retitled as”Girls Can’t Play!” If your school or library has a subscription, check it out.
When Audrey Met Alice got a Recommended review in the November/December issue of Library Media Connection! Here’s an excerpt: “Becoming empowered and independent with the help of Alice’s journal, Audrey creates a bit of mischief and mayhem of her own. Featuring Alice Roosevelt’s fictional journal entries throughout the story supplies an interesting comparison of Alice’s historical time period versus Audrey’s. Readers will enjoy Alice’s antics and cheer for Audrey’s transformation.”–Nick Petrosino, District Library Coordinator, Ravenna (Ohio) School District
Next week I’ll be trading revising under blankets for revising on a beach towel: I’m visiting family in Florida for the week. I do think it might help my work on this summer-set book to be in a place above freezing–descriptions of muggy days and trips to the beach are hard to visualize when it’s 9 degrees outside! It’s a working vacation, but I’m factoring in plenty of time for fun.
Hope you are staying warm with hot tea and a good book somewhere!
Summer passed in the blink of an eye, right? I’m sad to see the season of outdoor movies, beach days, and ice cream go. But I’m also excited about fall. Even though spring is the season of growth, I feel like fall is when I make a lot of my progress. Maybe it’s the nudge from all those “back to school” ads. But here are some of the things making me feel reinvigorated right now:
–Back to Kid Lit: In August, I didn’t read any kid lit. It was a month for beach reads and grown-up books, and I loved diving into some literary fiction. After reading so many fabulous ARCs and new releases so far in 2014—along with filling some of the gaps in my backlist reading—I needed a chance to read out of the MG/YA categories. Since September started, though, I’ve already read great MG books by two panelmates, K. A. Holt (Brains for Lunch) and Jennifer Ziegler (Revenge of the Flower Girls). I’m loving The Scar Boys by fellow Egmont author Len Vlahos right now. And next on my list: an ARC of Kristin Levine’s historical MG The Paper Cowboy.
–Back to work: Summer hours are over, and while I loved them, it’s a lot easier to fit writing in my weekday schedule now. And get to bed on time-ish!
–Back in the kitchen: Can I use the heat as an excuse for why I barely touched a pot or pan this summer? (Even if it was a pretty mild summer?) There was a lot of pizza . . . and nachos. Anyway, I have a stack of new recipes and a resolution to make my own dinner at least 3 nights a week. Even if it’s a sandwich. Baby steps.
—Back to pumpkin: In truth, I am far less obsessed with pumpkin spice lattes than I used to be–but I remain a huge fan of baking with pumpkins. Or putting them into soup. (Or fermented beverages.) I like that this time of year, you can eat pumpkin-everything.
–Back to writing: I spent a lot of time this summer traveling to talk about When Audrey Met Alice, which was super fun. I wrote two historical short stories that will appear in Scholastic’s classroom magazines Storyworks and Scope, and also Cricket. I also revised Summer of Lost & Found and sent that off to my editor last month. Now, I’m finally writing a new book. I’ve only put 5,000 words on the page so far, and first drafts can be a little scary. But it feels so good to be finding a new story to tell.
How exactly is it July 22nd already? I swear, I was staring out the window at slushy snow just days ago. And now back-to-school ads are popping up . . .
But even though this has been a busy summer so far, it’s been busy in delightful ways:
Pre-fireworks in my beautiful hometown, Madison, WI
Quality time with my adorable nephew
Sunny days at the beach
Exploring the Catskills (not pictured: black bear encounter)
NY’s gorgeous waterfalls
I’ve also read some amazing books lately, like Ann M. Martin’s Rain Reign and the short-story collection This Is Paradise.
From now until I head off to Texas, I’m working very hard on edits for The Summer of Lost and Found. I’m a little nervous about making this the best book it can be, but revising is also my favorite part of the writing process. I’ve had a few lightbulb moments in the past week, and I’m excited.
How’s your summer?
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:
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!
Considering I have been kind of lax about blogging lately (revisions! end of summer! lots of work at work! travel! an overwhelming desire to watch television and eat pizza!), I doubt many noticed yesterday that my blog/site had a little change-up.
www.rebeccabehrens.com will soon be my shiny new website, as designed by Biondo Studio. (Expect a really gushing testimonial about how great Denise and John at Biondo are, soon.) In the meantime, my blog is going to be back at its weird old blogspot address, vicariousreader.blogspot.com. Once all the web design stuff is done, and I have figured out how to use WordPress, my blog will be found within my website. I am not smart enough about web design and the Internets to explain more of what we are doing in terms of the domain transfer, existing followers, etc., but the long-short of it is that you can still follow me here for now, and soon I’ll see you at my shiny new site!
In the meantime, how are you?