Authors, Kai Strand & LA Dragoni

Today the World of Ink tour brings us our guest, illustrator, Jessica Love, here to talk about her collaboration with author Sands Hetherington in Night Buddies, Impostors, and One Far-Out Flying Machine. Kai: What age range is your book for? Jessica: I think it will appeal to 8-10 year olds. Kai: Can you share a memory of yours or a story of you from when you were within the age range of your target readers? Jessica: I grew up in the woods, in the middle of the Los Padres National Forest, in Southern California. I was happiest playing imagination games by myself, or drawing. I would sit in my room for hours and hours, illustrating these stories that I would narrate to myself as I drew them. I had a penchant for melodramatic, sweeping tales, and I would often work myself into hysterical tears as my epic tales would reach their apotheosis. I think at the time my dad was reading me The Lord of the Rings, and so it was important for all the stories to be in...

Welcome to my blog feature, Building Character in which you get to meet book characters. Talking to a character outside of their book is fun! Huge. Amounts. Of fun.  Be sure to read all the way to the bottom to learn how you can enter for your chance to win a Kindle version of Save the Lemmings . This week Strands of Thought welcomes Natalie and Trudy from Save the Lemmings . Girls, why don’t you introduce yourselves to our readers? Hi, my name is Natalie Isabelle Cailean Edwards. I’m 12 yrs old and in the 8 th grade at Carver Middle School. I have three lifelong friends who I can’t live without. My parents are the best parents a girl could ask for and my silly cat, Whisper, makes me smile every day with his grumpy-bear attitude. Yeah, and I’m Trudy. I’ve been going to school with Natalie forever, so you can feel good and sorry for me. Did you notice her initials spell “nice”? I don’t know if her parents were prophetic or if Nat just took the whole “nice” thing way t...

Welcome to the 2013 version of Three Times A Charm. I love meeting new authors, illustrators, bloggers, agents, editors or promoters from the children’s publishing industry and sharing their careers with you.   Today’s guest is a semi-local author who I discovered when I saw her booksigning event on a semi-local bookstore’s calendar. Jill Williamson, tell us about yourself, please. I’m a chocolate loving, daydreaming, creator of kingdoms. I write weird books for teens, love Jesus, and am a recovering fashion design assistant, who was raised in Alaska. Visit me at www.jillwilliamson.com , where adventure comes to life. Tell us about your latest book. The New Recruit Forced to choose between military school and a Christian spy organization, skeptic Spencer Garmond signs on with the Bible geeks. But before he even boards the plane for Moscow, Spencer realizes this is no Bible club. These guys mean business. Stumbling onto a case involving a gang of homeless...

Welcome to my blog feature, Building Character in which you get to meet a character from a book. Talking to a character outside of their book is fun! Huge. Amounts. Of fun.  This week Strands of Thought is host to Sarah Shand from A Shadow in the Past. Welcome, Sarah. Tell us a little about yourself and what your life is like. Hi, I’m Sarah Shand. I’m nineteen and I live on a farm outside the village of Kendonald in Aberdeenshire Scotland, in the year 2010 with my mum and dad, fifteen year old sister, Rachel, and my ginger and white cat, Murphy. Oh wait, I don’t live there anymore. I’m currently living at Weetshill mansion back in the year 1886. Oh my goodness! Time travel can be a sticky predicament. Finding myself back in the year 1886 without the foggiest notion how I got there, I’d say is a pretty major conflict. So…uh…now what?! Finding my way back to my own time. Like I said, I have no clue what happened. I’ve had some strange experiences at the ston...

ATTENTION past Three Times A Charm guests and authors looking for promotion! I've added a new feature to my blog called,  Building Character , and I'm looking for guests. On Fridays I post an interview with a character of a book. It is so much fun for readers to get to know a character outside their book! You can browse through the interviews here . If you've been a guest on my blog before, but now have something new (or just something else) to promote, please contact me about one of your characters participating in an upcoming Building Character interview.  This is a standing invitation to all characters in children's books . From board books to young adult, we'd love to learn more about you.  Please share this post and help me spread the word. Who couldn't use a little free publicity?

Welcome to the 2013 version of Three Times A Charm. I love meeting new authors, illustrators, bloggers, agents, editors or promoters from the children’s publishing industry and sharing their careers with you. Today’s guest is via World of Ink tours. Author, Sands Hetherington, is visiting with us. Sands, tell us about yourself, please. Hi, and thanks for having me.  I'm an old man who lives by a lake on the edge of town with two Saint Bernards: Dudley and Maggie.  My publicist intensely dislikes my calling myself old, but it’s the truth. I’ve been telling stories to small children for many years. I was born in New York City but have lived in Greensboro, North Carolina, most of my life.  I go to a gym on weekday afternoons and the grocery store on Saturdays. That’s kind of old-fashioned, but I did say I’m old.- J I’d be happy to provide a list of provisions for your visitors, upon request! I travel a lot, up till now almost everywhere in North America and ...

Welcome to my blog feature, Building Character in which you get to meet a character from a book. Talking to a character outside of their book is fun! Huge. Amounts. Of fun.   This week Strands of Thought is host to Meg Flannigan from Love All. Welcome, Meg. Tell us readers a little about yourself and what your life is like. Hi! I’m Meg Flannigan. I’m 17, a senior, and a varsity tennis player. I’m also dating a really hot guy named Ash, who happens to be the quarterback of the football team and a total sweetheart. And my best friend is Grayson. She’s trying to make the varsity tennis team with me this year. It’s great to meet you Meg, but I have to admit, your life sounds really normal for a senior in high school. Certainly you have some issues you’re working out. It’s okay, you can tell us.             This isn’t easy to talk about at all, but here it goes. When I was a sophomore, my boyfriend cheated on me with a f...

Happy New Year Everybody! Welcome to the 2013 version of Three Times A Charm. I’m happy to say I’ve decided to continue my weekly feature – at least for now. I love meeting new authors, illustrators, bloggers, agents, editors or promoters from the children’s publishing industry and sharing their careers with you. As long as the guests keep coming, I’ll keep Charming. However, I’ll be out of town next week, but rest assured the feature will continue after that.   This week children’s author, Janel Rodriguez Ferrer, is visiting with us. Jane, tell us about yourself, please. I am a Native New Yorker of Puerto Rican descent (AKA: a "Nuyorican") and the product of loving parents, a living, breathing city, and lots of cafe con   leche .   Like my main character, Gina Santiago, I was an art major at a High School of the Arts in Manhattan, but unlike Gina, I'm not much of a guitarist (but want to go back to taking lesson.). For fun I like to read, listen to ...