'TIL SUMMER

It's most definitely the end of summer here in southwest Missouri...as I type this, I'm wearing a flannel shirt over one of last summer's tanks.

I've also been thinking ahead a bit lately, toward possibilities for trailers for both of my forthcoming books (the MG from Dial and the YA from HarperCollins).  Which means that I've been pretty seriously in-tune with what visuals do for a song as I watch CMT.  (The station's been something of a long-time weekend ritual, along with a big breakfast...The older I get, the more I gravitate toward bluegrass; with a semi-professional bluegrass musician in the family, I tend to think of it as a genetic predisposition.)

I was struck this morning by how really perfect the visuals are for this one.  The scenes match the song and are a perfect match for the feeling I've had the past few days, as my own Missouri summer comes to an end.

 Now if I could just somehow channel that when I sit down to put together my next trailer...

TEEN READERS ROCK

Truly. According to the Springfield News-Leader, local teens hit library shelves like hammers this summer…Teenage bibliophiles recorded nearly 40,000 hours of reading time over the past nine weeks and wrote 875 book reviews on the Greene County Library’s TeenThing web page.

I love that tech-savvy teens still adore the feel of an old-fashioned book in their hands…