Robert Kent's Blog

 

Dear Esteemed Reader,

After 13 years of amazing interviews with authors and publishing professionals, guest posts and book reviews, blog posts and 212 podcast conversations, this site is on indefinite hiatus. 

Never say never. I can't imagine staying away forever, but I am no longer accepting requests for reviews, interviews, or anything else.

An explanation as to why I'm putting this blog on hiatus can be found in this post. But not to worry, the site will remain live so you can continue to enjoy the archives.

Thank you for your support these many years. It's meant more than you can know.

Sincerely,

Rob(ert) Kent

 

Esteemed Reader, I fear 2023 likely marks the end of Middle Grade Ninja.  Never say never, but I think it's time for me to move on. And this is, in part, my goodbye to you. Thank you for your support these many years  It's meant more than you can know.

Truthfully, I think I knew it was likely to end when I wrote last year's post, I just didn't want to admit it.  And then on 03/03/23, God spoke to me. Directly. That has a way of putting things in perspective (hopelessly imperfect though that perspective may be).

Some of you Esteemed Readers will shake your heads and think, ahh, Kent's finally gone mad. Shame. I liked his interviews. To you, Esteemed Readers, I say, "Fair enough. Thank you for staying with me through the years. I hope you've found value in my content. Also, please be assured I've been quite mad all along."

This year, my paradigm has forever shifted. I don't know exactly who I am going forward, which is as exciting as it is unsettling. But some experiences you don't come back from unchanged. 

I had intended to publish a 20th anniversary reimagining of Jim's Monster, an early book of mine. As 2023 marked the ten-year anniversary of my first official book, All Together Now: A Zombie Story, I also worked on a project that would've been a quasi retelling of that story, but this time without zombies. It was a fun challenge and it was a sort of/kind of sequel to The Book of David, another challenge given how that story ended. The plotting was a satisfying puzzle.

Yet, I was aware I was repeating myself and after God got my attention, writing those stories just didn't seem to matter as much.

Also, in light of David Grusch's testimony before congress and the many, many, many little acts of flying saucer disclosure that happened in 2023 as the dam on secrecy is clearly breaking, The Book of David now feels too real. I worry my fiction can't keep up with unfolding reality. Of all my books, The Book of David is the one I most would've preferred not be true.

I've been thinking about the UFO reality for years, and to those who scoffed, I told you so:) And yet, even I am experiencing ontological shock on top of ontological shock. 

I'm sure I'll eventually rediscover my passion for writing (I'm enjoying writing this post), I just don't currently possess the fire in my belly essential to producing a new novel. And I'm not sure if or when I'll return to the podcast. I've turned down some unbelievably amazing opportunities to have conversations with incredible people, but I don't currently possess the bandwidth to focus on the publishing world. I've been focused on it for years, often to the detriment of the rest of my life.

One thing that happened in 2023 is that Mrs. Kent made a career change that allows her to be home more with Little Ninja and I went back to work full time. And I'm not back to work in a this-is-just-my-dayjob-until-my-writing-pans-out-even-though-it-hasn't-for-almost-all-the-writers-I-know-who-weren't-already-well-off sort of way, but in a I-actually-love-what-I-do career sort of way. It's a job that allows me to make a positive change in the lives of others and I believe that's something God has put in me position to do.

I've also mostly withdrawn from social media. Oh, I still doom scroll on occasion, but without a podcast to promote, I've spent less time worrying about maintaining an online persona. And I think it's been good for me. The back catalogue of this site still gets plenty of traffic, so I'll leave it up as enough folks have been kind enough to write me and tell me how helpful they've found it. But I check the site's traffic numbers less frequently. After years of endlessly focusing on my online persona, I've mostly let it and the idea that it's crucial to some future super successful author version of myself go. 

And I feel lighter. 

Being the middle grade ninja has given me a front row seat to the decline of author as a viable occupation, enough to know that statistically speaking, it's not that I failed to work hard enough or write well enough. It's that the vast majority of authors who set out to make a living will fail to make writing fiction a full-time career and it's nothing personal. Don't tell me to be more optimistic or to work harder. The facts on the ground are the facts.

