Jameyanne F

January Reading Roundup

I realize it’s actually March now, but bear with me. I’ve decided to try something new here. I thought, since I’ve already read so many books this year, that I would briefly go through all the books I read each month, my favorites and not so favorites, in a blog post. I’m keeping these thoughts spoiler-free, so if you haven’t read any of these books, you can read on without fear. So here we go.

My 2018 reading challenge on Goodreads is to read one hundred books, and I hit the ground running, reading eighteen books in January. These weren’t all four hundred page epics, certainly, and most of them were audiobooks, so I was reading while doing other things like cooking and laundry. I did read four books in Braille, and three of the books I read this month were nonfiction, which may be a record for me. Whatever kind of books I read, this many books is pretty much unheard of for me, and it’s kind of freaking me out.

Note that in the interest of clarity and also not writing a novel of my own here, I’ve put books that are all part of the same series together in this list, even though I generally read them with at least one book in between them.

First, I finished The Children of the Red King series by Jenny Nimmo. I read the first five books in this series last December, so I started out this year with books 6, 7, and 8: Charlie Bone and the Beast, Charlie Bone and the Shadow, and Charlie Bone and the Red Knight. I enjoyed these books, but I certainly didn’t enjoy them as much as the first five books in the series. Honestly, the series could have ended after Book 5, because the main mysteries had been solved and the bad guys had been defeated. These books introduced new characters—good and bad guys—and a new set of mysteries and challenges for our scrappy band of magical children. Charlie’s parents have gone off on a second honeymoon, but the Bloors know that Charlie’s father has hidden a will that may say their fortune actually belongs to Billy, so they bring in a guy who can control the oceans all over the world to drown Charlie’s parents while they’re whale watching. Meanwhile Charlie has to contend with the ocean-moving guy’s creepy son at school, the evil sorcerer from the earlier books has captured Billy, and the kids’ enemies among the other Endowed are trying to close down the Pets’ Café–a terrible fate to be sure. So lots of great stuff going on. I’d say that the writing was stronger, the characters were more nuanced, and the main mystery was more central to the plot of these three books. This whole series was definitely really fun.

Next, I read The Angel Experiment by James Patterson, the first book in the Maximum Ride series. I reae this book way back when I was in middle school, but I just discovered that the audiobook that I had was abridged. Blegh. So I found the udabridged book in Braille and read it, and let me tell you, it makes way more sense when you have the whole book. Max and her five “siblings” are 98% human, b% bird. They have wings and can fly, and they’ve escaped from the super scary science lab where they were created. They’ve been on the run and on their own for two years when the bad guys show up again and kidnap Angel, the youngest member of the flock. Rescue and adventures and a quest for the truth ensues. This was an fast-paced, action-packed, fun book. Max has a great voice, and it’s obvious that so much is going on that we don’t know about yet. Because of this, it sometimes didn’t make a lot of sense what the bad guys’ motives were, but since this is the first in a series, I forgave that. On the whole a pretty good read.

Next was The Power by Naomi Alderman. This was the first book of the year for my book club. Basically the premise is that women develop the ability to electrocute people with their fingers, and they quickly rise to become the dominant gender. The book follows four main characters, three women and one man, through the early years of this new world order. The book spans about ten years, I think, and the whole world, and it’s a really interesting exploration of gender politics. There was a little too much graphic sex and violence (including rape) for my taste, but I also appreciate that a large part of the book was to make the reader uncomfortable. The writing was also very good, and I sped through this book. Despite all this, there was something about this book that just didn’t work for me. I’ve been trying to put my finger on exactly what that is, but I can’t. This goes back to my discussion of my gut feeling in how I review books in this post. Objectively, this was a really good book. I just didn’t really like it.

I also continued the Sisters Grimm series by Michael Buckley, which I started at the very end of last December. Over the course of January, I read books 2, 3, and 4 of this series: The Unusual Suspects, The Problem Child, and Once Upon a Crime. These books are just so much fun I can’t stand it. Yes, they’re a bit episodic, and yes, Sabrina is still a bit of a jerk, but I like her anyway, and I love Puc. and as episodic as each book is within the larger series, they each add to the larger mystery. If like middle grade fiction and quirky retold fairytales, these books are for you.

Next, I finally got off the waitlist at the library for The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. All I have to say here is that if you haven’t read this book, you need to go read it now. That being said, I’m going to break with all the hype and say that it isn’t a perfect book. It has a lot of disconnected subplots that mostly come together in the end, and there are parts where it drags. But honestly, I don’t mind so much. If you don’t already know, here’s the basic premise: When sixteen-year-old Star sees her best friend shot by a police officer at a traffic stop, she has to decide whether to speak up or not. This is a deeply emotional and beautiful look into a very important issue in our country, and it should be required reading.

When I was home for Martin Luther King Day weekend, I piaked up and reread my braille copy of A Wrinkle in Time and its sequel, A Wind in the Door, by Madeleine L’Engle. Now I remember really liking these books when I was a kid, though I didn’t get past the first two because they were the only ones I had in Braille and this was before the days of refreshable Braille displays and digital Braille files. The world of Camazotz and It from A Wrinkle in Time is still the first thing I picture when I hear the word “dystopian.” But now that I’m older, I found the books to be pretty weird. Now I have a high tolerance for weird, but these were just really weird, especially A Wind in the Door. I also found the books to be a little too moralizing for my tastes. But I still enjoyed them, and I’m really looking forward to the movie this month and to reading the next book in the series (I have it from the library now).

Next, I read The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars by Dava Sobel. A lot of the reviews I read on Goodreads were upset that this book was more about the astronomy and the history of astronomy than the social movement of female computers in the late 1800s and early 1900s, but since I’m an astronomy geek and that’s what I was in it for, I didn’t mind. So yeah, a hundred years before Hidden Figures, the Harvard Observatory was hiring female computers, and The Glass Universe tells their story, from the days of photospectroscopy on glass plates all the way through World War II. I found this book to be an absolutely fascinating read, though it might be difficult if you don’t already know a bit about the science, and if you have any interest in astronomy or the history of science or the work of female computers, I highly recommend you check this book out.

