What happened was that I got a phone call from someone who remembered I’d fostered a litter of kittens last year, and wondered if I “knew anyone who wanted one.” In addition to that, I was told that this particular kitten had been thrown from the window of a moving car on La Vista Road (that’s a BIG BUSY street, for non-Atliens).

Of course I wanted the kitten. Meet Siggy!

It turned out that Siggy had not only been thrown from a moving car, but that he had also crawled up inside a truck that proceeded to spend a full day doing errands with Siggy inside it. He had further, I discovered, been wounded in some way that resulted in multiple open sores whose origin/explanation I shall spare you. (the details are really icky).

All that said, Siggy was the sweetest kitten I’ve ever met. An absolute delight in all ways, affectionate and cuddly, and full of beans and purrs once his fever and infection died down.

I thought about keeping the wonderful critter, but our elder-cat, Eddie the Smacker, was decidedly unhappy about the new visitor, and so when my friends Daniel and Janet chanced to stop by, and Daniel became enamored of Siggy, it was clear that Siggy was destined to move to Athens, GA, to start the lucky next chapter of his adventure. So everyone wins! (I should shout out to Fulton County Lifeline, whose friendly foster program makes stories like this possible. )

Moving on! The next big adventure was that Chris and I went to Bucharest! Like Siggy, this adventure sort of fell into our laps, when Chris’ company announced that he’d be heading to Romania for five days of meetings, and I decided to tag along. By chance, that was the very week that my agent (Stephen Barr, he’s the best!) emailed to say that the Romanian rights for Orphan Island has just been renewed. “What a funny coincidence!” said I, “I’m going to Bucharest next month.”

Well, when Stephen mentioned that to my Romanian agent and publisher, wonderful things began to happen, and somehow I found myself doing a fantastic panel with my Romanian translator and a poet/ critic/journalist, all about books and kids and literacy and Orphan Island. The event was at the most exceptionally stunning bookstore, and we all stayed up way too late that night. It was a dream come true, and now I have some wonderful new friends in Bucharest!

That brings us to my publishing news! I said I had three bits of news, but I think I’ll only share two right now, because indeed, we live in a world of feast/famine, and this newsletter is already getting too long. Perhaps next month will be slow, and I’ll need something to say then. Cool? Cool.

So, the news is that I have not one, but TWO beautiful covers, for picture books coming out in March. Two books I adore, illustrated by people I love. The first is a collaboration with Vera Brosgol, who is, as you likely know, a genius. I NEED MY LEWIS is a picture book about a blue blanket who loses his boy, and the antics that ensue. As you may have already guessed, this story was inspired by my own Lewis, on a devastating night when he misplaced (well, actually either Chris or I misplaced!) a very special blue blanket.

DRUMROLL!!!!!!

See? I told you she was a genius!

And finally, the second cover— by my favorite National Book Award-winning Caldecott medalist, Dan Santat, who also happens to be one of my best pals. Many of you have read and shared our first book together, Endlessly Ever After, right? (which, by the way, comes out in a handy smaller paperback format in a few weeks!)

Well, so many people asked us for another pick-your-path story that we decided to turn the book into a series, and Volume 2 comes out next spring. FIND YOUR FATE: an Endlessly Adventure takes you on a wild journey through your favorite Greek myths and legends. Haven’t you always wanted to slaughter the Hydra or hang out with Medusa? NOW IS YOUR CHANCE!

Dan’s really outdone himself with this book, and I can’t wait for your kids to fight over it on the storytime rug.

TA DAHHHHHHHHHH!

SEE? Isn’t it terrific? I told you so!

About two decades ago, back when I still thought I was going to be a grownup-poet-person, I wrote a book of poems called He Made Them Houses (“And it came to pass that since the midwives had awe of God, he made them houses. (Genesis 1: 21-22”) It was a book about having kids and becoming a mom. It was a book I never published.

In it, there was a poem that went like this:

Dear Nostalgia,

Where to begin? Mildew on a pillow. The grit of the gray Atlantic four days in my hair. Scratchy radio. Happiness.

Long-gone skin, smooth and dirty. The stink of fireflies dead on my hands. Stolen wine. French fries with boredom. Ketchup. And the music of—

Rooftops and whiskey, the cat box in the corner. Jasmine through the window. Voices like rust and fiddles.

My own my own my own. Plaintive soundtrack to the movie of my then. How I’ve needed you. How I’ve carried you. How I’ve cultivated your tendrils.

My kudzu my love. At the end of it all, there you are . Decorating the worst, choking my dull world into your lovely green distraction.

I cannot tell anymore what you are strangling, and what you are holding together.

I liked this poem then. I like this poem today. All these years later, it still echoes in my head, this ode to nostalgia.

”How I’ve cultivated your tendrils…. I cannot tell anymore what you are strangling, and what you are holding together.”

*

I’m not someone who has ever liked the idea of a muse. Even setting aside gender, I’ve resisted the idea of “inspiration” coming from something external.

And yet, when people ask me why I write for kids, I usually admit that I return over and over again to the same deep, echoing, lovely, uncomfortable well I call my childhood. Because I got stuck there. Because parts of me got a little bit broken, and patterns got set, and I have used my own writing (and my relationship to children’s books more generally) as a way of making meaning out of that pain. As a way of understanding those difficult years. As a way of forgiving other people, and also myself.

I have no regrets about this! I have made meaning. I have come to understand things in new (if still incomplete) ways. I have forgiven. My life is full of beauty and love and joy. And I regularly get letters and emails from kids (and adults) who also seem to find meaning in my work. I’m proud and pleased that I made something wonderful out of the broken bits, the cloudy memories.

But now, sitting here, looking back at 20 years and 30 published books— enough to call it a body of work—I think I have to admit that perhaps I do have a muse. Perhaps my own nostalgia is my muse. It is very hard to look at my novels, especially, and not see a scar, a map, a constellation of emotions and moments. All of it encoded, but not so deeply encoded I can’t recognize it if I squint.

