AVAILABLE THIS FALL

I'm deeply honored to announce that my essay, "Luz," is included in the upcoming anthology, DEAR BULLY: 70 Authors Tell Their Stories (HarperCollins, August 2011).

From the HarperCollins catalog:

Today's top authors for teens share their stories about bullying—as silent observers on the sidelines of high school, as victims, and as perpetrators. From some of the biggest names in teen fiction comes a collection at turns moving and self-effacing, but always deeply personal.

I'm thrilled to be part of this project!  In granting bullies refuge, we choose to live in their shadows. But DEAR BULLY is a call to our better angels - an invitation to walk, hand in hand, from darkness into light.

Read More:

Anthology to Compile Authors' Personal Stories About Bullying, by Sally Lodge. Publishers Weekly. November 4, 2010.

DEARBULLY.com, Young Adult Authors Against Bullying website

Dear Bullly on Facebook

IN THE WORKS

I'm currently writing CAN I GET A WITNESS? Memoir of a Tent Evangelist's Daughter.

"This is my Miracle Baby," my father told worshippers in his tent meetings, "God heard my prayers and brought little Melodye back from the dead!" I basked in my special story, along with the spotlight we shared.

He bragged about attending seminary with Billy Graham; but while "America's Preacher" beamed his ministry around the globe by satellite, we crisscrossed the country in a cramped sedan, holding Pentecostal revivals wherever we landed. From the humorous to the humiliating and the horrific, this memoir pulls back the tent flap on my itinerant childhood, revealing all.

Told from a growing child's perspective but with the benefit of adult hindsight, this is a story about breaking free of religious zealotry and discovering the healing power of forgiveness.

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Once upon a time—in third grade, to be exact—I vowed that I'd become the kind of teacher I always wished I had. I grew up to be an educator, and then a full-time writer. But during all the years I spent in the classroom, working primarily with underprepared and disadvantaged students, I never lost sight of that long-ago promise: to see, really see, the students who get lost in the back of an overcrowded classroom.

From policy makers to parents to the public at large, A is for Assessment and Accountability is for anyone who shares that vision. Frequently cited in practical presentations and academic publications, this glossary is available to website visitors.

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