But writing? Writing is beautiful. Writing has enriched my life in so many ways and elevated my existence. I do not for one minute regret dedicating so much of my life to so pure and wonderful an artform. I'm eternally grateful for the blessings a writer's life has bestowed upon me. I've had amazing experiences worth more than money could buy. Every reader's reaction to my work has meant the world to me and I have loved being the middle grade ninja.

Rob Worm's Bird Adventure is the pinnacle of my writing. It is a simple tale, but true, and I am not capable of producing a better book. I could produce books that are also good, but I set out to tell the tales of my heart, and I've accomplished it. I put everything I had into producing my books and they continue to be read even as I write this. But just because I've enjoyed doing a thing doesn't mean I have to go on doing it forever.

I've seen some authors be tremendously successful, but the majority stop writing at some point, or at least slow down. Most of my former critique partners have stopped publishing. Some are still writing, but it's no longer their primary focus, and they're not unhappy so far as I can tell. They're multifaceted individuals who contain multitudes, only one of which is their love of writing and literature. And I believe their lives have been enriched by their creative endeavors as has mine. It's only the wicked, skewed perspective of capitalism that might make those experiences appear to contain even a hint of failure.

And yet, though I wouldn't have believed it as a younger man, there is more to life than writing.

In a world where beings presenting themselves as aliens are more frequently making their presence known, existence is so much stranger than I had suspected. Whatever these beings are, they've been here all along and have frequently behaved both angelic and demonic. I haven't the time to provide a crash course in the sordid history of mankind's spiritual encounters with beings from the sky in this post (I recommend Encounters by D.W. Pasulka). But as a former atheist, I take comfort in realizing the many, many spiritual people in our history were apparently not ALL out of their mind.

Against all odds, there is a There there.

Sorry, my atheist friend Hugh Howey (loved Silo, by the way, and cheered when I saw you on screen). Sorry, Christopher Hitchens. I reread my old favorite, God is Not Great, this summer and was again filled with admiration for the brilliance of its author. I too would like to be brilliant and Hitchens makes many excellent points, but in light of new evidence, I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with even so eloquent a writer.

You regular Esteemed Readers will know I've meandered from agnostic to atheist to reluctant believer for years (a theme through my adult fiction, but never my books for children). I'm not certain of much, but I'm no longer uncertain about whether or not there is a God. 

A Greater Intelligence I don't have a better term for than 'God' exists. Undeniably. 

I no longer have the luxury of pretending They aren't real.  They were real the whole time, the whole time!  I'm likely to spend the rest of my life trying to better know Them. Why They were often so very quiet prior to March, I don't know, though I suspect the fault may lie, in part, with my listening.

Esteemed Reader, 2023 has been a difficult year. I've never shared all my personal business on this blog and today won't be the day I start, but for context: If ever there was a year in which I needed to hear from God, if in fact there was ever a single day in which I needed to hear from God, it was 03/03/23. For me, the improbability of the day is part of the irrefutable evidence.

I'm not going to tell you what God said, it was very specific to me and extremely personal. But I'll tell you HOW They spoke to me and why I can't pretend it's something other than what it was. I think God would appreciate me sharing this story given the many faith-discouraging things I've said over the years, but who knows?

Okay. Enough stalling....

Although, don't I usual mention my favorite non-book media of the year in these posts? I would've paid to see a movie that had Michael Keaton playing Batman in it for one minute multiple times and it would've been my favorite movie of 2023. Despite its shortcomings, The Flash had dozens of transcendent minutes of Michael Keaton greatness. Now that I own it, I can fast-forward past the rest of the movie around those glorious minutes. The only thing I saw as amazing in 2023 was Tori Amos live in concert, a bucket list item I can now check off as she was  as amazing in person as I've dreamed she would be since I became obsessed with her music at 14.

My favorite shows were Silo, The Last of Us, the final season of Succession (never has a finale so beautifully punished every character the way I most hoped they would be punished), and Lucky Hank. Marvel's Spider-man 2 slid past Red Dead Redemption 2 to become my favorite videogame of all time, although I also loved Zelda Tears of the Kingdom (of course), Super Mario Wonder, Dead Island 2, and Robocop: Rogue City. 2013 was a banger year for videogames and in March I was playing the exquisitely addictive Zombieland Headshot Fever Reloaded on my new PSVR2.