After that, I dove back into fiction with I Am The Messenger by Markus Zusak. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is probably one of my all-time favorite books (I’ll probably reread it sometime this year because it’s been a while). I tried really hard not to judge I Am the Messenger against The Book Thief, and I think I mostly succeeded. I enjoyed I Am the Messenger, which is about a perfectly ordinary kid in Australia who’s life becomes extraordinary when he starts receiving mysterious message he has to deliver all over town. These aren’t written letters or anything. They’re puzzles that he has to solve to find people who need help and to help them. And the ending was a twist I didn’t see coming. All in all, it was a pretty good book, but honestly it just didn’t drag me in the way I expected it to, and I finished it with a general feeling of “well, okay, that’s done. What’s next?”

Next was the Shanghai Girls duology, Shanghai Girls and Dreams of Joy, by Lisa See. I absolutely loved Shanghai Girls. It’s a sprawling family epic about two sisters who immigrate from China to the United States because of arranged marriages, but along the way they are kidnapped by Japanese soldiers, held at Angel Island, and other harrowing things that I won’t say because I don’t want to spoil it. It was so well-put-together and so intricate. I will say that without the sequel, the ending would have sucked, but since there was a sequel, it was okay. I didn’t enjoy Dreams of Joy as much as Shanghai Girls. It was more of a slow burn, and it was more predictable, but it completed the first book nicely. On the whole, a really good series, and I recommend.

At the same time I was reading the Shanghai Girls books, I had to reread Getting to Yes: Negotiating An Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton for a class. Since it isn’t a case book, I’m counting it towards my reading challenge. I actually read this book last year for the negotiations workshop I took. It was required reading for the Negotiating and Drafting International Business Transactions course I’m taking. Since the Negotiations Workshop, I’ve delved so deeply into negotiations that I felt it would be a good idea to get a refresher on the basics, so I reread it. Getting to Yes is an excellent and easy-to-read primer on win-win negotiations, and if you’re at all interested in learning to negotiate effectively, I highly recommend it.

After that, I read Saints for All Occasions by J. Courtney Sullivan. This book is another book about immigrants, two Irish sisters who immigrate to Boston in the 1950s. It alternates between the past, when the sisters are settling into life in Boston, and the present, when a car accident forces the estranged sisters back together. It was a pretty good book, on the whole. I especially enjoyed the writing. But it was pretty bland, and the concept was so similar to the premise of Shanghai Girls—and I’m not just talking about the immigrating sisters here—that it was hard not to compare them. And Saints For All Occasions was just missing something that Shanghai Girls had. I think if I hadn’t read Shanghai Girls, I would have enjoyed this book a lot, because I wouldn’t have the comparison. But there you have it.

Finally, I rounded off January with Bargaining with the Devil: When to Negotiate, When to Fight by Robert Mnookin. This was a book for my Negotiation and Diplomacy class this semester. We only had to read the first three chapters or so, but I was so interested I kept reading. What I really liked about this book was that it provided some nuance to the negotiation framework I’ve been studying for the last three semesters. Instead of just talking about how to negotiate and how negotiation is better than litigation, this book actually explores times when it may be appropriate not to negotiate. It goes through several historical examples, including Churchill’s famous decision not to negotiate with Hitler. It also looks at more personal examples, such as divorce, inheritance, and business disputes. As with Getting To Yes, this book is interesting and easy to read. So if you are interested in negotiations and want to add another layer to your understanding of it, this is a good book for you.

So that’s what I read this past January. I’ll be back soon with my February reads. In the meantime, have you read any of these books? Do you agree with me? Disagree with me? Let me know what you think in the comments.

Six-ish Things That Make a Good Book

A few weeks ago, I was at trivia with some friends, and in between questions we were talking about the books we’d read recently. At the time, I was nearly finished reading Daughter of the Burning City by Amanda Foody. I told my friends that I was really enjoying the book, but there was one big problem that I wanted the author to resolve, and whether she did or not would likely determine whether the book made it onto my list of favorite books of 2018. One of my friends said something along the lines of, “Well 2018 is really just getting started, so how can you already know if a book will be on your favorites list anyway?” Which led me to explain that I’ve never limited myself to my top ten or any other arbitrary number of favorite books of the year. Instead, I keep a running list of books I read throughout the year that I think will make the cut. This is particularly important this year, as I’ve already read thirty-three books since January 1. But after that conversation at trivia, I really started thinking about what exactly got a book onto my list of favorite books for the year.

I’m sure someone could analyze all the books I have listed on my book recs page and come up with some quality that they all share (I’m taking a course on the ethics and governance of artificial intelligence right now and this seems like an interesting job for a computer). But in reality, my method is not a science. Far from it. Since I’ve been musing about my process, I’ve found that there are certain things I look for in a book, and some of them matter more to me than others. And so, in no particular order, here are the six-ish things I consider when deciding if a book belongs on my favorite books list for the year (and also on my book recs page).

Writing:

This may come as a surprise, since I’m a writer and all, but writing is not the most important thing in the world to me. Of course, excellent writing is a huge plus, but if the writing isn’t fabulous and the story is there, I don’t mind so much. Less-than-stellar writing alone isn’t going to tip a book out of my favorites list. For example, I really like the Hunger Games series (Mockingjay less so but that rant is beside the point), even though the writing isn’t fabulous. I also enjoyed Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate, despite the bland and often cliched writing. On the other hand, if the book has other problems, bad writing can drag it down for me. For example, last year I read The Call by Peadar Ó Guilín. Basically, think the Hunger Games with faeries. I was really excited about this book, but it turned out that I kind of hated it. The story was almost there, but it was pretty predictable, and the main human villain was so cliched, and I hated the writing. I’m not sure if it would have made it onto my list had the writing been better, but better writing may have lifted it out of the I-completely-hate-this-book bucket. And finally, if bad writing alone can’t drag a book down for me, good writing alone can’t lift a book up. I can’t think of an example of this right now, but if a book has fabulous writing and nothing else, it’s not making it onto my list.

Story:

For me this is a pretty broad category. When I think of the story, I’m thinking about the plot, the character arcs, the world building, and so on. Ideally,I love it when all these things are done well, but I’ve also been known to love books where certain aspects of the story aren’t all there. For example, even though the world-building certainly leaves something to be desired, I really like the Divergent series (with the exception of the ending of Allegiant because oh my god what was that!?). Story is one of the most important considerations for me when I’m deciding if a book is doing to make it onto my list. There’s just a certain combination of originality, strong pacing, and characters I care about with goals I care about that you can’t beat.

