Garden State Teen Book Award Nominee! Video Visit Giveaway for NJ Teachers/Librarians

Calling all New Jersey teachers, librarians, and parents! I’m thrilled to say that my middle grade novel, SHIRA & ESTHER’S DOUBLE DREAM DEBUT was nominated by the NJ Library Association for the Garden State Teen Book Awards, 31st Annual (2025): Teen Votes Fiction Grades 6th-8th! Click for access to the online ballot. For other teen categories and access to a paper ballot, please click here.

What does this mean?

New Jersey students have the opportunity to vote for their favorite middle grade books until December 31, 2025. Teachers, librarians, and parents may use the amazing list of nominees to engage kids in reading, analysis, critical thinking, and the democratic process.

Of course, this gives me another chance to connect with readers, teachers, and librarians about SHIRA & ESTHER’S story, writing, teaching books, the publication process, the importance of freedom to choose and read the books you want to read, and #JewishJoy!

In honor of the nomination and the back-to-school season, I’m giving away three “After-School-Snack-with-an-Author” video events for New Jersey middle-grade (4th-8th grade) teachers and school librarians, along with their students. You provide the snacks, and I’ll use Microsoft Teams or Zoom to join you and your students. I’ll present briefly about the book’s journey and origin story and then answer questions. Ask me anything! Please click here to find out more about me.

The first three verified teachers or librarians to DM me on Instagram @annawritedraw will be the giveaway winners. Please send an image of your school’s staff page with your name or an image of your school ID. I’m looking forward to meeting your students!

#GivingTuesday and #WeNeedDiverseBooks

The #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign has been a rousing success. Far surpassing their original Indiegogo campaign of $100,000, the goals have been expanded. The money to this organization will support diverse authors in classrooms, internships in publishing, diverse books and programming, diversify classrooms, and develop educational kits for libraries and schools. The organization’s main goal is to promote non-majority narratives and the winners here are hopefully young readers and their families.

As an early #WeNeedDiverseBooks supporter, I sponsored a classroom visit from a diverse author to a Title I school. Why? There are always one or two kids for whom a school visit is magical. Those few kids who love to daydream, and doodle, and write poetry get a tingle in their spine as they meet an author or illustrator and the epiphany hits them… “Regular people like me write and illustrate books. I could do that!” Regular people–like me. School visits from diverse authors are crucial in planting the seeds for future authors who will write the next diverse books.

Some of you may know that I ran a booking agency. I can’t tell you how many times I was asked in that short year if the authors I represented could visit for free. Unfortunately, someone has to foot the bill. Authors and illustrators must be properly compensated for their expertise, their travel, and their lodging as much as they might want to give it away for free. (And trust me, many would love to not have to deal with that money stuff.) I’m hoping that more sponsors will use #GivingTuesday to step forward and sponsor a classroom. Join me in supporting #WeNeedDiverseBooks.

#authorvisitschat Debuts 3/5/14 at 8PM EST w/ Megan Frazer Blakemore

February marks the one year anniversary of my business Creative Bookings. To celebrate, teachers and librarians are invited over to the Creative Bookings blog for a month of giveaways and the kickoff of #authorvisitschat on Twitter TONIGHT! Wednesday, February 5th at 8PM EST.

I’ll moderate #authorvisitschat for teachers and librarians the first Wednesday of each month. Generally, the chat will be a place where teachers and librarians can pose questions about school and library visits, discuss best practices (what to do before, during, and after a visit), creative budgeting, fun prep activites, kidlit in the classroom, etc. Each time, one of my author or illustrator clients will be in attendance bringing their own unique spin to the conversation.

I’ll be joined at the debut of #authorvisitschat, Wednesday, February 5th at 8PM EST, by Megan Frazer Blakemore. TONIGHT! Megan and I will focus on how an author visit from an author of historical fiction can be an authentic way to teach research skills. We’ll discuss how Megan’s author visits can help your students meet Common Core State Standards.

If you’d like to join the conversation TONIGHT, but don’t know your TweetChat from your #hashtag, take a look at my post over at Creative Bookings. I can’t wait to get this party started!

Meet Orson!

Hope you are all having a fine day. The sun is breaking through the clouds here in Maine and for Orson (click on the image to make it larger). Check out my blog post at Creative Bookings about using #GivingTuesday to help fund author and illustrator visits. “November Round-up and #GivingTuesday”

Introducing… Creative Bookings!

If you are a regular Creative Chaos reader, you know that I write for children and young adults. I also offer Creative Services for other authors and illustrators including Creative Curriculum (reader and teacher guide development), and Creative Freelance (editing and writing services). Today, Lucy and I have news about more chaos coming to Creative Chaos – Creative Bookings.

Creative Bookings is boutique booking agency that I own and operate. I arrange school, library, conference, and event bookings for select children’s authors and illustrators. My award-winning clients offer a variety of presentations appropriate for students, librarians, educators, parents, writers, and illustrators. Together they present a diverse mix of writing and illustrating styles, genres, and specialties to meet the needs of a wide audience. They include: Anne Sibley O’Brien, Brenda Reeves Sturgis, Cathryn Falwell, David Elliott, Hazel Mitchell, and Melanie Crowder.

If you are a teacher, librarian, SCBWI RA, or other kidlit conference/event planner, I hope that you’ll keep me and my clients in mind. My clients are wonderful, and Lucy says that I’m ~~tasty~~ friendly, organized, and flexible too.

(Out takes from the photo shoot welcoming new clients to Creative Bookings.)

My new venture would not be possible without the help of Kirsten Cappy at Curious City Books, and I thank her. Curious City is a children’s book consulting company building creative marketing projects and outreach for authors, illustrators, and publishers focused on engaging readers with story.