Okay, for real, everything I'm about to tell you actually happened on 03/03/23:

I was staying at an Airbnb, where I had intended to hammer out a draft of my new novel and play with my new VR headset. Instead, I was fretting and smoking cigarettes, a nasty habit I occasionally still fall prey to when I'm really, really stressed out (I don't need your judgement). And on that day, I was the most stressed I've ever been. And I had a crucial decision to make.

I spent the day doing research on my laptop and talking with the relevant parties and smoking, for which I had to go outside. That's why I know the lamppost in the curved driveway of the little house was lit up brightly even though it was only 4:00 in the evening.

The weather had turned nasty as though it were a metaphor for my inner life at that moment. There were framed pictures of Bible verses on nearly every wall of that Airbnb because the property was owned by the large church next door. There were crosses and other religious symbols posted everywhere, but I didn't see them, because I wasn't looking for them.  The last thing that might've occurred to me was to pray or attempt to reach out to God. 

So They reached out to me instead.

Just past 4:00, I realized I hadn't eaten anything all day, so I headed for the McDonalds that was a mere four or five blocks from the house. As I left, the storm worsened. There was already thunder and lightning, but now it began to hail. No matter, I was already in the drive-thru.

The whole trip took only 10, possibly 15 minutes. Yet, when I returned to the condo with my nuggets, there was a fallen tree in the drive. A fallen tree partly stabbed through the new roof the owner had put on the previous summer, though most of the tree landed directly where my car had been parked all day and all night save for those 10, possibly 15 minutes while I was getting food. 

The tree had been struck by lightning. I'm not the most perceptive man, but even I can't miss the significance of that. 

I parked further down the driveway just in front of the tree, which was the worst possible idea. But I didn't think of that. I went inside to email the owners and to call Mrs. Ninja to let her know what had happened. After that, I started to eat my nuggets, but they never did get eaten, because just then there came a frantic knock at the door. 

I answered to discover the world's most fireman-looking fireman. He was a big muscular man with bright red hair and a bushy mustache dressed in boots, a coat, a hat--the whole uniform. If they were making a movie involving firemen, he should've been cast as the lead. 

What I noticed first was not how much he looked like his occupation. What I noticed first was that he was terrified. His whole face was pale white, his eyes were wide, and his lips were tightly drawn. It was an unsettling expression on such a tough-looking a man. "Is that your car?" he demanded.

I said that it was and explained that I'd been lucky enough to be gone at exactly the perfect time to avoid my car being smashed.

"You're a whole lot luckier than that," the world's most fireman-looking fireman proclaimed. "I can't believe I'm talking to you right now. You should be dead right now."

"Oh?" inquired I.

Like the Ghost of Christmas Future showing Scrooge his grave, the world's more fireman-looking fireman pointed to a thick black cable beside my car; a thick black cable I hadn't seen lying in a puddle on the soaked driveway. 

"Unfortunately, I've come on the scene before where someone stepped on a power cable like that one, which must've been knocked loose when the tree struck that street lamp. We couldn't do anything for them. That lamp appears to be light controlled, and it's plenty dark, so it's a miracle it wasn't on or you'd have been dead the moment your foot touched the pavement."

"Oh," said I.

But that light had been on. I knew it for sure. I'd seen it with my own eyes.

A miracle, then.

When I was a boy, the leaders at my church used to say something I didn't understand then: "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist." In that moment, at long last, I understood what they'd meant. 

There are coincidences, of course, even multiple coincidences happing simultaneously, but that many coincidences on the one particular day I most needed them? It strains credibility. 

You believe what you want, Esteemed Reader. I don't have enough faith to believe in that many coincidences happening independently of a designed framework. And if that shatters my little paradigm, I reckon I need a new one.

There was lots of motion then, folks talking to me, me smoking, the owner of the Airbnb graciously agreeing to wave the charge for the rest of my visit as I was already packing up. Police took my statement,  and other things were said to me, but the world seemed like a faint noise coming from a distant room.

I was alive. I shouldn't be. 

That big decision I couldn't make? I made it. Instantly. Because when everything was in proper perspective, it wasn't so hard to make after all. 

