People have been coming up to me in the grocery store to tell me they saw Touch Blue in DownEast Magazine. :-)  It's exciting to see a current children's book given this amount of space in the magazine, too. 

Touch Blue's audiobook received a wonderful review in AudioFile.  I haven't heard the audio version yet, but AudioFile is based in Maine, so the fact they liked the Maine accents means a lot. 

Erin Moon gives a lovely reading of this island tale about the emotional bonds of family and place.  . . Moon's portrayal of Tess is so genuine that it’s almost startling the first time she introduces another voice in the story. She also produces authentic Maine voices as she recounts what that summer brings to light. --AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine



On Tuesday night, I had a fun visit to the University of Maine at Farmington to the "Teen Voices" Book Club. I love how this book group pairs female college students with 7th and 8th grade girls. How great is this?

"Each girl has a female UMF mentor. We read a common novel once a month and meet at UMF's Student Center. The girls and their mentors get supper from the cafeteria and take it to a room reserved for us. The girls are exposed to wonderful books, mentors who love to read, and a college campus."

It was an amazing visit, and the girls were so enthusiastic. There are a lot of writers in this group!  I was very impressed with their questions and thoughts.

We took this photo for the newspaper.  Um, maybe I should have taken off my big LL Bean snowboots for the photo?!  Oh, well, it's winter in Maine.  :-) 

[image error]  My husband made me some Happy Birthday, Hamster calendars to take to my first conference event (which is next week in Denver).  If you'd like to print one for yourself, here they are! 

And finally,

26 / 26 (100%)
I finished my first draft of my next novel.  I have a lot of work ahead on it, and I have 25  events this spring to juggle around it. So I'm not sure when the second draft will be done.  But it's a start.  :-)