*
Next year, Glimmering: a Mostly-True-Tale will be published by Chronicle books. And this book will be different. To me, it feels very different. Glimmering is a graphic memoir, made with the unbelievably talented and thoughtful Trung Le Nguyen, who somehow dug down into my photos, memories, and words, and produced a bizarrely faithful work of art. I don’t know how he did it, drew the pictures in my mind. His imagination and intuition are next level.

No matter how many times I comb over this book, I cry when I read it. This book is ME, and my family, and my past, and my inner workings. This book is full of my memories—not encoded, but as transparent as I could make them. This book is not nostalgia-as-muse, but nostalgia-as-subject, the story of how I became the person I am, and why I do what I do.

And what I keep wondering is…

When this book is out there, in the world… this story of my life, written as honestly as I could tell it… this decoder ring for everything else I’ve written… might I might be ready for a new subject? And if so, what could that possibly be?

*
Right now, I’m full of questions about the future. In ways I’m ready to talk about, and also a few I’m not. I’ve been offline for about a month , and it’s given me time to think about my life in new ways. There are other transitions happening too, big and small ones. Maybe I’ll get to those at some point.

But meanwhile, one thing I find is that— freed from the churn of social media—I’m more inclined to write things like this, here, in this space. These posts remind me of my early blogging days. I walk around in my life for a few weeks, mulling and musing on a subject. I hold thoughts in my head for longer, so that they have time to rub against each other, and become something a little bit more involved. It feels good.

And yet, I admit I miss you—the community of people I’m used to interacting with, but don’t bump into in the grocery store, or know well enough to call up for a chat. I’m not sure what to do about that at this point. But maybe, if this post resonates, you’ll leave a comment and tell me a bit about your muse?

Or your feelings about nostalgia?

Or why you write for kids?

Sincerely,
Laurel

You know how everyone wanders around saying things like, “Oh, I know I spend too much time online and I should really take a social media break, and yadda yadda?”

No?

Oh!

Well, maybe it was just me…

But in any case, that WAS what I spent a lot of time doing for years, until suddenly, last month, the universe conspired to boot me offline and keep me there, and do you know what? Everything is SO MUCH BETTER THIS WAY.

I mean, I always knew I was addicted to the internet and that when I finally stepped away from the Matrix the difference would be dramatic, but what I didn’t expect was to be so much DARN HAPPIER. I didn’t expect that I wouldn’t miss social media at all, but it’s extraordinary how little I think about it. It’s like I was addicted to a drug but it turns out the drug was actually pretty boring.

One thing I’ve discovered is that social media was filling in for other kinds of social interaction. So suddenly, I find myself calling old friends to catch up more, stopping to talk to neighbors, or popping by a pal’s house to sit on the porch for an hour. Unlike a lot of writers, I’m a very extroverted individual, and so of course I need a certain amount of social contact, but it never occurred to me that I was filling up my bucket online. So that’s been great!

I’m also reading a lot more! Currently, I’m just starting Flagrant Self-Destructive Gestures, a Biography of Denis Johnson, (because literary bios are my absolute favorite, and anything set in Iowa City gets extra points) and then at night and in the car, I’m listening to Klara and the Sun, which is bizarre and wonderful.

Then, too, I’ve just started to really work on a new book of my own. I have two goals for the summer— a little chapter book I’ve written before, and failed to finish, but that my brilliant friend Matt Phelan helped me sort out last month, and so I need to give it one more go before I admit defeat. (Thanks, Matt!) And then, when that’s done, the big-swing of a book I mentioned last month.

But perhaps the biggest news of my offline summer is that I got a BIKE. An electric bike! Chris got one too, and these toys have truly transformed our daily lives. I actually went six days without using my car! I ride to my friend Zany’s house, and up to the Trader Joe’s in midtown, and I pop over to the Publix with my handy-dandy saddle bag to do the grocery shopping. Together Chris and I zip along the Beltline, or go out to dinner, and it’s just wonderful. It’s been a great thing how much the bikes have made us feel more at home in this neighborhood where we’ve lived for decades.

I also find myself thinking about it as a social-media replacement. They’re both a kind of stimming, but they’re almost exactly opposites. Where social media is an absorbing click-click-click that keeps me sedentary and doesn’t make space for my brain to wander, riding my bike engages all my other senses, while my little noggin thinks about books and people and stories and words. I have to pay attention to the world around me (the road underneath me, the smell of gardenias as a zip past them, the birdsong), but my brain can still wander. It’s really pretty magical. Last night, riding back from East Atlanta, a huge hawk flew alongside me for a block on Brownwood, chasing after a squirrel, and it was NUTS! I could feel the wind off his wings!

Here’s a picture of me on my bike. Her name is Sylvia!

And (because it just so happens that I have it) here’s a picture of me on my childhood bike, as drawn by the genius Trungles, for my upcoming graphic memoir: Glimmering: a mostly-true tale. It’s funny how much falling in love with my new bike has brought back lots of sense-memories of childhood bike-riding.

DO you remember what it felt like, to be all cooped up at school, and then on a bus or in a car, and then to get home and take off your “school clothes” and dash outside to where your bike was leaning against the side of your house? You’d jump on it, and wheel it out to the street, and then you’d be riding riding riding, with the wind in your face. You could shout or sing (I had a bike-riding song I made up) and if you made it to the top of the hill and then shot back down again, it was WILD AND FREE AND A LITTLE BIT SCARY.

Remember how that felt?

Well, it still feels just like that!So, it’s not very exciting, but that’s what’s been going on here. I bake bread and make granola and run errands and go for long bike rides and read books and watch TV (Hacks was so good!) I’m finally not-traveling-for-work, and that feels really good to me, after an extended stretch of school visits and book events. I’ll have three books out in 2027, and a few big announcements to make pretty soon, so I know the road will beckon again in the not-too-distant future, but I’m very very very happy to sit still for a bit, just where I belong.

Or, even better, I’m happy to not-sit-still, and instead RIDE MY BIKE.

Happy summer to you, wherever you are!

But I guess we can start with my mistake— I bit off more than I could chew. (not an unfamiliar experience, but maybe I’ll actually learn from it this time).

