I haven't written in quite awhile. I've certainly been reading, and I have lots of thoughts, but as one of my sisters told me: all your thoughts are kind of a bummer.

This is true, I suppose. It's hard to have light posts when you're writing about pretty heavy stuff. But there's another reason: have you ever noticed that parents have a lot less to say when our kids are thriving? When things are tough, we have a lot to say: questions, comments, gripes, complaints... which is all just reaching for support in the end, isn't it?

If you are any part of the children's literature community, you've heard the conversations currently being had about under various hashtags: most visibly, #weneeddiversebooks and #ownvoices. For the non-initiated, these hashtags represent two, shall we say, movements, in the kidlit world -- both long overdue. The publishing world has been extraordinarily slow to respond to calls for more representation, more diversity, and more people telling their own stories. So even though these are difficult, nuanced, sometimes upsetting conversations, most of us agree that it's about time.

Just when I thought I couldn't love Amy Schumer any more than I already do, she goes and takes another piece of my heart.

In case you somehow missed it, Amy Schumer has a new comedy special, GROWING, on Netflix. I hit "play" the second it was released, eager to see how she would turn the joys and horrors of pregnancy into comic gold.

I was not disappointed.

Most writers know that setting comes first: picturing a place determines so much of what a character will do and how they will interact in the world.

Brace yourself. I realize I'm in the minority here, but I am not a fan of the popular musical-- and now YA novel Dear Evan Hansen.

This past weekend at the National Counsel of Teachers of English annual conference, a relatively well-known author dismayed her fellow panelists and an entire audience of shocked listeners by repeatedly asserting that the suicide rate for LGBTQ+ kids (and adults) is much higher than the national average because people who identify as LBGTQ+ are mentally ill. She also said that parents have amoral obligation to protect their children from LGBGTQ texts.

Yes, you read that right: A "moral obligation to protect their children from LGBTQ Texts." And "LGBTQ people are mentally ill."

Let that sink in for a minute.

Being a parent is really hard.

I'm tempted to stop this post there-- everyone will agree with me and really, enough said.

But alas, I have a story to tell.

Lately I haven't been able to post.

I haven't been able to write much at all, actually. I find I am not alone in this phenomenon: many of my friends and classmates from VCFA report the same lethargy when it comes to our writing lives. In fact, we are all so brain dead, fatigued by the news, and full of weather-change doldrums, that my brilliant friend Maddie actually challenged my class (The Writers of the Lost Arc... don't ask. It's a VCFA thing) to sit down daily for a lousy FIVE MINUTES to write, because 5 minutes is better than no minutes. Let's just say we've temporarily lowered our collective bar.

Virginia Shreves is the protagonist of Carolyn Mackler's Printz Honor Book The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things (Bloomsbury 2003) and its excellent sequel, The Universe Is Expanding and So Am I (Bloomsbury May 2018). If you don't know Virginia, you should. She's awesome.

Everyone has heard the term quirky, right? Used in varying contexts, often in slightly apologetic, hushed tones: "she's kind of quirky." Yeah, those kids are a little quirky." "They have their hands full with that one - he's really quirky." Maybe even, "I hear that's a school for quirky kids."

And on and on.

Those of us in the autism community know how this common statement ends: "If you know one person with autism, you know one person with autism." This refers to the fact that the autism spectrum disorder is indeed a giant spectrum-- infinite, actually. So while there are many traits in common for people with autism, there is also so much variety that it's impossible to write a character that will depict a portrayal of autism that will resonate with everyone.

I recently finished Landwhale by Jes Baker, one in a string of several body positivity memoirs I've read partly as research... and, if I'm being honest, partly as my own therapy. The first part is working great, thanks for asking: lots of excellent research for my book, Me and the Mirror Girl, the story of seventeen year old Lily wrestling with body issues of her own that lead her down a path into anorexia. Well, that's part of the story, anyway. But truth be told, I don't have to dig very deep to understand Lily; that is to say, to access the part of myself that hates her body. I don't remember ever feeling otherwise. I do have to dig deep to write her, though, because it requires an honesty that I'd prefer, most days, to keep buried under those layers of blubber I'm so fond of.

I wear a lot of hats. Writer. Reviewer. Mom. Reader Girl.

While wearing my reviewing hat I seem to have found myself to be the recipient of a wide variety of Advanced Reader Copies of books that touch upon disability. It's not a mystery why these are sent to me: as the mom of two lovely boys who battle a variety of mental health issues, it's a topic I know all too well. I'm glad to be a sounding board for these crucial titles and proud that I have some part of getting books on mental health into readers' hands. It's the best way I know of not to just get mental health where it should be-- out in the open-- but also for those who struggle to know they are not alone.

Little is more powerful than seeing yourself in a book.