The ending:

This is another big one. For me, the perfect ending can take a good book and make it excellent, just as a bad ending can completely wreck a strong book or series. I’ve already mentioned the endings of Mockingjay and Allegiant and how in a lot of ways they ruined the series for me (though I’m more accepting of the ending of Mockingjay once the movies had a crack at it). If you’re interested in reading a much more detailed rant about what makes a great ending and what makes an ending fall flat or actively destroy a good book, I have a whole post on endings here. Go check it out.

Representation:

This is a complicated one for me. Generally speaking, this is less important in my overall scheme of thinking about books, but if something is absolutely agregious, it will certainly tip a book out of the running for the favorites list. If a book doesn’t have a lot of diversity, I’m not going to dislike it just for that. If a book has female or minority characters and represents them poorly or problematically, that will upset me. This is especially true for me when it comes to characters with disabilities. Earlier in this post I mentioned Daughter of the Burning City, which I really really liked as a book, but I’m struggling with it because it did the blind-but-not-blind-because-magic thing that really gets under my skin. I have a whole post about blind characters with superpowers here, if you’re interested in that rant. Talking about disability representation is what I’m most comfortable with, because it’s my own experience, and I don’t want to make assumptions about groups outside my own personal experience, but I do pay attention to it in books, because I want to do it right as a writer. And if a writer does it well, that will certainly push a book from good into my favorites list. Finally, it’s important to note that my friends are very conscious of diversity and representation, and the books I pick up tend to be conscious of diversity and thoughtful representation.

My gut:

This is pretty self-explanatory. I have a gut feeling about books, and I tend to go with it. To go back to Divergent, I know a lot of people didn’t like it. I recognize its many flaws. I really do. But I’m sorry, I like it. And my gut feeling is really important.

Time will tell:

Finally, I keep a running list throughout the year of books that I think will make it onto my favorites list. I also have a list of all the books I read throughout the year. At the end of the year, as I’m writing up my post about my favorite books, I compare the books. Are there any books that are not on my draft favorites that still really stand out to me? Are there any books on my draft favorites list that I can’t even remember the main character’s name? Basically, if a book sticks with me in a positive way throughout the year, that’s a really good indicator that it should be on my list. I recognize that this consideration is a little unbalanced. Obviously a book I finish on New Year’s Eve, two hours before I write the final post, is going to stick with me more than the book I finished three hundred sixty-four days ago. And I don’t know how it will work this year, because I’ve already read thirty-three books and it’s not even March. This year, I probably won’t weigh how the book stands up to time as heavily as I have in past years.

So there you have it, the six-ish ways I review books: the writing, the story, the ending, the representation, my gut, and time. I say six-ish because these aren’t really defined categories. You could smoosh the story and the ending together or combine my gut feeling and the effect of time. On the other hand, you could expand the story consideration into separate considerations for plot, character, setting, and so on. It’s not a perfect system. I don’t weigh these considerations the same: Generally speaking, I’m more interested in the story, the ending, my gut feeling, and to some extent the effects of time than I am on the writing and the representation, though writing and representation are still very important to me. This isn’t an exact system. I’m still struggling over how I feel about Daughter of the Burning City, because if not for the blind-but-not thing, it would totally one hundred percent be making it onto my list. The story is great; the ending is great; the writing is great; the book has stuck with me, even though I’ve read a dozen books since I finished it; and my gut feeling is that it’s a really great book and the blind-but-not thing is just one eensy problem and it should be on my list anyway. But the blind-but-not problem is a really big problem for me. So right now, I don’t know if it’s going to make it onto my list.

There are certainly other ways to think about and review books—maybe better ways—but this is roughly how I do it. So your turn: what makes a good book for you?

“Polaris in the Dark” Published in the 2018 Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide

I am way late on posting about this. Finals got in the way, and then it was Christmas, and then I was working at MIT’s Office of the General Counsel in January and then the spring semester was starting up again and yikes how is it February already? But my own tardiness aside, the 2018 Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide is out (has been out for two months now), including my story “Polaris in the Dark.” This is the first science fiction story I ever wrote ever. It is also the second story I’ve written about a blind person. You can get the anthology on Amazon, or wherever you prefer to buy your books. I highly recommend the whole anthology. It’s filled with science fiction adventure stories that are all really unique and fun. I am so glad to be part of this anthology! And can I just say, it is really cool to look myself up on Amazon or Goodreads and have a book pop up. I’m not getting over that anytime soon. And always, once you’ve read the story, you can check out the story behind “Polaris in the Dark,” which talks about where I got the idea and some of the challenges I faced while writing it. I also have some interesting musings on writing realistically about disability while also maintaining a positive, empowering message in the story. I hope you find it interesting, and I hope you enjoy reading “Polaris in the Dark” as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Reading Through 2017

2017 is drawing to a close, and what a year it’s been. Personally, I survived my first year of law school, worked for the summer at the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, and started my second year of law school. I am now halfway through law school. After exploring and discarding several possible career paths, I have decided to go into space law—as in outer space. I also published two short stories this year. “Seven Signs Your Roommate is a Vampire: With Additional Advice On Surviving Orientation If It’s More Complicated” was published in issue #68 of Andromeda Spaceways, and “Polaris in the Dark” was published in the 2018 Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide anthology. Finally, my Seeing Eye dog, Mopsy, had to retire in May. She just became too anxious to keep guiding me safely. It was heartbreaking for me to retire Mopsy, and it’s still heartbreaking, even though she is now a healthy, happy pet with my parents. I returned to the Seeing Eye in July and was match with my second Seeing Eye dog, Neutron, and we’ve been flying around Cambridge ever since.

I also read a lot. I set a goal to read 50 books this year. I read 77. I did a fair amount of rereading of old favorites, especially around exam times. Favorite books are like literary comfort food. Of the new books I read, most were fine, but they were just fine. A few were downright terrible. And some were truly exemplary. Here are my favorites:

Heartless by Marissa Meyer: I expected a lot from this book after Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles series. This book did not live up to my very high expectations, but I really did enjoy it. It’s the story of the Queen of Hearts and how she became The Queen of Hearts. The writing was great, and the world was a lot of fun, and the ending was hearbreaking and beautiful.

