children's author Archives - Donna Galanti - Where heart and hope meet adventure!

Nostalgic travels, moves + book festivals, awards, and recs!

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 2^nd 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?

Lovely welcome sign with Tiffany the librarian at a school visit!

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

Free Spooky Stories + Halloween Goodies!

By Donna Galanti

Halloween is almost here! Get your spooky on by visiting the Begonia House today for a character costume party.

The virtual party features original spooky shorts by children’s authors: Anika Denise, C. Lee McKenzie, and me! There will be mystery surprises, bobbing for books, goody bags from Trick or Reaters and plenty more! Check out a new story about Joshua and Charlie from the Lightning Road series and see if you can guess their next adventure. You could win a poster of the Lost Realm!

I had more spooky fun last week at an amazing tramadol school visit where I presented to 300 students at Churchville Elementary.

Between the breakfast with staff, the special welcome artwork, and the enthusiasm of the kids – I felt so appreciated and so lucky to be in this job!

I mean look at this AMAZING wall they created right from my website banner here.

One of the best moments? At the end when a young girl named Chloe ran up and wrapped her arms around my waist and burst out, “You are so inspiring!”

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!

via GIPHY

Pre-order Joshua and the Lightning Road & win an iPad Mini + 5-star review!

By Donna Galanti

So many fun things are popping about with Joshua and the Lightning Road (coming May 19th!) that I had to share in the excitement with all of you folks!

First, Joshua and the Lightning Road is now available for pre-order on some outlets! Amazon & Barnes & Noble

And I’m so giddy that I’m doing a pre-order giveaway with lots of goodies!

How awesome is this?! Even if you don’t win an iPad Mini look how cool this 18 x 24 map poster of the world of Joshua and the Lightning Road is that you could win!

Second, I had so much fun in my first interview about Joshua and the Lightning Road and received my first review – 5 stars! I’m also giving away a print galley (a pre-publication copy). Check it out on This Kid Reviews Books . Even more amazing is that this book blog is run by 13-year-old Erik, who also happens to have his first book published! He is truly inspiring. Watch for his interview on my site this month featured in my Kid Heroes series.

Here’s some of what Erik had to say:

The descriptions in this book were so vivid I could feel, smell and envision the setting. The characters were solid. Joshua was totally believable. He had all the right characteristics of a great main character – brave, smart and kind, but he also acted like the kid he is. The story has a lot of action but also a great plot line that strings everything together. The ending is satisfying but leaves the reader buy ambien wanting to get into the next book in the series. (Read more)

In other bookish news, I also had an amazing time presenting at my first two writer’s conferences in March, at Liberty States Create Something Magical Conference in Iselin, NJ, and The Write Stuff in Bethlehem, PA . I spoke about how to position yourself as an author before you get a book deal, foundations of world building, and revision techniques. I finally got over my anxiety of teaching (eek!) and met some great new folks and met up with old friends.

You can also catch my latest post on Project Mayhem about blurring the line between good and evil in fiction. Stop in and chat about your favorite villains, heroes, and anti-heroes!

And you can see me speak this month in NJ at the The South Jersey Writers’ Group at the Barrington VFW on April 16th, and at the Bethlehem Public Library, Bethlehem, PA, on April 25th at YA Fest Jr. where I’ll be signing free copies of Joshua and the Lightning Road that my amazing publisher Month9Books is giving away – plus I’ll be hanging out with tons of cool authors!

Check out all my events that keep growing. Would you like me to come speak to your group or school? Just email me! See what I include in my school assembly presentation.

So come party with me as Joshua and the Lightning Road blasts to Earth. My favorite space traveler Captain Picard says “make it so”!

Finding white space: I ran away (but came back)

By Donna Galanti

I ran away last week.

It’s okay. I’ve done it before. And I’ll do it again.

In a twist of fate I had two book deadlines due February 1^st. As if one wasn’t enough! Yup. I had to review final proofs for book one in my fantasy middle grade series coming out in May, Joshua and the Lightning Road, and hand in edits to go to print (cowabunga!) and I also had to hand in book 2 in the series.

A storm was coming. There would be snow days. There would be laid-off husbands clunking around and a son wanting to hang out (usually a good thing!) and cats jumping on my lap and laundry piling up and meals to be made. There would be no white space just a space of many colors.

And I needed chunks and chunks of white space to create my own colors.

And I do mean white as I raced ahead of the BIG STORM I-shall-not-name that was-not-to-be to a teeny tiny town called Boyds Mill, PA. This is where the Highlights Foundation runs a fabulous retreat center with author-run workshops and cabins for writers who need to run away (apparently it’s a writerly phenomenon).

In another twist of fate all the cabins were closed for the winter except the big lodge and I had it all to myself. Did I say ALL TO MYSELF? I did.

Through the arctic tundra I traveled. Down snowy roads to my haven in the woods.

Now if you haven’t heard of Highlights you should! They’ve been producing children’s magazines and books for decades. And what a treasure it was to find these old magazines from the 1940s in the lodge.

And this was my view all alone in this lodge.

And this was my couch where I edited and revised two books twelve hours a day.

Surrounded by framed illustrations and authors all around the world who’ve created pictures from writers’ imagination inspiring kids to dream.

And this was my white space from my desk. But in that white space was movement and color and joy. For every day, far across the snow on the hill, two kids played. A big brother pulled them on a sled behind his ATV as their dogs ran about. Up and down they went. Back and forth. The dog tumbling along. Their laughter bounding off the snow to me.

And I remembered the days when I would sled all day with my dogs. Down the hill to slide across the pond, yelling as loud as I could, my dogs racing with me. Then to run up and do it all over again – and again.

And that memory and the scene before me blended into one. I grasped my own child-like wonder (that can be so often lost in the drudgery of line editing and the writing business) and the wonder of these kids before me, and looked at the pages in my book – and I felt it there. I felt it so deeply that I picked up the phone to call my mother and share my excitement. We once shared every day. And in that brief child-like wonder my mother was alive again to me. Then the loss of six years hit me all over again. Her gifts were left behind and her vibrant colors were long gone.

But my white space was now colored with my own paint of childlike wonder.

And eventually I ran away back home to a world of different colors.

One of my own making as well.

And that was just fine.