You see, this spring, The remarkable LeUyen Pham and I had a book come out, a picture book called Shrinking Violet, which I have utterly failed to make a newsletter about, and which I do hope you’ll order for your home or school or library! It has gotten some lovely starred reviews etc etc.

But in the service of this book, I ran around a lot— to Pittsburgh for Winter Institute and to Houston for TLA, and to a bunch of fantastic bookstores and schools in places like Washington DC and New York. (related: signed copies are currently available at Little Shop of Stories, The Book Bird, Virginia Highland Books, Words on Warren, Books Are Magic, The BookMark Shoppe, The Lofty Pigeon, The Ivy, Old Town Books, Union Avenue, and Book and Cover).

At some point, with all that running around, I got sick, and tried to push through, and so I stayed sick. NO FUN. Events were cancelled, sadly, but at last I got better, and simultaneously, I needed to go up to Annapolis and collect Lewis (who was somehow finishing his freshman year in COLLEGE) from school and do a few last book events.

Now, this is a thing I do. I can never seem to just let a vacation be a vacation or a research trip be a research trip. I could have JUST collected Lewis and had a sweet roadtrip home with him, but I added school visits and stock-signings and Mothers’ Day with my mom and sister, and dinner with my dad, and I also decided this would be the perfect time to begin working on a secret project, for which I planned to do some research.

But as the trip grew closer, I began to feel overwhelmed. I had crammed my week in Baltimore/DC/Annapolis TOO full, and my brain was feeling fried. We’re also doing some work on the house, and I had a revision to turn around for a picture book, and of course there are always vet appointments and bills to pay and our tenant had a problem with her HVAC system and AGGGHHH! So, flailing about, I made a decision to eliminate anything I could from my tired brain, and last Monday night, after I turned in my picture book revision and skipped out on a social obligation, I deleted Threads (which I hated anyway) and also took all social media off my phone.

“THERE!” I thought. “That’ll make some space!”

Then I downloaded an audiobook, a Gertrude Stein biography which I highly recommend, packed myself some snacks, and hit the road, feeling a lot lighter. That feeling lasted about an hour, until the “low oil” light came on, and I had to pull off the highway and find a mechanic, and then a Valvoline. Sigh. BUT THEN. After THAT, I was back on the road, just hanging out with Gertrude in the streets of Paris.

Of course, in the back of my mind, as I drove along, there was also the super-secret project I mentioned above. Remember that? This book is not just a pipedream, a whim. For about a year, my editor and I have been pondering this project, and I’ve been trying to decide whether I think I can pull it off. It’s a big swing, a book that many many people have asked me for, but that I always swore I’d never write. At first because I didn’t want to, and then because I didn’t think I knew how to do it justice.

But shockingly, I think I’ve figured it out now! And so, in April, my editor and I agreed to commit to it, and clinked glasses in Brooklyn, to seal the deal.

Which was how I found myself on the highway, nervous and excited, trying to clear my head enough to sit down for two days in a solitary room by the water, before I got busy, and scribble. In a neighborhood that means the world to me, and in which I hope to set my story. THIS neighborhood, where I was once a 14 year old girl-woman, and where I have always thought I’d probably end up someday, at least for awhile. You may know it:

But I wasn’t there yet. I was still on the highway, pondering my story, and trying to find the still small voice that would lead me to a book, when the phone started ringing. Because there was a SITUATION ONLINE. And if you are reading my kidlit-related newsletter, I have to assume you know what the situation was.

Of course, I got pulled into the drama briefly, as I talked to one friend after another, tried to make sense of the gossip, though I had no actual context for it because I was, apparently, the only picture book author in America not online at that exact moment.

But I truly wasn’t! I was completely and totally offline. I felt like I was floating alone in the middle of the sky, untethered.

After I hung up, I just drove, and stared at the highway, mulling the moment I found myself in. Nothing my friends had told me felt real, as I drove down the highway. The highway felt real, with its periodic spattering of light rain, its weedy ditch flowers. The Taco Bell signs felt real, and Gertrude felt very very real to me, but most of all, the quiet room ahead of me and the story in my own mind felt real—this story I had been waiting a decade to write, and could, I knew, disappear if I didn’t make space for it in my tired mind, honor it

THAT was my thought. That I could choose to make space for this frantic online reality I usually live in but had slipped away from serendipitously, or I could choose to make space for the tiny lovely seed inside my own mind. I could give this nascent story my full attention, try to get back to the kind of focus I used to have before Twitter, or I could pull over, reload Instagram and FB and Bluesky, and catch up.

I’ll tell you the honest truth— I split the difference. All day, I stayed with Gertrude and the highway, and the seed of my own story, but when, after dark, I pulled into a Fairfield Inn somewhere in Virginia, I slid out my laptop, and logged in long enough to know that it was a bad idea. It was like I could feel my brain catching fire again. So I slammed the laptop shut and went across the road to an Applebees, where I drank a whiskey and soda and ate a bad steak. Then I slept.

After that I spent a week doing ALL THE THINGS, and honestly, it was a busy enough stretch without the online discourse. I was thrashed with school visits and driving back and forth and back and forth, with the intensity of family life and a sweaty, heavy dorm move-out.

But now, here I am, a week later. I pulled in last night, with Lewis and a lot of dirty laundry. I’ve let myself linger in pajamas until lunchtime, so that I could write this post. Soon I’ll hit send and get dressed and run all that laundry and go the grocery store, and feed the sourdough, and make the weekly batch of granola and start thinking about dinner and dentist appointments, and also I need to go to the hardware store because there is black mold in the shower and I’ve been meaning to bleach it out and replace the caulk, and also I should think about the garden, because I’m very behind if I want to plant anything. Then in a week or so, Mose will be home too, and after that it will really be summer.

But more importantly, I have a seed I am caring for, the seed of my story. I will sit and ponder it as I write my morning pages each day. I will take it out for a walk every evening. I will outline and scribble and yammer to my friend Marc about it, and on June 1, I will sit down with a fresh notebook, and begin in earnest.

