The past month has been a flurry of activity with moving homes, traveling, friend meetups, and book festivals.
We moved back to a favorite place in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, which was very timely since I had two local school visits here this week and was invited by the Doylestown Bookshop to be a guest author with the Bucks County Book Fest on May 2nd with their Kids Fest section!
Book Fest was a fun-filled day celebrating the joy of books and reading with dozens of authors, music, food trucks, and story times on stage! Held at Broad Commons Park, I signed books and made new author friends.
And I was lucky to have a special helper with 7-year-old Bonnie who read scenes from Unicorn Island with me on stage!
Meeting with young readers is a favorite event for me as a children’s book author. I met with hundreds of students in 4th, 5th, and 6th grades this week who were so excited and asked the best questions. A few faves?
- Would I ever collaborate with another author to write a book?
- What was the hardest book I ever wrote and why?
- Would I ever write fan fiction?
- How do I create my characters?
I’m so grateful to have a weekly writers meetup where I get together with talented writers and we write and share experiences and advice about publishing. And it’s even more fun when we all can celebrate our writing successes!
This was also a busy month as I traveled to Oak Island, North Carolina, where my dad used to live for a family matter. It was a bittersweet trip as it was my first time driving down there since my dad passed away.
Nostalgia infused me as I visited our favorite spots—walking the beach, eating seafood by the water, and visiting the battleship USS North Carolina again. It had been over a decade since I visited it with my dad and his grandson.
My dad was a U.S. Navy communication specialist in the 1950s and I was a U.S. Navy photographer’s mate in the 1980s.
It was fun to find the photo lab and communications room on ship for both of our jobs! I sure do remember those 16-hour days working in the chow hall at Boot Camp and five-minute cold showers. My dad and I loved touring battleships, and during this visit I spent three hours from deck to hull and port to starboard lost in history and talking to the veteran volunteers. I just wish I could’ve been there with my dad one more time.
Our new home is peaceful. I relish reading by our field, which is quite a distraction because I love watching the little planes fly over to the local airport, wondering where they’re coming from, who is in them, and what plans they have.
I’m also reunited with my special woods now that I’m only a few minutes away again. The woodland paths were carpeted with blue violets, dandelions, and spring beauties. What a delight to be serenaded by the Carolina wren and gaze at the abundant crab apple blossoms.
BOOKISH NEWS
After months and rounds of judging, I’m so honored to have received a FIRST PLACE for the 2025 Gertrude Warner Award for Middle Grade Fiction for Loon Cove Summer with the Chanticleer International Book Awards!
I’m also so thrilled that my new middle grade novel, The Secret Winners Club, has made the long list for the Indiana Young Hoosier Book Award Program by the Indiana Library Federation! The short list for the 2027-2028 school year will be announced at the end of September.
The Secret Winners Club features three characters with visible autoimmune conditions. Many kids can suffer from autoimmune disease and often these conditions can not only be debilitating but also affect their self-esteem. It’s why I wrote about it in this book.
Check out these other middle grade books that feature young characters with autoimmune diseases. Stories like these are more important than ever for young people. Seeing themselves in stories helps them feel worthy of space, empathy, and possibility.
WHAT I’M READING:
Zig Zag Girl by Ruth Setton:
On opening night at Atlantic City’s haunted Black Widow Theatre, brilliant young magician Lucy Moon finds a body inside the infamous sawing box that killed a performer decades earlier – a black rose clutched in her mouth. The rose terrifies Lucy for reasons she’s never confessed, and she knows one thing for certain: the killer will strike again. To survive, Lucy must master the hardest trick yet: discovering who she really is.
This book is mystery, magic and murder set in Atlantic City wrapped up in noir! Plus, it’s also a finalist for 2026 Best Standalone Novel by International Thriller Writers. And check out this gorgeous cover.
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald:
As a child Helen Macdonald was determined to become a falconer. When her father dies and she is knocked sideways by grief, she becomes obsessed with the idea of training her own goshawk. She buys Mabel, a goshawk, on a Scottish quayside and takes her home to Cambridge. Then she fills the freezer with hawk food and unplugs the phone, ready to embark on the long, strange business of trying to train this wildest of animals. Fierce and feral, Macdonald’s goshawk’s temperament mirrors Helen’s own state of grief after her father’s death, and together raptor and human “discover the pain and beauty of being alive.
This book flows with history, beauty, and poetry. If you love raptors and the wildness of nature and the wildness within ourselves—you will be drawn to this book like me.
Happy reading to you!
Donna
