Monthly Archives: April 2009

Get Pon’d

Cindy Pon’s extra­or­di­nary debut novel, Sil­ver Phoenix, is on sale today. All launch buzz hyper­bole aside, this is one of my favorite nov­els of the last year. Cindy is gifted writer with a great eye for sen­sory detail, but it’s the voice of the main char­ac­ter, Ai Lang, that car­ries the story. I read a …

April 28, 2009 – 4:29 pm | By thunderchikin | Posted in Blog | Comments Off

The Wonder Twins Tour Part A

Last week, I flew to snowy West­ern Michi­gan to do a cou­ple of short but glo­ri­ous site vis­its with Won­der Twins librar­i­ans Cindy Dobrez and Lynn Rutan, as well as tour­ing the offices of my audio­book pub­lisher, Bril­liance Audio (more about that later).  Of course, my flights were delayed–never fly with me–due to mechan­i­cal prob­lems, …

April 27, 2009 – 2:35 pm | By thunderchikin | Posted in Blog, Events | Comments Off

Lost in Translation of Translation

I’m not mak­ing this up. Cour­tesy of Google alerts, I found this Japan­ese web­site, which has posted Cyn­thia Leitich Smith’s inter­view with me after trans­lat­ing it from Eng­lish to Japan­ese  back to Eng­lish. I think. Read on, brave friend, and dis­cover why I “scrib­ble for the profit teenagers today.”   Author Inter­view: David Macin­nis Gill on …

April 18, 2009 – 9:23 pm | By thunderchikin | Posted in Blog | Comments Off

WUNC Me

Today, I had a great time on WUNC’s “The State of Things.” Laura Leslie hosted the pro­gram. She was funny, pro­fes­sional, and put up with me mak­ing faces at her. She also has an incred­i­ble voice. The day before, pro­ducer Susan Davis called, and we chat­ted about the book, writ­ing, teach­ing, etc. So going in, …

April 18, 2009 – 2:28 am | By thunderchikin | Posted in Blog, Events | Comments Off

The State of Things

In yet another debut, I will make my first radio appear­ance EVAH on WUNC North Car­olina Pub­lic Radio (except for the time I won a I Heart Chat­tanooga t-shirt that was two sizes too small). I’ll be a guest on “The State of Things” hosted by Frank Sta­sio. This is a live pro­gram, and if …

April 16, 2009 – 2:03 pm | By thunderchikin | Posted in Interviews | Comments Off

Repost: About Wild Things on HarperTeen’s MySpace

When I began first grade (first grade meant first grade–our school sys­tem didn’t have kinder­garten), I had never read a book, and no one had ever read one to me. My expo­sure to sto­ries was lim­ited to either tele­vi­sion or fam­ily mythol­ogy. Both of these expe­ri­ences were incred­i­bly homog­e­nized: I grew up in all-white com­mu­ni­ties, …

April 14, 2009 – 5:14 pm | By thunderchikin | Posted in Blog | Comments Off