This is a very long post, and maybe nobody will read to the end, but I’m writing it for myself, as accountability. I’m determined to have a draft of this book by January 1. Barring actual crisis in my immediate family, I’m going to make that my top priority. I’m not going to travel this summer. When people ask for things I know I’ll find distracting, I’ll say no. I’m not going to let myself get too sucked into the daily political podcasts I sometimes let consume me. I’m not going to volunteer to canvass until August, when (hopefully) I’ll have a real routine set and the general election looms. But most of all, I’m not going to see you online.

And I’ll miss you!

But not as much as I’ve been missing me.

Love,
L

So, January 12th is both my birthday (52) and my wedding anniversary (22), and this year, with no kids left in our house, Chris and I decided to fly away to London, to visit dear friends who recently moved back there.

In some ways, this was a trip we’d waited 22 years to take. See, we got married in Vegas and never really had a traditional wedding or honeymoon. And then we moved to Atlanta and changed jobs and Mose was born so quickly after that, and then Lew arrived! So, while we travel frequently, the travel tends to be family-trips or work trips. All of which are great. But the truth is that in 22 years of marriage, Chris and I had never taken a vacation alone. Not once.

And it was WONDERFUL! We went to the British Museum and Westminster Abbey, and our friends surprised us with a beautiful dinner and tickets to see The Producers. We ate curries and kebabs, and we rode double decker busses. But best of all was just getting to BE, removed from all responsibility. To sleep and dream and drink tea, and walk to the pub and spend time with Abbie and Richard in their new home.

While I was there, I also had the chance to spend a day in Oxford, doing a little book research. Which was fantastic, if rainy. For anyone interested, this is Addison’s Walk, where Tolkien and Lewis once had their very important late-night-walk-and-talk, and a table that Tolkien reportedly used to sit at, when he was at Merton. We took a private tour and stayed in an inn above a pub and haunted used book stores.

But then, while we were in England, things in America got pretty intense, what with the promise of a Greenland invasion and then the murder of Renee Good and the takeover of Minneapolis by ICE. People kept texting me from home, suggesting we might just want to stay overseas for a while…

But tempting as that might have been, home is home, and so we returned to Atlanta. Where I found myself disinclined to leave the house, preferring to putter around in pajama pants, ignoring phone calls and the news. I also began sourdough-baking, five years behind the trend. Which means I have also taken up eating a lot of bread.

Of course, I couldn’t be entirely house-bound, because recent political events have also meant we’re back in the streets. As we all—collectively and individually-try to figure out what comes next. But honestly, I struggled a little in motivating myself this time. We fight and we fight and call and call and work the polls and knock the doors, and things just seem to get worse. Protests and vigils. Boycotts and lawsuits. HOW do we organize? Can America really pull off a General Strike? HOW do we protect our upcoming elections? How does the Democratic party reimagine itself and GROW?

And thinking about all of this, actually (oddly) made me think about my spring picturebook, SHRINKING VIOLET, a collaboration with one of my all-time favorite artists and humans, LeUyen Pham.

You see, Violet’s problem is that she get frightened . And when she gets frightened, she shrinks! Just as I’m inclined to do right now—to shrink into my house and pajama pants and bread-baking and old movies and kitten-snuggling.

Of course, there’s plenty to be frightened about in today’s world, for grownups as well as for kids, and that can be hard to navigate. I never want to look away from the frightening things, avoid them completely, but I know that I also need to sustain and care for myself. It’s tricky. I think a lot of us struggle to find that balance.

In our book, despite her fears, Violet finally learns to grow when her best friend is threatened. She discovers she’s able to show up for Bird in ways she hasn’t ever been able to do for herself. Because she LOVES him so much. In love, Violet finds a surprising kind of strength. She levels up.

And that feels like something I need to think about right now. Watching Minneapolis rise up in this way, GROW in this way, has been so inspiring. I feel like Minnesota has shocked everyone out of complacency. Like, we thought we knew the limits of what America might be capable of, but Minneapolis has shown us that we need to dream bigger, stretch ourselves further. Which perhaps means loving harder. Loving more.

And just coincidentally, my wise friend Kim Jones was talking about that subject just the other day, down at the Atlanta ICE offices…

Have a listen.

If you’re tired of hearing me yammer about The Book of Candles: 8 poems for Hanukkah, I can’t blame you. I’m feeling kind of worn out by it myself. I’d never done a holiday book before, and wasn’t entirely prepared for what a condensed shopping season would mean for book promotion. I’ve visited something like 25 stores across 5 states for stock-signings and story-times, done a bunch of school visits, and I have another few local events this weekend, at Virginia-Highland Books, Bookish, The Book Bird, and Impossible Moon. (come out if you can!). And then I’m going to be on KELLY CLARKSON on Monday! (I can’t believe it, but apparently it’s true, because I found this graphic online)

After that I will CRASH! But as tired as I am, this month has been magical. I’d lost a lot of my bookstore community during Covid. Stores closed (BOO!) and opened (YAY!) and people moved around, and so I was really eager to pop into a bunch of wonderful shops and reconnect. Of course, I’m so glad I did! You were all so warm and welcoming, and however the book sells or doesn’t (I hope it does!) it felt like a huge hug to drive up and down the region, visiting you all.

So now I’m ready for a new year! Ready to start whatever the next chapter will bring! Including (drumroll) a RETURN TO COLLEGE! Yes, that’s right, I’ve been accepted as an undergrad (sort-of, I’ll be a “nontraditional” student) at Georgia State University, where I plan to take drawing and painting classes. I’ve never had an art class of any kind, and I’m scared and excited to try something completely new, something I’m bound to be bad at, at least at first. But I’m a big believer at doing things we aren’t great at! I think it’s healthy for us to try new things, that it reduces stress and pressure, and allows us to throw ourselves more fully into the task at hand, when we don’t have high expectations about performance. I was hoping to start in January, but I already have a bunch of spring events set up for my next book, and so I fear that if I want to do a good job of going to school, I should wait until fall, when I’m less likely to miss a bunch of foundation classes. So it’ll be September before I have to buy a new book bag and school supplies, but I’m very excited. EXPECT THIS TO TURN INTO A NEWSLETTER OF VERY BAD SKETCHES.