Later, as I was putting the last of my luggage in my trunk, a man named Bill made casual conversation as he cleared the driveway. He was a member of the church that owned the house. He told me that the church routinely prayed for the safety for their guests, and then he told me, "Sometimes God winks at you."

Sometimes They do. 

After that, writing my little stories just didn't seem so important. I put everything on hold and reassessed my life. Because I've been living as though the world was one way and it turns out it's something else entirely. The world is so much stranger than I thought and so many things I thought were impossible might, it turns out, actually be possible.

These days, I pray a lot (once a day, which is a huge uptick for me as I haven't prayed in decades). I attend religious services and hear lectures, mostly online so they don't pressure me to join. And I read a lot, mostly books about differing perspectives on religion and reality. 

I've been trying to read The Bible, but I get hung up on Genesis with its two of every animal in the the world on one really big boat, some of whom get sacrificed by Noah, and also that talking snake from back when the world was a Disney cartoon, and... I just can't take it seriously.

I pray for God to make it make sense if that's Their word, but so far it doesn't. I'll keep reading, though, if for no other reason than to better understand the beliefs of others. But the questions I had when I first started to doubt my original religion still linger and I don't think I'm going to find the answers I'm looking for in any one book.

Lue Elizondo says, "Homo sapiens have been around for roughly 100,000 years, and we've only gotten into written language for the last 5,000 or 6,000 years... so only 5% of our entire time rummaging around on this planet has been in somewhat of a civilized fashion... only about 0.2% of mankind's time on Earth we've been industrialized. How much of our history do we really know? We can go back 5,000 years pretty easily, 8,000 years gets a little murky... It's like spending an entire day and having amnesia about everything that happened before the last five minutes."

So when I read ancient texts, I believe we're playing a game of telephone and I shouldn't necessarily expect to understand all of it. Who am I to say snakes didn't used to talk?

What I know is that there is a God. There are beings visiting from the sky having contact with humans. Probably there have been for a very long time, maybe even since before the dawn of humanity. We find ourselves in a situation even stranger and more complicated than a mere alien invasion.

And that's where I leave it. I now know more than I did, but not as much as I hopefully will as I continue my walk in faith. 

I've loved writing and I've loved being the Middle Grade Ninja, but both of those things are on indefinite hold, not because I don't love them.

I've just got other things to focus on presently.

Thank you so much for all your support over the years, Esteemed Reader. It's meant more than you can know. If I decide to be a public figure again, I'll update this site to let you know where you can find me.

Until then, best of luck with your reading and writing and your loving and learning.

To watch new episodes as they air, go to my YouTube channel and subscribe.

For shorter clips, subscribe to the Middle Grade Ninja YouTube channel.

Middle Grade Ninja is available on Anchor, Spotify,  Stitcher, Amazon, itunes, Podbean, RadioPublic,  Listen Notes, and many other fine locations.

In the final(ish) episode of the Middle Grade Ninja podcast, Chrystal D. Giles and I discuss her practical, data-driven approach to writing fiction that led to her newest novel, NOT AN EASY WIN. It’s a great conversation to end on as we discuss all my favorite subjects, such as successful writing habits, the need for diversity of representation in fiction, how a career in finance improves a career as an author, the importance of not hiding the truth from young readers, the imminent disclosure of the reality of flying saucers, and so much more. Esteemed Audience, it’s been an honor and a privilege. Thank you so much for supporting the show. It’s enhanced my life and I hope you feel the same.

Chrystal D. Giles is a champion for diversity and representation in children’s literature. Chrystal made her debut with Take Back the Block, which received multiple starred reviews, was a Kirkus Reviews, School Library Journal, and an NPR Best Book. Her next middle-grade novel, Not An Easy Win, which has already received multiple starred reviews will be published in February 2023. Chrystal lives outside Charlotte, North Carolina, with her husband and son.

Can Lawrence figure out how to get on the board, even though the odds are stacked against him?

Introducing a powerful novel about figuring out who you are when you don’t make the rules—just right for middle-grade fans of Nic Stone and Jason Reynolds.

"Smart and moving."—Book Riot

Lawrence is ready for a win. . . .