In a Glass Grimmly and The Grimm Conclusion by Adam Gidwitz: I read the first book in this series, A Tale Dark and Grimm, in summer 2016, but didn’t get to the second or third books before the end of the year. So I finished the series this year. It was great. While the first book retold all the stories of Hansel and Gretel, the second book told new stories about Jack and Jill (the ones who go up the hill and fall down). Except Jack is also the same Jack from Jack and the Beanstock, so there are giants involved. The third book is a mash’?eaup of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, The Juniper Tree, and The Boy Who Left Home To Find Fear (which is a great title), plus a truly amazing metafictional arc. The narrator’s voice and snark reminds me a bit of Lemony Snicket in A Series of Unfortunate Events, which made it super fun even with all the blood and guts. Seriously I was laughing out loud throughout this whole book. So if you like retold fairy stales, snark, and can tolerate a fair amount of blood and guts, you’re sure to enjoy these books.

Dangerous by Shannon Hale: Space camp goes wrong and teenagers get superpowers from alien techildrenlogy and then have to save the world from an alien invasion, all with a dash of evil megalomaniacs, conniving scientists, and teenage romance. The Goodreads reviews on this book were split between those who hated it with a fiery passion and those who loved it to pieces. I’ve always liked Shannon Hale’s books, so I gave it a try. I really enjoyed it, and I would say that it is a decently good book. It was fun, fast, and action-packed. There was a little too much romance for me, and the middle of the book got kind of weird. Also the protagonist is a half-Latina girl with a disability, and though some aspects of the representation of her disability were upsetting to me, by the end of the book most of my issues resolved. On the whole, I had a lot of fun with this book. There was space and science and space and geekiness and space and fun gadgets (seriously I want Maisie’s impact boots) and did I mention space? What I particularly liked about this book was that while the stakes were high with the whole save-the-world plot, there were also very high, very personal stakes that kept the story grounded. So if you like whacky science fiction adventure with space and aliens and superpowers and romance, this book might be for you.

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng: I read this book for book club, and there was a lot to enjoy about it. The emotions were so raw and realistic, and I enjoyed the multiple perspectives on the same moments. It sort of reminded me of the World War II Italy novella I wrote for my senior honors thesis at Kenyon (the one that is still languishing in a drawer but I’ve been thinking about it). There was virtually no overlap in the subject matter between this book and my WWII Italy project; it just had a similar feel to me. Lydia, the favorite daughter of the mixed-race Lee family, is dead. I’m not spoiling anything; that’s how the book starts. The story is about how the different members of the family cope with her death and try to understand what happened to her. We also get Lydia’s point of view throughout the book. I do have to say I could only read this book in small bites because either the emotions were just too much or because I got kind of frustrated with the characters. There were definitely times when it felt like one of those sitcom episodes where if the characters would just sit down and talk about what happened, all the problems would get resolved and no one would be dead. We decided in our book club discussion that Everything I Never Told You was a very apt title, because no one was telling anybody anything. But by the end of the book, I was in tears. Also, sentence to sentence, word to word, the writing is beautiful, and I can be a sucker for that (as long as the rest of the book is good too).

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell: This book was beautiful. It’s a new adult book, about a girl going off to college with her twin sister, but her sister wants to put some space between them, her creative writing professor is crushingly disappointed that she’s writing fanfiction, and basically she has to figure out life and friends and writing her own stories. This book hit me like a punch in the gut. A fabulous, fabulous punch in the gut. But there were definitely moments when it was too real. I can totally relate to so much of it. I don’t have a twin sister, and I never actually wrote fanfiction before college (and I’ve only started, and haven’t finished, a fanfic since I went to college). But I definitely had serious social anxiety around eating in the dining hall when I first went to college and I always felt kind of out of place in the creative writing program because I generally prefer to write young adult speculative fiction rather than literary fiction, and I felt like some professors could have an unfortunate attitude towards genre fiction in the creative writing program. Also, the ideas of growing up and Harry Potter ending and everything in this book were really relatable. Basically this book is beautiful and everyone should read it.

Flying Lessons & Other Stories edited by Ellen Oh: This is a middle grade short story collection produced by We Need Diverse Books, all about the impact that reading and learning has on kids. Each story featured a character from an underrepresented group in fiction. I really enjoyed all the stories—though some were a little younger than I like to read. They were fun and adorable and the message about reading and diversity is so important. I definitely recommend.

Miss Perregrine’s Peculiar Children series by Ransom Riggs: This whole series was a wild ride, but if you’re willing to go with it, it’s a blast. When his grandfather is killed by a monster only Jacob can see, he goes on a journey to learn about his grandfather’s past and winds up travelling through time (sort of) and battling the monsters and their masters alongside his grandfather’s childhood friends (who happen to still be children). This is the best description I can give. But it makes sense in the books I swear. This has to be one of the most bizzarre series I’ve read in a while, but it was a ton of fun and once I got into it I couldn’t put it down.

Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, and Anne of the Island by L. M. Montgomery: I read Anne of Green Gables years ago when I was growing up. I have it in Braille—it’s six volumes. This summer, I reread Anne of Green Gables in preparation for watching the new Netflix show, which is quite good by the way. I really enjoyed reading about Anne’s adventures, and it all took on so much more meaning now that I’m older. And then I discovered that Anne’s adventures didn’t end with Anne of Green Gables, so I kept reading. By this point, I have actually read the first six books in the series, but in my opinion the series goes downhill after the third book. Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, and Anne of the Island are definitely worth reading, though, whatever age you are.

Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue: This was another book club book. We read Behold the Dreamers over the summer in conjunction with Lucky Boy, which I’ll talk about next. Behold the Dreamers tells the story of two families affected by the financial crisis in 2007, a family of Cameroonian immigrants struggling to get a foothold in New York and the family of the Wall Street executive they work for. The whole book is from the point of view of the immigrants, which I really love. We see the struggles of these two very different families, and even though their struggles are different, they are their struggles. This is a sad but realistic perspective on the American dream.

Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran: This is another story about immigrants. We read Lucky Boy for book club over the summer with Behold the Dreamers. The two books actually pair really well tgr.d and I recommend reading them together. Lucky Boy also tells the stories of two families, a young woman who immigrates to America illegally from Mexico, becomes pregnant along the way, gives birth in America, and struggles to raise her son, and a second-generation Indian couple desperate to have a child. The immigrant is detained and her child is placed in foster care with the couple, who fall in love with him and take steps to adopt him. This is an intense look at the immigration and foster care systems in California, as well as a heartbreaking contemplation of parenthood, because there is no good ending to this story.