And speaking of the new book, this is it! Shrinking Violet, with AMAZING art by the absolute genius LeUyen Pham. It isn’t out until late March, but it already has a starred review from Kirkus, and has been selected by the Junior Library Guild! Feel free to check the whole thing out on Edelweiss. And if you’re so inclined, maybe you’ll preorder a copy, or request it from your local library? Uyen and I will both be doing some events (including a really fun one together). More on that in a few months.

And now that all that business is out of the way, it’s time to return to the Box of Sadness! It seems like a good time to do it, as I was in Baltimore so much this fall, and things there feel just great! My sister’s bookstores are going gangbusters, and all my siblings were in town for the long Thanksgiving weekend, so we all got together for a potluck dinner with ALL FOUR OF MY PARENTS (this is not a thing that has ever happened before) and the boys came in from college, and everything was just GREAT. Which is not a thing that 8 year old Laurel or 18 year old Laurel or 28 year old Laurel or 38 year old Laurel or 48 year old Laurel would have ever dreamed might happen.

Honestly, it felt enchanted. It felt like someone had waved a wand over all of us, and settled old differences, made space for new understandings, created a kind of acceptance. If you’ve read Bigger than a Bread Box, you might have some idea how big a deal this is for me. (and in two years you can all read my graphic memoir with Trung Le Nguyen, Fairy Hunter, and that will REALLY unpack how I felt about my parents’ divorce as a kid). But for now, it’s enough to say that it was really special and joyful—in a calm, quiet, satisfied way.

Which makes it somehow easier to dip back into the Box of Sadness and pull out something to share, time travel a bit. How about this little gem?

“Laurel’s & Kate separation talk drawings 10/14/82”

The thing is that I don’t remember this talk/drawing. I remember a conversation with both my parents, on the living room sofa, and so that’s the way I’ve told the story in Fairy Hunter. Though memory is inventive and tricky, and it’s entirely possible I fabricated that moment, or pulled it from a book I’d read, and then conflated it with my own story. I also remember a therapist I was taken to see, to help me process the divorce, and it stands to reason that she might have suggested something like this— an exercise for me (the struggling child, and I was that) to draw my feelings, or some such.

But what I truly see, looking at these scraps, is not just a child struggling to deal with her parents’ separation,” but also, a child attempting to perform as “a child struggling to deal with her parents’ separation.” It’s just too obvious, too much what you’d see in an after-school special. I’ve literally drawn a diagram of “me” pulled in two directions by “M” and “D.” And then ripped it up!

I can’t help remembering back, to the performative, self-aware, anxious kid I was, and thinking that I sat there (wherever “there” was) and tried to serve up what I thought they wanted to see, both as a grieving kid, and as a kid “processing and adjusting.” So I drew the most concrete symbols I could think of to indicate the most obvious “normal” emotional response to the divorce, and then ripped it up to show them I was struggling.

Or maybe not! I guess we’ll never know. In any case, this was my origin story, in so many ways. This divorce, which I have written about and written about and written about, from a place of deep pain. But which I can no longer truly regret, since it was that same difficult set of experiences that brought me to this very moment, this life. Which I love.

I look at these scraps of paper and see a kid in pain, obviously. Because I remember her in pain. But I also see a performer and storyteller, a kid trying to find a way to satisfy her reader, to manage her world, to move forward. Naturally, I’d like to hug her, but the truth is that, from the vantage point of 43 years, I know she’ll be okay.

I wonder what YOU see, when you cast your gaze back in time to your own origin story? Do you have artifacts from those years? DO they call your memories into question? Do they still cause you pain?

Sending love in the cold months, as we peer into the next chapter. See you in 2026!

Well, here we are in November, and it’s feeling significantly better than last November! No?

Last November, I was fortunate enough to be at a wonderful retreat center in Virginia, on a generous scholarship, with time to think and dream and walk and rest and make new friends and (theoretically) write a book, but it was also election season, and I found it nearly impossible to make myself write, as I waited to see what would happen. I was kind of losing my mind, if you want to know the truth.

I’d early-voted in Atlanta, and I remember sitting with the ever-brilliant Meg Medina over lunch, talking about what we thought was about to happen. Meg (smarter than yours-truly) was worried, but I refused to believe things would go badly. And when I woke up at the beautiful retreat center the morning after the election, surrounded by nice strangers, I couldn’t take the news. I flipped out, packed my car a week early, and drove home to Atlanta without stopping. (Well, maybe I stopped for a Taco Bell bean burrito, but only one!)

And so, last week, I was afraid to be hopeful again, but OH MY FRIENDS, I AM SO GLAD I WAS WRONG THIS TIME. Between the fragile ceasefire in Gaza (inadequate, but something after so much devastation), and all these blue wins around the country, and the gorgeous fall weather, I’m sleeping much more soundly and I hope you are too.

On top of all that, I’m about to get in the car and DRIVE (which is one of my favorite things to do) past falling leaves and pumpkin stands, to share my new Hanukkah book with people far and wide. And I’d really love to see YOU.

I’ve booked a handful of school visits (these aren’t open to the public, so I’m not including them below) and story times, but a lot of these stops are just chances for me to sign stock and say hello to the nice folks at some wonderful bookstores. If you’re in one of those towns, and want to meet me at the shop to grab a coffee or something, let me know! I’ll be hitting more than one town a day, so there might not be time. But hey, a girl’s gotta eat and stretch her legs, right?

I haven’t really begun my tour yet, but I’ve been traveling for other reasons, and so I’ve popped into a few bookstores, just to see if the book is already on the shelves. I can’t tell you how good it feels to (nervously, shyly) ask, and find a sweet stack of them on a holiday display. So I’ve already signed copies (as pictured below) at Park Road Books (in Charlotte, NC), PRINT: a bookstore (in Portland, ME), and Brookline Booksmith (in Boston, MA)

Below, you’ll find a list of dates and locations, and I hope you’ll join me for a variety of ridiculous and/or sublime moments over the next month. But if you can’t make it out and would like a personalized copy, you can order it from one of my own beloved local shops, and I’ll sign it for you.