Nothing’s gone right for Lawrence since he had to move from Charlotte to Larenville, North Carolina, to live with his granny. When Lawrence ends up in one too many fights at his new school, he gets expelled. The fight wasn’t his fault, but since his pop’s been gone, it feels like no one listens to what Lawrence has to say.

Instead of going to school, Lawrence starts spending his days at the rec center, helping out a neighbor who runs a chess program. Some of the kids in the program will be picked to compete in the Charlotte Classic chess tournament. Could this be Lawrence's chance to go home?

Lawrence doesn’t know anything about chess, but something about the center—and the kids there—feels right. Lawrence thought the game was over . . . but does he have more moves left than he thought?

ChrystalDGiles.com

To watch new episodes as they air, go to my YouTube channel and subscribe.

For shorter clips, subscribe to the Middle Grade Ninja YouTube channel.

Middle Grade Ninja is available on Anchor, Spotify,  Stitcher, Amazon, itunes, Podbean, RadioPublic,  Listen Notes, and many other fine locations.

Tamar Rydzinski and I discuss her career in publishing, specifically her time at Sanford Greenburger Associates and the Laura Dail Literary Agency, where she became vice president and director of subrights, and now as the president and founder of Context Literary. We talk about the specifics of how she evaluates royalties from publishers, how she pitches those publishers, avoiding industry burnout, the types of projects she’s interested in, how she connects with protagonists, why books should model healthy relationships, how to make the mundane epic, and so much more.

Click here to see Tamar Rydzinski face The 7 Questions.

 

Tamar has always had a strong love for the written word. Her goal for her authors is to reach their audience wherever they are, and she is proud of helping them stay ahead of the curve. Tamar began her career at Sanford Greenburger Associates. She then joined Laura Dail Literary Agency, where she became vice president and director of subrights.

ContextLit.com

To watch new episodes as they air, go to my YouTube channel and subscribe.

For shorter clips, subscribe to the Middle Grade Ninja YouTube channel.

Middle Grade Ninja is available on Anchor, Spotify,  Stitcher, Amazon, itunes, Podbean, RadioPublic,  Listen Notes, and many other fine locations.

Yarrow and Carrie Cheney share the story of how they were best friends for a decade, lived together as roommates, worked as partners on multiple animation projects, and then decided to get married after their first date. We talk about their new novel, SUPERWORLD: SAVE NOAH, as well as their vast experience working on illumination studios films such as THE LORAX, THE GRINCH, DESPICABLE ME, and THE SECRET LIFE OF PETS.

Yarrow and Carrie Cheney are a husband-and-wife creative team who met in 1992 when they shared an animation cubicle as freshmen at California Institute of the Arts. The two have been collaborating ever since. After years in the animation industry in Los Angeles, the Cheneys moved to Paris, where Yarrow served as production designer on films including Despicable Me and Despicable Me 2. He later co-directed The Secret Life of Pets before going on to direct The Grinch. The couple now spend their days on a hill in Ojai, California, hanging with superheroes and making each other laugh.

In a world where everyone is extraordinary, it takes a totally normal kid to save the day. This new series breaks the mold with gorgeous black-and-white art on every page, and a cinematic, blockbuster feel.

Every 12-year-old kid feels like they don't fit in sometimes -- but Noah takes it to a whole new level. When a meteor crashed to Earth on his seventh birthday, the whole planet got superpowers.....except for Noah.
 
Thanks to his tin foil superhero costume, Noah's powers got deflected -- onto his little sister.  He's literally the only normal person in all of Superworld. He can't fly. He can't scale tall buildings. He can't turn broccoli into candy. (And of course his little sister got double powers. Of course.) And still...when the biggest, baddest villian in town plots to take over Superworld forever, normal Noah and his supercharged best friends are the ones who just might save the day. Seriously.

YarrowCheney.com

 To watch new episodes as they air, go to my YouTube channel and subscribe.

For shorter clips, subscribe to the Middle Grade Ninja YouTube channel.

Middle Grade Ninja is available on Anchor, Spotify,  Stitcher, Amazon, itunes, Podbean, RadioPublic,  Listen Notes, and many other fine locations.