Hiroshima by John Hersey: I don’t normally read nonfiction. I do enough of that for class. But when I was at the Seeing Eye training with Neutron this summer, there was a library of hardcopy Braille books, and anyone who knows me knows that when possible, I prefer to read in hardcopy Braille. There’s nothing quite like holding an actual book in your hands. Hiroshima was one of the books in this library, and since anyone who knows me also knows I have a minor World War II obsession, one thing led to another and I read the book. I’m the first to admit that my WWII obsession is more to do with the war in Europe than the war in the Pacific, and honestly I didn’t know much about what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki except that an atomic bomb was dropped. I found the book Hiroshima, which chronicled the events in the city from the points of view of several people who lived through the bomb, to be rich in detail. Gruesome detail to be sure, but I think it is important to know these details, and I was glad I was able to read this book.

Flame in the Mist by Renee Ahdieh: I enjoyed this book a lot more than I thought I would, and this was a pleasant surprise. It takes place in a fantasy world mirroring ancient Japan. The daughter of an honored samurai is on her way to marry the prince when her convoy is attacked. Assassins have been hired to kill her. There were times when the writing was a bit telly for me, and I was underwhelmed by the romantic subplot, but the book gripped me from start to finish. The characters were really intricate, and the plot was fast-paced and full of secrets and complications. I’m really looking forward to the sequel next year.

The Book of Ember trilogy by Jeanne DuPrau: There are technically four books in this series, but the third is a prequel and is neither necessary to underst the books nor worth bothering with, in my opinion. The main trilogy, The City of Ember, The People of Sparks, and the Diamond of Darkhold detail the adventures of two children from Ember, an isolated city in a world of complete darkness. The generator that powers Ember is failing, and when the kids find a half-destroyed set of instructions, they go in search of a way to leave the city. These are fun and action-packed science fiction books, with a lot of adventure and some really interesting world-building. I’ve been trying to read more science ficong books this year, and these were a great start.

Shades of Magic series by V.E. Schwab: I can’t believe it took me so long to discover these books. Acsually, I can because my to read list is over 500 books long. The best that can be said about my delayed discovery is that I didn’t have to wait for the conclusion. These books were just remarkable. There are four worlds, each with a city named London, each with different amounts of magic. Only a few people can travel between the worlds, but a dark magic is threatening all the worlds. I’m doing a poor job of describing these books, but they’re really fabulous. I was gripped from start to finish, and the books have stayed with me since. I would love to go back and reread them at some point, now that I’ve finished them.

Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate: This is another book club book. Half the people in book club really didn’t like this book, but I did. There are two storylines in this book: in 1939, five children are kidnapped from their family’s shantyboat on the Mississippi and taken to a brutal orphanage as part of an elaborate adoption scheme where poor children were sold to rich families from the 1920s through the 1950s; in the present day, a young lawyer comes home to care for her ill father and discovers her family’s secret connection to the past child trafficking scandal. In my opinion, the present-day story is bad, and the book would be stronger without it. But the story in the past is really gripping, and I was fascinated to learn about this episode in our own history which I had never heard of before. I would certainly recommend this book, though with the reservation that the present storyline is kind of a waste of slace.

Every Soul A Star by Wendy Mass: Three kids meet at a camp ground and witness a total solar eclipse. Each of the kids grows and learns and changes because of the other kids. This is a really sweet, heartwarming book which is also full of space nerdiness, so all in all, perfect.

Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan: This was another heartwarming middle grade book. When her parents are killed in a car accident, a twelve-year-old genius is taken in by a friend, and her journey dealing with her grief and aclimating to life with her surogate family changes her and all the people around her.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon: This book was slow to start but picked up and had me in tears by the end. When Christopher’s neighbor’s dog is killed, he sets out to solve the mystery and ends up uncovering many more secrets about his family along the way. I think this book ,s a thoughtful representation of someone with autism, though of course it should not be taken as indicative of the experiences of everyone on the spectrum. I was particularly impressed with the amount of agency Christopher had, and I loved his voice and character and was routing for him the whole way. A very good read.

The 2018 Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide edited by Sean Weaver and Corie Weaver: This is a collection of science fiction short stories for kids, all featuring diverse characters—girls, kids of different races, and kids with disabilities. Yes, my story “Polaris in the Dark” is in this anthology, but it’s really a great collection of stories. Aliens, robots, space, science, and kids having adventures fill all the pages. I read this whole book in one sitting, because I was having so much fun. Each story was like its own little gem, and I recommend this book to everyone, whatever age you are.

The Fairy-Tale Detectives by Michael Buckley: When the sisters Grimm are sent to live with the grandmother they’d believed to be dead, they discover that they are descended from the Brothers Grimm and it is their destiny to solve crimes in the community of fairytale creatures. They’ve just begun their training when their grandmother is kidnapped by a giant. This was a really fun and exciting book, and I can’t wait to get into the rest of the series.

The Children of the Red King books 1-5 by Jenny Nimmo: I just finished the fifth book of this series today. There are three more books, but unfortunately I won’t be able to read the next three books in the next three hours. The first book, Midnight for Charlie Bone, was another book that i own in hardcopy Braille, reread this year, and discovered there was more to the series. I have really enjoyed these books so far. They’re not perfect, certainly, but they’re a lot of fun. Charlie is one of the Children of the Red King, endowed with the ability to travel into photographs and paintings and speak to the people in the past. Because of his power, he is forced to attend Bloor’s Academy, where he discovers all sorts of sinister plots and works to make things right with his friends. I’m looking forward to diving into the rest of this series in the new year.

And that’s it. 2018 is just around the corner, filled with new books to read, new stories to write, and of course more law school. I’m going to try to read a hundred books next year. I need to make a dent in that to-read list, after all. I also want to get back into blogging more regularly. Neutron is nudging me with his paw because he hasn’t had a chance to say hello yet. And I want to finish the ten or so writing projects I started in 2017.

Happy New Year!

Back to School With a Story

My 2L classes start tomorrow, which is kind of making me want to puke. But on the bright side, and just in time for back to school season, my short story “Seven Signs Your Roommate Is a Vampire: With Additional Advice On Surviving Orientation If It’s More Complicated” was just published in Andromeda Spaceways. Unfortunately, it isn’t free to read the story online, but you can purchase the entire electronic issue of the magazine for $4.95 here. I’m pretty sure that’s in Australian dollars, so if you’re in the U.S. it’s even cheaper. Either way, I spend more money on ice cream on a daily basis (it’s a problem, I know), and you get a whole bunch of science fiction and fantasy stories besides mine for that price, so you should totally do it.

