Aneesa Lee and the Weaver’s Gift

I’ve been work­ing in tex­tiles since my late teens. First, it was sewing, then cro­chet­ing, then on to knit­ting. Along the way, I’ve made bead­ed jew­el­ry, done pey­ote bead­ing, made hand­made books and jour­nals, dec­o­rat­ed wood­en box­es, and col­laged hand­made cards. I con­tin­ue to make cards, pads, and jour­nals, and knit now and then. But […]

Dark Sons

When­ev­er I’d sit in church lis­ten­ing to yet anoth­er ser­mon about Abra­ham and Isaac, I’d always think to myself, “Yeah, but what about Ish­mael?” I’ve heard maybe three ser­mons about Ish­mael in the last two years, but before then, I can’t remem­ber ever hav­ing heard a sin­gle one, which, of course, made me curi­ous. What […]

Meet Danitra Brown

In 1991, I left my job as an edi­tor for Dis­ney Pub­li­ca­tions to work on my own books, full time. One of the first books I wrote after my exit was a sto­ry of friend­ship titled Meet Dan­i­tra Brown. When I sat down to write this book, I was very clear about the small sto­ries I […]

Tai Chi Morning: Snapshots of China

“Where do you get your ideas?” is a com­mon ques­tion authors hear, and I’m no excep­tion. Start­ing this month, I’ll be offer­ing a week­ly blog called “Back­sto­ry,” in which I’ll share the ori­gins of each of my books, as well as the fun­ny, quirky things that hap­pened dur­ing the process of cre­at­ing them. In 1988, I […]