Billie Bang's Blog

Hello, friends! If you live in the Chattanooga area, I invite you to join me at 10 AM on Thursday, September 12th at Rêve Coffee and Books in Hixson for a reading of my book Ina Changes the Sky. We’ll have some coloring and crafts, and Rêve has delicious pastries and coffee drinks for purchase, as well. You can find a link to their Instagram post with more information HERE.

Rêve has been a fantastic friend to all writers in the Chattanooga area since they opened this past summer. They specia...

Today is Wednesday, November 1st, 2023 – the first day of National Novel Writing Month, usually referred to NaNoWriMo. If you haven’t heard of this before, NaNoWriMo is a challenge to write 50,000 words by the end of this month. This translates to 1,667 words a day, or anywhere between two and four hours of writing. The very first year I attempted this challenge, I “won” – that is, I completed 50,000 words of a rather stupid novel that I ended up disliking very, very much.

But that’s not the ...

Ina is an old, grouchy woman who does not want to be old and grouchy. One night she has a dream that if she can change the color of the sky, she will be young and happy again. Ina seeks advice from a wise willow tree on how she can change the sky. But nothing she does seems to work! Will Ina ever see her dream come true?

I am very excited to talk about my latest book, Ina Changes the Sky. I wrote this story about four years ago and my husband just finished illustrating it earlier this year....

On Saturday, May 20th, I’ll be at the Chattanooga downtown library for a signing event. This event is organized by local poetry group Rhyme N Chatt, as well as local PBS station WTCI-Educate, and it’s more or less a final farewell to all the authors and poets who participated in April’s Raise Your Voice program. Through a grant donated by Arts Build, Rhyme N Chatt was able to purchase five copies of my book Scribble, which they will be able to give away to kids who come to meet me and the other ...

Back in February I participated in some new programming on WTCI-Educate called “Raise Your Voice.” I discussed my book Scribble with poet Kelly Williams, and I am excited to announce that it is finally available to watch. You can view it any time HERE, or watch it when it airs Thursday, April 20th at 10 AM Eastern on broadcast channel 45.4. To read more about this programming, read my last blog post HERE.

Hello, readers! Back in February, I was invited to participate in a new collaboration between our local PBS station and a poetry group called Rhyme N Chatt (RNC). I worked with a poet named Kelly Williams to discuss my book Scribble, which is about a dispirited scribble waiting to find its purpose. We also discussed a poem Kelly wrote entitled “Us,” which touches on the same themes of self-reliance and self-empowerment.

The president of RNC, Marsha Mills, reached out to me because a mutual...

One of these days, kids, I am really going to get myself together. And on that day, you are going to be bombarded with all my writings – books, articles, interviews, blog posts, you name it. But until that day comes, the best I can offer is a recap of what I’ve been up to since last month.

I completed a coloring and activity book to accompany my books Buckle Pocket and Buckle Pockets. It was my first time creating an activity book and I really had a lot of fun. I hope that kids who pick one u...

I made a post several weeks ago about my favorite books from childhood. There were way too many for one single post, so here’s part two of that list. But as I was searching my shelves for all my beloved children’s books (because for the most part I still have all my original editions), I realized that I actually need to make a third list of my favorite children’s books that I didn’t discover until I was grown up. So that will be coming out in a future blog post. In the meantime, read on:

Han...

We are pleased to announce that “Buckle Pockets” by author “Billie Bang” is available for purchase at your favorite bookstore!

We are pleased to announce that “These Are My Clappers” by author “Billie Bang” is available for purchase at your favorite bookstore! Order your copy today!