This story might be the funniest thing I’ve ever written, whatever that says about me. I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it. Once you’ve read the story, you can check out the story behind “Seven Signs Your Roommate Is a Vampire” to find out where this story came from, the process I went through to write it, and more.

Neutron in Time Square

As I write this, I’m flying home from Seeing Eye, with Neutron at my feet under the seat in front of me. This is Neutron’s first plane flight. I’m glad to be going home, but this has really been a fabulous class with a great group of people, and I’m not sure I’m ready to get back to the real world. There have been a lot of things I’ve been putting off while I’m here, saying I’ll deal with it when I’m back from Seeing Eye. Well, I’m almost back from Seeing Eye, so now I’m going to have to deal with all that stuff. (Note: At the time I’m posting this, I’ve arrived home, been mobbed by dogs, and started unpacking, organizing my life, and catching up on sleep).

I’ll talk about arriving home in the future, when I’m awake enough to string two words together. This post is about my last week of training with Neutron.

We cruised through our second solo. There were a lot of challenges: dog distractions, planned and spontaneous; an idling bus sticking out of a driveway; the facial salon Neutron was intent on taking me into; people not looking where they were going and nearly mowing us down. Neutron was fabulous the whole way through, and we had a lot of fun. I’m not sure when, but somewhere between our first solo and our second, things really clicked into place for us and we just started zooming along.

After our solo, we began freelance work. During freelance, we did some standard things as well as work that was similar to what we might face at home.

We started with escalators. Yes, it is possible to take a dog on an escalator, and no, the dog doesn’t have to wear shoes to do it (though I must say Neutron has some super snazzy shoes for snow storms and extra hot summer days). The trick with escalators is to keep your dog resting at your left side and reach out along the railing with your right hand, and the second you feel the railing start to flatten, you and your dog start moving and walk off the escallator. If your dog is moving, there’s no chance of their feet getting caught. Neutron is a huge fan of escalators. His tail was wagging all the way, and when we got off, he was all wriggly and prancy because he did it right.

Revolving doors didn’t go so well. On our second morning of freelance, we went to do revolving doors. I never learned how to do revolving doors with Mopsy—I always took the regular door—and once I found myself in a situation where the regular door was locked and the security guard refused to open it for me, so we had to wing the revolving door and it stressed everybody out. So I wanted to make sure I actually learned how to work Neutron through a revolving door. We practiced primarily on manual revolving doors, the kind you push. The trick with these is to keep your dog on your right side, rather than your left, so they’re in the widest part of the door. Keep them up as close to the glass in front of you as possible, and push the door with your left hand. I didn’t do so well my first try, and I accidently bumped Neutron’s butt with the door, which caused him to get nervous and not trust me so much on revolving doors. The second time I did better. And yesterday, we went to another, bigger door to practice on (because I wanted more practice to feel confident), and we nailed it. Neutron was super happy about it. We learned how to do the automatic revolving doors too, but we didn’t actually practice on them, and honestly those freak me out so we’re going to generally stick with the regular door to the side, which by law they have to have (so there, random security guard who wouldn’t let me in with Mopsy).

We also did work on roads with no sidewalks—country work. Neutron and I walk on the left side of the road, so we’re facing oncoming traffic and I’m between Neutron and the traffic (I’m more visible and it makes Neutron feel safer). We went to a grocery store and practiced using a cart with Neutron. I said it seven years ago and I’ll say it again: there’s a reason I didn’t pass driver’s ed. We wandered through the Morristown courthouse, which was a maze of interconnected buildings with lots of trick staircases and short turns and narrow hallways. We also went to the pet store, where I got Neutron another bone and an ID tag and we worked through all the distractions (there was literally a wall of dogs). We worked on how to deal with medians in the middle of streets, and we cruised around a shopping mall where we practiced getting directions for different stores and in general dealing with the public. Personally, I prefer Amazon, but we found Neutron some nice lacrosse balls to play with, and we fended off small children who wanted to pet him and people who were trying to take sneaky pictures of him. Folks, I can hear your phone make the little camera noise and I will chew you out for it, because taking pictures of my dog can distract him and possibly endanger my safety, and also it’s just rude and an invasion of my privacy. Flip the situation and ask how you would feel if someone was sneakily taking pictures of you without asking and you get it. Just don’t do it. Rant over.

We worked with buses and trains as well, and we used the clicker to get Neutron to target the bus stop (more training me to use the clicker than Neutron). We did a trip in downtown Morristown at night, so I could practice with Neutron when my residual vision isn’t nearly as good, and we rocked it. And of course, we took a couple trips to get ice cream, because ice cream is life and we had to make sure Neutron had proper exposure to ice cream shops with me.

Finally, we went to New York City for a day. We started at Port Authority and walked down to 30th Street, where we encountered a lot of construction. I wanted some construction work because there’s a lot of construction in Boston. We worked on how to deal with construction that blocked the sidewalk and funneled you out into the street with a barrier between you and the cars, as well as scaffolding slalom, both things I had to handle this summer on my way to my internship. Then we took the subway up to Columbus Circle. In the subway station, we worked on platform awareness with the dogs in the subway. If you tell the dog forward thinking you’re facing the way to go but you’re actually facing the platform, the dog won’t take you into the platform but will steer you right or left, guiding you along the platform. Neutron brought me close, following my direction, saw the edge, went “oh nope,” and then steered me away. When I insisted, he steered me even farther away from it. All indicators that, if I was confused and thought I was heading somewhere else but was really facing the platform, I would need to reassess where I was. We also did more practice with the clicker, teaching Neutron to target the turnstile to get onto the platform. When we got out at Columbus Circle, Neutron took me right to the turnstiles even though it was a totally different station. From Columbus Circle we walked down Broadway to Time Square, where we worked through the crowds of people and dogs over to a burger place for lunch. And after lunch, we walked back down to Port Authority and went back to the Seeing Eye. Neutron was just flying through New York, weaving around pedestrians, poles, dogs, pigeons, bicycles, mail carts, gratings, and the one guy in a wheelchair with three off-leash chihuahuas in sweater vests. It was really an incredible experience, and I feel like if we could handle that, we can definitely take on Boston.

It’s taken me longer to write this than anticipated, because Neutron was a bit anxious during take-off and landing on the plane (it was his first flight and there were so many noises so he tried to climb into my lap). But he was zooming through the airport. I can’t wait to get home so I can see Mopsy again and Neutron can meet her and our pet black lab, Rocket. We’re going to have a relaxing couple of weeks as much as we can, letting Neutron settle in and get familiar with home and my new apartment at school.