Janine Le and I discuss her career in publishing from her first internship to her twelve years with the Sheldon Fogelman Agency to founding the Janine Le Agency. We talk about how she evaluates her slush pile, how she handles submissions and editorial feedback, how she evaluates potential clients, balancing darkness in children’s stories with joy, how authors can effectively market their books, traditional publication vs indie publishing, and so much more.

Janine Le is pleased to announce the launch of Janine Le Literary Agency, a full-service agency representing authors and illustrators of books for children and young adults. Janine brings to her new venture the classic training of over twelve years working closely with leading children's book agents, experience supporting the various career needs of children’s book luminaries and debut creators alike, and an entrepreneurial spirit to meet today's challenges.

Janine was most recently Agent and Foreign Rights Manager at Sheldon Fogelman Agency, where she spent nearly twelve years negotiating contracts, bookkeeping, managing foreign rights, and otherwise supporting agency clients, while building her own client list. She was previously an intern in the children’s department at Sterling Lord Literistic and completed NYU's Summer Publishing Institute. Janine graduated summa cum laude from Bucknell University with honors in English (Creative Writing), where she interned with literary magazine West Branch.

Janine enjoys the balance of creative-minded and business-minded work and loves pushing her clients to reach their projects’ potential in the developmental stages and advocating for them from submissions onward. Janine has served as faculty for events with The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) and donated critiques for several charitable campaigns. She finds balance in life by adventuring with her husband, two young children, and new dog.

JanineLe.com

 

Author Rob Kent reads seven chapters from his new middle grade novel, GOODBYE TO GRANDMA. Purchase your copy here: https://amzn.to/3Jk8v4A

About the book:A part of her would always be with me. Always.

When 11-year-old Hailey Smith attends her grandma’s funeral, she can’t cry, no matter how hard she tries. And she tries everything.

Hailey’s going to be a famous actress someday. Naturally, she gets the lead in the sixth-grade play. But she’s expected to cry in the third act.

On stage. In front of everyone.

How can she cry for a play when she couldn’t cry at her grandma’s funeral?

Goodbye to Grandma is the story of Hailey’s coming of age by coming to terms with the death of her grandmother.

 

When you hold my novelin your hands, Esteemed Reader, you hold my beating heart. That’s true nomatter which of my books you happen to be holding, even the adventure stories.There are chapters in all three Banneker Bones books I cannot read without tearsthreatening.

When you’re holdingGoodbye to Grandma, you’re holding a much younger version of my heart. Yet, 20years after its first draft, I still feel everything Hailey feels, and I stillcry at multiple places in the story every time I read them. What may read forsome as simple and unsophisticated in places is actually the faithful recordingof my experiences at a time in my life when I myself was a bit simpler and lesssophisticated.

Goodbye to Grandma isthe most directly autobiographical of my books. All my stories containautobiographical bits, whether I want them to or not. Whatever emotion I have aneed to express at the time usually works its way in to my fiction, even if Idon’t recognize it. That’s a big part of what makes fiction writing so satisfyingand cathartic. Also, risky.

I’ve never blastedgiant robot bees out of the sky whilst piloting a jetpack (alas) or even owneda pair of rollerblades (I’d fall and break things for sure). But my grandmotherdied when I was in the sixth grade and I could not cry at her funeral. Iactually lived a version of the funeral scenes right down to touching mygrandma’s lips and being attacked by a bee at her burial and yes, laughinghysterically in a way that the whole funeral parlor heard. I also played NickBottom in a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Mr. Laurence in aproduction of Little Women.

I suspect part of mymotivation in choosing a female protagonist for this story was to throw off thereader’s suspicions that the character is me. Also, I really do remember beingso flippant as to think “my last book, Jim’s Monster, stared a boy so this oneshould star a girl.” 20 years later, I’m okay with Esteemed Reader knowing Ihad so much trouble processing my grandmother’s death, but I’m rather attached toHailey. I have an older sister and there’s quite a bit of me in Barry as well.

The Smith familyChristmas is a good-ish approximation of a Kent family Christmas circa 1992 andGrandma Smith isn’t a character. When I see her in my mind, I still see FrancisKent, who came to our house every Christmas morning and most Saturday morningswith doughnuts. She really did let me watch rated-R movies and even took me tothe theater to watch A Few Good Men at age 11 and I still clearly remember herface about an hour in as the gratuitous profanity dropped, yet the movie was sogood we didn’t leave.