Or, if you work at a store that would like signed bookplates or some adorable stickers , please reach out, and I’ll pop some in the mail. Finally, if there are any bookstores on my path (generally, between ATL and Baltimore, by way of VA and NC), that would like me to swing by and sign stock, let me know! I’ll be delighted to run around and visit EVERYONE, until collapsing on December 15, and retreating to my little cave of blankets and kittens.

Maybe then I’ll get back to my box of sadness and write a non-promotional post here, let you know a bit about the other big things happening in my life. There are a few of them! But for the next month, it’s all BOOK OF CANDLES, all the time.

SENDING LIGHT TO YOU ALL!

Love,

Laurel

**

LAUREL’S CRAZY LITTLE ROADTRIP HANUKKAH SIGNING TOUR

Nov 15: Stock Signing at Charm City Books
Nov 15: “Holiday Kickoff signing,” w/ Dan Santat & Ellen Oh at Ivy Bookshop (11-1)
Nov 29: Small Biz Saturday at Old Town Books Junior (9-10)
Nov 30: Hanukkah story time at Ivy Bookshop, (9-10 am)
Nov 30: Stock signing at Wonderland Books
|Nov 30. Story Time at Queen Takes Book (3 PM)
Dec 1 Stock signing at R.E.A.D.
Dec 1: Stock signing at One More Page Books
Dec 2: Stock signing at Fountain Bookstore
Dec 2: Stock signing at BBGB tales for kids
Dec 3: Stock signing at Quail Ridge Books
Dec 3: Stock signing at Flyleaf Books
Dec 3: Stock signing at McIntyre’s Books
Dec 7: Annual Hanukkah story time at Little Shop of Stories (2 PM)
Dec 13: Virginia Highland Winterfest signing, with Sheri Dillard (11-1)
Dec 13: Hanukkah story time at Bookish (2 PM)
Dec 14: Hanukkah story time at The Book Bird (10:15)

And stuck in that mindset, I found I couldn’t write. I REALLY couldn’t write.

So I called my then-agent, the wonderful Tina Dubois, and asked her what to do. And (if memory serves) she said, “Editor X is actively looking for a Hanukkah book. Why don’t you see what you can come up with…” And that was helpful! I do like a prompt.

But Dear Reader, what I came up with was NOT MUCH AT ALL. I *did* produce several attempts at Hanukkah books, but they weren’t my best work. One was an overly sentimental retelling, and the other was a silly slapsticky rule-of-3 story that involved burnt latkes and a house full of smoke.

Editor X was unimpressed.

So then, as I so often do, I gave up on “making a book” and scrolled the internet awhile. And somewhere, buried in my own social media, I found this sweet little video of my own kids, Mose and Lew, lighting their Hanukkah candles.

Watching the video, I was struck by how much joy the light brought them. And how much joy watching them brought to me. I found myself thinking that I could never replicate that moment again, could never conjure the silly graceful joy of two toddlers playing with fire, beaming with pride that they know (sort of) the words to the song.

And then, touched by the moment and the memory, and the huge gap between the clunky Hanukkah books I’d attempted to write and the loveliness of the actual memory, I sat down and wrote a poem.

For me, this is often the key that unlocks the most-stuck-doors. The illusion that I’m writing “just for me.” I started with a vague memory of 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, and the simple hope that I might be able to capture some of these subtle magical moments that kids have with the Hanukkah lights.

And the Hanukkah miracle was that I very much liked my poem! After struggling to write, I was delighted to have caught something that felt light and easy and true. So, while it wasn’t really a “picture book” I shared it with my little Covid-era Zoom writing group, and THEY liked it too! Did they think I could make it a picture book? They weren’t sure. But they said I should show it to Tina.

So I did, and she loved it! She said it WAS a picture book. After some revisions, we had a little auction for my poem, and I was utterly delighted to find myself with offers from a handful of fantastic editors, including my beloved Jordan Brown (now at Clarion), who suggested we ask Leanne Hatch to illustrate. She agreed and made the PERFECT art to go with the book!

And ever since then—since 2021—I’ve been holding this memory inside myself. A little Hanukkah miracle. A reminder that when I’m working too HARD and not getting anywhere, it’s probably a good idea to step away from the things that make writing feel like work. Open a book of poems. Scribble in a notebook with a pencil. Take a walk. Draw a picture. Try to remember the sparks and flames and words and moments and instincts and ideas that made me a writer in the first place.

And the truth is that I’m in a much better place, four years later! I’m writing again, and my kids are happy and healthy, now in college. I’m still very worried about the world, but I think I’ll save that for another, less celebratory post…

Because, today, The Book of Candles is a book in the world! I’d be honored if you’d consider ordering a copy. I’m very proud of it! I won’t be doing events for this book until later in the season, but I’ll be visiting some bookstores and schools in November and December, and if you’re anywhere between Baltimore and Atlanta, and you know of a store that might like me to pop in and sign stock or host a storytime, please let me know! I’ll be doing a little roadtrip after Thanksgiving, and I’m hoping to stop by as many shops as possible.

One thing I really love about this book is that I’ve set it up in eight sections, and I fantasize about people using it almost the way folks use an advent calendar—reading a poem a night, alongside their candles. I have this fantasy of people all over reading it in hushed (or loud of giggly or whatever) tones, as they snack on gelt or latkes.

Another thing I love about this book is that it really leans into the reality and messiness of this holiday. I don’t know about you, but at my house, it’s impossible to do anything “perfectly” for eight nights in a row, and so invariably, a few nights of Hanukkah go a little sideways. We end up eating pizza late at night, or we find ourselves traveling and needing to create a makeshift menorah out of a banana and some birthday candles (true story! This is a longstanding Snyder family tradition that went a little bit viral a few years back, and which I’ve immortalized in the book, and with these adorable bananukkiah sticker sets and Hanukkah cards, which I’ll send to anyone who orders from an indie bookstore!).

I mean it, send me a message if you’d like some swag! You can order from Little Shop of Stories, or send me a receipt from YOUR favorite bookstore.

And thank you thank you thank you for reading, requesting from your library, ordering a copy. I’d really like to think that Book of Candles will become a warm and welcome part of Hanukkah in houses all over the world.

A little light, from my house to yours.

