Chasing Freedom: the Story Behind the Story

It all start­ed in Chi­na. Yes, you read that right. The ori­gins of my book about Har­ri­et Tub­man and Susan B. Antho­ny has every­thing to do with Chi­na. Let me explain. In 1988, I was asked to write a few mono­logues for the­ater pieces on Amer­i­can His­to­ry that would be per­formed in a series of theaters […]

The Writing Process Blog Tour

Have you ever been on a blog tour? This is my first time being part of one. Blame Chil­dren’s Poet Lau­re­ate, Kenn Nes­bitt. He’s the one who roped me into this! Seri­ous­ly, though, I’m hap­py to join the My Writ­ing Process Blog Tour. I hope you can take some­thing mean­ing­ful from my respons­es to the […]

Barack Obama

You know how I’m always say­ing I’m up for a chal­lenge? Well, with this book, God called me on it. Every­thing about this book was impos­si­ble. In 2008, I was going along, mind­ing my own busi­ness, writ­ing my books and sweat­ing the lat­est dead­line. I’d instruct­ed my agent to restrain her­self from offer­ing me any new […]

The Road to Paris

I spent sev­er­al years in and out of fos­ter care when I was a child. Lit­tle won­der, then, that fos­ter chil­dren pop up in my poems and sto­ries. I did­n’t explore the theme in a fuller text, though, until I wrote The Road to Paris. The Road to Paris is a nov­el about Paris Rich­mond, a […]