It’s the sleep-deprivation talking, I’m sure, but all of this still feels really surreal to me. I just can’t believe that I went to Seeing Eye, was matched with this super smart, sweet, curious little boy, and now I’m almost home with him. But we did it. For me, training at Seeing Eye this time was almost all about learning to listen to this new dog, and this new dog learning to work with you. Training’s over now. We’re a team, and off we go.

Neutronian Physics

Exactly one week ago, I was matched with my second Seeing Eye dog. He’s a sweet little black lab golden retriever cross named Neutron. He’s 22.5 inches tall and weighs 55 pounds, and he’ll turn two years old in September. So he’s roughly the same size as Mopsy. I’m actually told that he bears a striking resemblance to Mopsy (based on the pictures I’ve sent home).

It’s hard to believe I’ve only been working with Neutron for a week. It feels like it’s been at least a month, if not longer. Part of that is because I’m tired. We’ve been going from before 5:30 in the morning to after 8:00 at night with very little time to stop, and the last few days the heat has been incredible.

In our first week of training, we do set routes with our dogs. The first route was a big rectangle—down four blocks, left for one block, up five blocks, left one block, and then left again to find the training center. At first we did it with our instructor coaching us through each crossing. Then our instructor backed off until, Sunday morning, we were doing it completely independently. There was a barricade and a planned dog distraction we had to work past as well, but otherwise it was pretty straightforward, and I could focus on learning to feel Neutron’s signals through the harness rather than on where I was going. Even though I know how to work a dog now, Neutron is still different from Mopsy, and we need to learn how to dance together.

After our successful solo Sunday morning, we started our second set route. This one was more complicated both in terms of the crossings and obstacles and the general orientation. It’s like a quarter of a pie with a hook on the end, if that makes sense. The street crossings are wider, and the sidewalks are narrower with trees, telephone poles, and sometimes trash cans. It’s a significantly greater challenge, but this was the point where Neutron and I hit our stride, and we’ve been flying. He’s had to wear his booties a couple times because it’s been so hot, and he goes even faster with those on. Like the first route, there’s a baricade set up to block the sidewalk that we have to work past. This baricade is more complicated, because it blocks the sidewalk but also extends to block us on the left as we approach, so we either have to approach the barrier and turn out of it to get to the street, or we have to turn before we reach the extension at all (that choice is up to Neutron). There’s also a more complicated dog distraction, where we have to work past a poodle who then follows us down the street. I’m pretty sure Neutron thinks poodles are part of a weird religious cult. We’re doing our solo for this second route this morning.

This afternoon we’re going to start our freelance work, where the training is tailored to what we’ll face when we go home. We’ll learn to work escalators, elevators, and revolving doors. Seeing Eye has two rows of airline seats to practice sliding our dogs under the seat in front of us or situating them in the bulkhead (I’d prefer to slide Neutron under the seat in front of me because it’s safer, and I think he’ll fit there, but we’ll see). We’ll work through department stores and shopping malls, and we may practice on roads with no sidewalks, paths through the woods, and college campus settings. We’ll also do buses, trains, and subways, and one day we’ll be going into New York City.

It’s been a lot so far, and it’s going to be a lot to pack into our last week here. Of course I’m also grooming Neutron, cleaning up after him, and playing and cuddling with him. He really is a sweet little lab. He loves belly rubs and cuddles. When he has a toy he likes to run around holding it in his mouth and making little snorting noises. He likes to claim me with his paws, and if I’m sitting next to him on the floor giving him scratches, he’ll put his paw on my arm and sort of wrap it around my elbow like a hug.

And of course there are all the science puns I can do with his name. My favorite nickname for him right now is Neutron Star, and I’ve already determined Neutron’s first law of motion: a Neutron in motion tends to stay in motion; a Neutron at rest wants to get moving.

I’m still considering Neutron’s superdog name (Mops was Mopsy the Magnificent). A friend suggested Neutron the Wonderdog, and I came up with Nuclear Neutron, but I’m not sold on either of those. Any suggestions are welcome.

Obviously at this point we’re both still learning how to work with each other, but we’ve come leaps and bounds in just one week, and I’m sure we’ll go leaps and bounds this week too.

And the New Dog Is…

Just kidding. I don’t know. I will be meeting my new superdog partner tomorrow morning. But I wanted to write about what I’ve done since I arrived at Seeing Eye yesterday before it gets overwhelmed by the excitement of the new doggy.

I arrived at lunchtime on Monday. I’d forgotten how good the food is here. Also one of the instructors in my class was my instructor when I was here seven years ago training with Mopsy. She isn’t my instructor this class, but it’s cool that she’s there.

After lunch, my instructor gave me a tour of the campus so that I could navigate independently. I remember bits of it, but they’ve renovated the building since I was here in 2010, and they’ve changed things just enough that I’m a bit confused.

After the tour of the campus, we went on a juno walk. A juno walk is when I hold the harness handle and the instructor holds the other end and measures my pace and pull on the harness. These are the most important factors in matching me with a guide dog. Of course there are other factors. There are different lengths of harness handles, but no one’s going to give me a Great Dane or a Chihuahua. For this first juno walk, we went up and down the Seeing Eye driveway. We worked a lot on my pull on the harness handle. It’s different with a person rather than a dog, but apparently my arm position was wrong, so either I’ve forgotten how to hold the harness or I’ve been doing it wrong for who knows how long. To be fair to me, they’re teaching a different grip on the leash than what I learned and did with Mopsy, so that might have thrown me off. Still, I’m figuring it out.

After the juno walk, I had some time to unpack. Then it was dinner and a welcome meeting. After going over the schedule for Tuesday, they handed out our leashes. It’s funny because Mopsy’s leash has become super soft and either dark dark brown or black, I can’t tell. But the new leash they handed me is all stiff and rough and this light light brown.