A nice thing happened yesterday! A book arrived in the mail. My very first copy of The Book of Candles, with gorgeous art by Leanne Hatch. It comes out in September from Clarion/HarperCollins, and is my first picture book with my beloved editor, Jordan Brown (who edited Orphan Island, My Jasper June, and The Witch of Woodland).

Normally, when I get a first copy of a new book, it kicks me into high gear, and I run around and do all sorts of fun things like post to social media and start planning events and contact booksellers and order goofy merch and so forth...

But this book feels different. In large part because everywhere I look lately, the world feels so hard and sad, and it seems an odd thing to celebrate my own joys when people are struggling and suffering in so many ways. It feels a lot like eating cake in front a someone who is begging for water.

This book also feels different because, to be honest, I’m uncertain how to be loudly Jewish in this particular moment. I’d very much like to write something more about that, and I may try to address it in a future newsletter, but it’s not a simple matter. I’m not AFRAID to be Jewish in a public way. I’m not scared for my own well-being. But I’m trying to find the right words to say something that will contribute, that might be useful to the people who read them. And I haven’t found those words yet, so we’ll have to set that subject aside for now.

But meanwhile, I have this book, and I am deeply proud of it. Leanne has made truly wonderful art, and Clarion has done a bang-up job of producing an object that feels timeless and also contemporary. It’s the sort of book that you pick up and think, “wait, have I seen this before?” Only you haven’t.

It’s also true that this book was the first thing I managed to sell after years of not being able to write AT ALL. I was already in a creative black hole in 2020, when the pandemic hit, and for 18 months I tried and failed and tried and failed to write. I won’t go into the details of how Covid impacted my process, as nobody really wants to be reminded of all that, but it didn’t get easier.

And then, one day in October 2021, my wonderful then-agent Tina Dubois suggested that I work on a Hanukkah book for a certain editor, who was looking for just that. Well, I gave it a go, and produced exactly three terrible attempts at Hanukkah books! Until Tina, recognizing how frustrated I was, said I should just “go write a poem.”

When I showed her the first draft of Book of Candles, I didn’t think it could even BE a picture book, really. It was just a few words on a page, a tiny thin little poem. But Tina said, “I really love what you’re doing here.” And I felt this huge wash of relief, because *I* loved it too, though I’d gotten to the point (maybe some of you know the feeling) of being so down on myself and the work I’d been making that I didn’t trust the feeling of pride any longer. Do you know what I mean?

I’ll spare you the details of how we revised it and sold it (though if folks are interested in that stuff, let me know, and I can share more), but the point is that in many ways, The Book of Candles pulled me back into my poet-self and my author-self, back into believing I could still do this job, even while I was overseeing distance-learning in my mom’s basement in Baltimore (which is a whole other saga). The point is that, while it won’t solve the world’s problems, this book matters to me, and I don’t want to let it down. I want to celebrate this book, to share it, to thank it for existing. And I want to thank the people who made all that possible by giving it the best chance I can.

And so, for now, here we are. For now, THIS is how I am “promoting a book when the world is drowning and/or on fire.” By sharing it with the people who have signed up for my “newsletter” and expressed interest in the particulars of my life and books. Because that feels safe and welcome. So I want to thank YOU for being here, for being a new community for me, for providing a place where I can open up in this way.

I’ll share more about the book in coming months. But for now, it’s a JLG book, which is always a huge honor, early in the publishing process, and we have fantastic early reviews from Kirkus and SLJ. I’m really excited to see what’s in store…

Now, because I rambled on and on, I realize I haven’t done what I said I was going to do with this “newsletter” and share from the Box of Sadness, but there’s still time for that, here at the end! Let’s see what I can find that connects to my rambling about Hanukkah and publishing… hmm….

<rummages in Box of Sadness>

<emerges with dust in hair>

Okay, I found something that connects! It’s not exactly a “sad” artifact, but it feels like the right thing to share today. And maybe you have something like this yourself, from a sweet little preschool or summer camp in a church-basement or rec center, or maybe your mom or kindly aunt or grandpa did this for you?

It’s a book! I “wrote” a book! In 1978, when I was 4. Or anyway, I illustrated and translated/explained/dictated it to some poor confused soul. Here ‘tis…

Pretty cute, right? Man, was I a weirdo. I honestly think this is pretty good stuff. But the last page is different. The last page looks like this…

LOOK AT THAT! There I was, four years old, already disappointed in my craft. Already failing and quitting. But thank goodness for whatever good soul chose to make a note about my self-criticism! It made me laugh, when I pulled it out of the box.

Seriously.

For me, looking at past failures is really helpful. In just the same way that today I went back into my emails about Book of Candles, and saw how hard I was struggling before I wrote it…

I kept writing when I was four.

I kept writing in the darkness of the pandemic.

And I guess, even as the world is afire and drowning, I’ll keep writing now.

I sure hope you will too!

Well, here I am again!

It’s been a little over a year since I threatened to begin sending out periodic newsletters, and posting to my old blog. Obviously, that never happened! But among other massive changes this year, that old blog disappeared completely!

Yep—decades of posts and pictures of my kids, memories and bits of writing all vanished in a day. Which was a terrible experience, but also, honestly, it’s okay. I can make more memories and pictures and bits of writing.

To that end, I figured this newsletter might be a reasonable replacement. But then what should it become? What matters and what doesn’t? What’s worth saying and remembering? Hmmm…

Related: another thing that happened in the last year is that my mom and step-dad decided to move into a retirement community, and as part of that process, they gave me a bunch of things they’d been storing in a spare room, including a BOX OF SADNESS.

What, you may ask, is a box of sadness? In this case, it’s a box of all the papers and scraps and artifacts that I suspect my mom didn’t want to discuss or revisit, but that were also too important to toss out, mixed in with old art projects and report cards.

Now, Mom didn’t TELL me she was giving me a box of sadness. She just casually mentioned that there were some old things of mine I should take home when I left. There was a Cabbage Patch Doll too, sitting on top of the box. It all seemed pretty random.

