When I'm not writing about pirates or ghosts or three frogs with a guerilla banjo, I'm writing about beehive activism, goat cooperatives, and rooftop farms in Brooklyn. Thanks to Whole Foods Market, Dark Rye is born. It's an online magazine featuring pioneers and all manner of sustainable excellence and entrepreneurialism and fantastica from all over the world. It's the most colourful, most decadent byline ever.

I write and I giggle and I write. This is my living. Gratitude and a handlebar moustache.

When you graduate from wanting to working, you say, 'I am going to flesh out this idea and write the whole thing down, and rewrite it, and rewrite it again, and rewrite it unendingly, and I'll have no real assurance of when it'll be good enough, but at some point I'll pitch it to someone who will decide if I'm delusional or not.' The optimism and the ego-bruising, unsexy work needed to follow through feels unending. But once Penelope dangled the carrot, I trotted stupidly forward, not thinking too much. That's what worked for me. ~ KI

I've sent the sequel manuscript to Penelope. It required a backhoe. It's a big one - The Dread Crew came in at just over 37,000 words. Flight of the Griffons, as a complete first (second, technically) draft: 56,925. We'll either have to chop almost half the story, or... maybe... I don't know. Could it be good enough to be two books, or does that wish make me the most self-indulgent author in the history of self-indulgent authors?

We'll see. For the next month or longer, I'm banned. No edits, no mulling, no additions, no tweaks. The story is in my editor's hands and from there, we'll figure out what to do with this heavyweight of a creature, perhaps set a deadline, and look forward to line editing and production.

More when I know more...

The sequel, and Missy... she's more comatose than waiting. I'd say 'poor love' about her but she'd find that tiresome. She'd slap my knee in that way that says I'm not poor and I'm not your love. Do something. 

I have been. Doing something. Not the right thing, but I've needed to wander.

I wrote a book, a little one, and I want to exist beyond all hope. I want it so badly. I need it to be set to paper and illustrated and bound. It's important. I've submitted it to the loveliest publisher, one insisted upon by a dear and illustrious friend, and I've gotten the loveliest postcard back with the loveliest Don't you dare call, write, email, or otherwise beg until at least six months are up and so I'm trying to forget I ever wrote it.

But it's hard. The Canada Post tracking slip is all balled up on my kitchen counter and I keep staring at it and thinking about voodoo and hitchhiking.

I can't tell you what it's about except to say that it's for younger kids, and for artists who struggle, and for younger kids who have an artist in them who's destined to struggle and wonder about things like worth and value and time well spent.

See? Therapy. Wishes. Shooting stars. Rocks etched up and skipped into the sea. Tossing and turning and yeah, I know. The wandering's up. Missy needs her end, and so I forget about the mail and get back to it.

"Yeah. Me neither."

"Do you ever feel like you're not what you say you are?"

"Yeah."

"Like really, you're no good?"

"Yeah. I have no idea how to write a book."

"I have no idea how to draw."

We look at each other across his kitchen table and our beasts look at each other too. My robber-barons who spend all day whispering fraud, fraud, fraud into my ears, his into his.

He gets up to pour coffee and I watch absently, thinking He has no idea. I can't believe he has no idea. He's so gifted. He sits again with a mug and opens his sketchbook.

"I like this." He looks down at my pieces of paper, pieces of story. "Let's do it."

Some books are written to be read aloud to an audience of children, and The Dread Crew definitely fits into this category. A rollicking, rowdy hoot of a book ... there are identifiable characters for both boys and girls, and humor akin to Roald Dahl at his most satirically anti-establishment.

Illustrations are detailed and lovingly rendered, but the humorous, evocative language creates its own word pictures. The Dread Crew's very words echo Goldman’s The Princess Bride. Purchase multiple copies of this book because demand will be strong, and I’ll be very surprised if it doesn’t end up in the round of honors books at the end of the year.

~ Lois Rubin Gross (Children's Literature)