We were up at 6:00 this morning. After breakfast we came to the downtown training center for a brief lecture on what class is going to be like, and then we took another juno walk, this time in a much busier area. I learned that actually I haven’t been doing anything wrong with Mopsy, but because Mopsy and I were so familiar with each other that I didn’t need to do a lot of the things that I’ll need to do with this new dog, like coming to full stops before turning. To work on my issue with keeping pressure on the harness handle, we did an exercise where I held the leash as if it was a harness handle. The instructor explained it out the difference between towing a car with a chain and towing a car with a tow-bar. If you tow the car with a chain, it could be flopping around in the back. I have to maintain pressure so that the dog can feel me. It’s just as important as me being able to feel the dog, because if the dog loses the pressure the dog isn’t sure I’m still with them and could become anxious. With just the leash, rather than the rigid harness handle, it was much easier to feel when I was losing pressure and correct for it. It was really effective in showing me just how important it was to maintain pressure, because if I lost the pressure I felt like I was floating in space with no direction.

We did another juno walk this afternoon, and it was really great for cementing the pressure thing. I still have to work on waiting for the dog to go when I say “forward” instead of leaping into action myself. This has resulted in me trying to both move and not move at the same time and doing what one instructor called “quite the charleston.”

With every hour that passes I become more and more excited. This afternoon, we had a terrifying demonstration of silent cars (they are really silent!), and the lecture on the history of the Seeing Eye while our instructors decided which dogs we’ll get tomorrow. By the time we sat down to dinner, they knew, but they won’t tell us anything. In a few minutes, we have a cheese and wine party, which will be our last chance to eat food with our hands without our dogs’ leashes dangling off our wrists. Then it’s off to bed to try and sleep despite the anticipation. Morning comes early here (once we get our dogs it will come even earlier).

Tomorrow morning, we’ll get up, have breakfast, and have a quick meeting while our dogs are being bathed. And then we’ll meet the dog. Despite my best efforts, my instructor has given me only a few hints. The dog will either be a male or a female, and it will have four legs, a tail, and soft ears. The suspense is killing me.

New Beginnings Are Not Endings

It’s been a while since I posted, but let’s just skip my whole shpeil where I apologize for that and swear to do better and post more often. Okay? Okay.

I’ve been thinking a lot about endings for the past few days. For one thing, after writing fifty thousand words on the first memory-wiping Academy novel in April and another twenty-five thousand so far in July (meeting my Camp NaNoWriMo goal both times), the ending is finally in sight. For another, Mopsy has retired and I am on my way to Seeing Eye as I write this, on my way to meet my new doggn. In fiction, my favorite kind of endings are the kind that feel like beginnings, like there’s another story waiting to be told if only you turn one more page, even if that next story only exists in my imagination. But this begs the question: are new beginnings always endings?

On Friday, I finished my internship at the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights in Boston. I learned a lot this summer. I have a much better understanding of how Cambridge and Boston are laid out. I can still use my cane without hurting myself, or anyone else. And, most important in my book, I can work a nine to five job and still write a lot. Then I spent this weekend not only packing up for Seeing Eye but also packing up all my school stuff to move to my brand new apartment as soon as I return from Seeing Eye with the new puppy.

There are a lot of things coming up that feel like new beginnings. A new school year—one or I plan to have more time to write and do social and extracurricular activities. A new apartment that is not a dorm and has a real kitchen where I can cook real food. A new Seeing Eye superdoggy. But it’s hard not to see new beginnings as endings. Right now, I’m trying to convince myself that’s not always the case.

School is more continuing than ending and starting again. And moving out of the dorms and into a new apartment is simply the next step.

But it’s hard to see that with Mopsy. I’m on the way to the airport as I write this, and I left Mopsy behind. Seven years ago, I graduated from high school and hopped on a plane to Seeing Eye. I didn’t know Mopsy yet, but two days later, our trainer placed her leash in my hand, and Mopsy has been by my side ever since. We have literally been attached by the harness for seven years. We went to college together. Then to Italy. Then we worked at the Disabilities Rights Center together. Then we started Harvard Law together. Mopsy was with me when I lost my eye and she was with me when I finished novels. Mopsy hasn’t been working for about six weeks now, but she’s still been with me all summer. And even though I’ve been trying to transition her so my parents are the ones who are feeding her and taking her for walks and everything, this morning when I picked up my suitcase, Mopsy still came running, tail wagging.

I tried to get Mopsy to work with me this summer, but after a few weeks, it was clear it just wasn’t going to work. And she’s been happy as a retired dog. I feel like she’s discovering her inner puppy. She comes running, wagging her whole butt, a toy in her mouth, grumbling happy and sometimes spinning right around a few times. She’s going for long walks with my parents in the woods, smelling everything along the way, which she couldn’t do while she was working. And after seven years of me trying and failing to get her to go swimming with me, Mopsy has decided she likes the water after all. But that doesn’t make it easier when she comes running as I walk out the door.

It feels like an ending. It feels like one chapter of my life, the chapter with Mopsy, is ending, and a chapter with a new doggy is beginning. But I hate to think of it like this. Mopsy is a healthy, happy dog, and since she’s living with my parents, I’m going to get to see her all the time. I’ll need to exercise restraint this fall and not go home every weekend to see Mopsy, because she needs to cetime her relationship with my parents, and I need to bond with the new doggy. But in three weeks, I will be returning home with the new doggy, and Mopsy will be there waiting for me. This is the beginning of a new chapter, certainly, but it’s a new chapter in the same story, and thinking about it like this makes all the difference in the world for me.

I’m still a few chapters away from the end of my novel, but I already know how it’s going to go. Keeping this as spoiler-free as possible, here’s what happens: the main characters are sitting on the back of a wagon. They’re riding to safety, but they’re still looking back the way they came. Then, at the last minute, they hop off the wagon and turn to face their next challenge head on.

I’m planning on this book being the first in a four-book series, so the story will continue. And that’s how I have to think of this next chapter in my life too. I can’t deny that as sad as I am about leaving Mopsy at home, I’m excited to meet the new puppy and see what adventures we get up to.

It’s a tough schedule at Seeing Eye. We’re up at 5:30 AM and we’re going all day, as far as I remember. But I’m planning on posting regularly over the next three weeks to keep you all updated on how the training is going and most importantly, who my new partner in crime will be.

Facebook Author Party for the Young Explorers Adventure Guide

Hey everybody. I’m participating in an author party on Facebook for the 2018 Young Explorers Adventure Guide anthology, which will include my story “Polaris in the Dark.” The anthology is scheduled to be released in December, but in the meantime we have a week long event where the authors in the anthology talk about their writing and answer questions. I’m on from 3:00-6:00 PM next Wednesday, June 27. So come hang out and chat with me. The link to the Facebook event page is here.

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