But when I reached into the box, the first thing I withdrew was an envelope, and in that envelope was the picture I’d been asked to draw in therapy, when my parents decided to divorce. Only the picture I’d drawn had somehow been torn to bits, and so they fluttered out when I opened the envelope, a pitiful little flurry on the floor.

Now, if you know me at all or you’ve read much of my work, you probably understand that I often think of my parents’ divorce as my own origin story. So I sat there, staring at these scraps of paper, and wondering what ELSE might be in the box. I felt nervous, but also excited to discover what secrets the box might unlock, how it might affect my life and my writing! And for some reason this feels like what I might like to do with this newsletter/blog, at least for a little while, chronicle some of my experience with the Box of Sadness!

You see, for decades now I’ve been blogging, keeping some sort of online journal. And those decades were full of forward momentum. I got married! I had kids! I started publishing! I started teaching! There were so many big new beginnings.

But now, with Lewis graduating and leaving for Saint John’s College in Annapolis (we are so so so proud and excited for him!), and with Mose happily hiding out at Williams College, in Massachusetts (we are so proud of him too!), and having resigned from my teaching job at Hamline… it feels like this is a different sort of chapter.

Because while I (naturally!) hope to have many exciting adventures ahead, full of travel and new projects and hobbies and friends, I do not feel like this moment is about my own momentum or life in the world. Rather, it feels like a sort of folding-inward moment. I find myself wanting to revisit old ideas, to re-read books and music I’ve loved, to putter and garden and cook and sit with the things I already have, turn them over in my hands, see what else I might find in them.

And in that mood, I find myself staring at the BOX OF SADNESS, and wondering what I might make of it, how I might understand all these scraps of paper now, a lifetime later. What story will they tell me?

So I wonder if any of you might like to see some of what’s inside it? To share a bit of this journey with me? Maybe I could send out a scrap or two at a time, and offer my memory of it? Maybe I could extrapolate a writing prompt from each scrap, that others might like to join me in? Maybe you’d have scraps of your own to share, memories you’d like to revisit alongside me?

Could that be a “newsletter?” Would anyone read it? I reserve the right to change my mind, but for now, I’m thinking I might like to try .

And of course, in the meantime, I also mean to share any scraps I might have from my BOX OF JOY!

For instance, here’s a picture of Lew’s graduation. We had a wonderful week, full of family and friends, and now everyone here is stretching out into the lazy summer ahead. Definitely that picture belongs in my BOX OF JOY.

Also, Leanne Hatch and I have a new picture book coming out in September, called THE BOOK OF CANDLES: eight poems for Hanukkah! If you use Edelweiss, it’s over there, and I’ll be traveling a bunch this fall, so if you have thoughts on places that might like a Hanukkah storytime or school visit, I’d love to know about that. As you likely know, preorders matter to publishers a LOT, so if you are a librarian or a bookseller or you have a kid who might like a copy, now would be a great time to order it!

I’m really proud of this book! I think it captures exactly what I love about the holiday, and how I like to celebrate it best—messily, honestly, and with deep meaning. But I’ll have more to say about that another time, I’m sure!

And now I’m seeing that I’ve gone on a very long time here, and so I’ll wrap this up. But I’m pretty serious about making this newsletter a regular event, and I’d love to know what you might like it to be! Why did you sign up? It doesn’t have to be the BOX OF SADNESS. Do you want bookish thoughts? Creative writing tips for the classroom? Secrets about how I make my amazing potato salad? let me know!

Love,
Laurel

Because Mose is graduating, and I wanted to see his first day of kindergarten (on his very last day of school), I went searching for an old  photo on Facebook. But my FB post redirected me to a blog post, from 2011.   And when I began to read back, through that year, I  found myself so incredibly grateful for all the lost memories.   Also sad, to think about what social media has done to blogging, which felt so much more thoughtful, crafted, curated, specific.

Blogs were diaries that we shared with our friends.  And I guess so is social media, in a sense. But in fact, social media is TOO MUCH BAD DIARY. Too full of reposts and daily noise and advertising to truly digest.

I know I’ve gotten far away from blogging, but I think I might try to make a weekly post again. Or even just a monthly post! These last few years have been so intense in so many ways, and I find myself sad that I haven’t chronicled them very well. The Trump election, insurrection, pandemic and lockdown, the many many elections here in GA, including the joy of Warnock/Ossoff, and the heartbreak of Stacey Abrams’ loss. I haven’t written about October 7 and the war in Gaza, which have altered my life and mental state even more than Covid. As hard as it is to write about these things, I’m sad I haven’t.  Because even if nobody else will ever read these posts, I think I would like to, someday, down the road.  I’d like to be able to remember what I felt, and the details of these days.

In more personal news, I haven’t written about my mom’s cancer and several other family illnesses.  Or important trips I’ve taken (Rome with the family, Paris with my mom).  Somehow I neglected to post about my Bruce Springsteen Little Golden Book. Or Mose’s college search and the literary magazine he started. Or Lew’s deep interest in music and the songs he’s making.  Not to mention the sudden departure of my beloved agent, and the year of change that followed. Then there’s my struggle with writing, generally, and my discovery of The Artist’s Way, which brought me back to the page…

Now I’m sitting here, staring down over a (wonderful, but frightening) cliff. Mose will leave for Massachusetts and Williams College in the fall, and Lew will begin his senior year, and his college search. After that, in about 15 months, I suppose I’ll be sitting here one day, without any kids in my home, preparing for an Everything Change, for the first time in decades.

Will I leave Atlanta, finally head home to Baltimore? Will I write my best novel?  Will Chris and I become digital nomads and move to Portugal?  Will I take drawing and painting classes?  Will I foster a million kittens or become a master gardener?  Any of these feel possible right now.  So it feels like a good time to dust off the old blog, and use this space.  Blogging often helped me think things through.

I know most folks are using Substack now, and I might try that. But don’t expect any consistent subject matter, if you should sign up. As I have always done, I’ll likely flit from subject to subject, from the personal to the global to the frivolous to the promotional.

And I’ll post everything here too, because I have been doing so for 16 years now, and it turns out it’s nice… to have all your memories in one place.

If you’re reading this, whoever you are, thank you!  It might just be the two of us for awhile

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