My grandmother’s loveis one of my fondest childhood memories and I’ve carried it with me these manyyears. If there is an afterlife, at present, she’s the one I’m most lookingforward to seeing. And her dying as I was in middle school and going throughpuberty is the clearest marker in my mind of the end of my childhood. I neveragain experienced Christmas as the same holiday it was when she was alive andI’ve missed her every Christmas since.

It’s good that I firstwrote this novel 20 years ago when my memories of all my feelings from herfuneral and from being in the sixth grade were still fresh in my head. That’snot the version published as I’ve rewritten this story many, many, MANY times overthe years. But those core experiences have survived the many drafts, preservingwhat I wanted to express about grief then and what I still feel is worth expressingnow. This is also the book that gained me representation by a literary agentand was very nearly my debut novel with a couple publishers, so I haven’t setout to do much rewriting now as not to fix what isn’t broken.

The reason I’verevisited this story now, like checking in on an old friend, and the reason I decidedto publish it 20 years later is that the secondary plot of Hailey’s evolvingrelationship with Grandma Richmond strikes me as more relevant now than it didwhen I first wrote it. I had another grandmother type in my life, though shewasn’t a biological relative, but Grandma Richmond is actually an amalgamationof some other relatives of mine who were openly racist. I’m a heterosexual whitemale from a mostly all-white Indiana town who grew up in the 1980s and 90s, butwho thankfully had a library card and kept growing up after I left that town.

I have family memberswhom—as of the writing of this afterword—I have not spoken to since thepresidency of Donald Trump. I was tempted to give Grandma Richmond a MAGA hat,but I didn’t because I don’t want to overshadow my beloved story with theexistence of that heinous villain some of y’all felt fit to vote for aspresident. I mention him here only because two years after his presidency, Istill can’t forgive his supporters.

I’ve heard all thereasons why people supported that terrible man and I understand some of them onan intellectual level, like, “if I were an uniformed person who thoughttelevision shows were real, I guess I would believe the guy from The Apprenticewas good at business in spite of all the evidence he's just a born-rich criminal.” But no matter how hard I try to bend my mind, I justcan’t see how it was possible to have supported that man without having alsobeen a racist or at the very least, comfortable enough with racism to still be an enemy to my family. And I can’t accept the excuse, “I’m not a racist. I don’tpersonally hate anybody. I just want to support others who hate on mybehalf.”

Goodbye to Grandmatakes no explicit stance on religion or politics.  I’m not comfortable writing explicitly about religion for children. They’re still figuring out their own views as to the nature of God and as someone who was successfully brainwashed (for a time) in my youth, I’m careful not to do the same to my young readers.

On the other hand, full disclosure: I'm only alive to publish this book as a month ago I should've definitely, absolutely died and didn't due to a set of circumstances I can only attribute to divine intervention. The number of coincidences I'd have to explain away becomes too improbable for serious consideration. And it's my third miraculous experience, though I imagine there've been far more that were simply less obvious. Suffice it to say, I'm done flirting with atheism.

I hope it’s possible to read this bookas a believer or an atheist without either view being challenged. Hailey’sstory is about loss and grief and that’s universal, whatever you believe happensor doesn’t happen after death. When Hailey’s father tells her that her deadneighbor’s soul is on its way to Heaven, it’s because that’s what my fathertold me, it’s what a lot of Indiana parents tell their children, and it’s anice thought. Not to acknowledge the reality of religious culture in thestory’s setting would be too great an omission, I think. But when mygrandmother died, all the thoughts of her in Heaven didn’t stop me from wantingher here and they didn’t help me to process the loss any differently. Gone isgone.

Hailey doesn’t careabout politics and neither does this story. The issue is racism. I’m not infavor of it, of course (see the Banneker Bones trilogy), nor do I feel it should be condoned. But I was raisedto hate the sin and love the sinner and I still feel that’s mostly a good idea.

I don’t think GrandmaRichmond is necessarily rehabilitated in this story in a lasting way and Idon’t think the Roosevelt family will be present for her next party. But I cansee Grandma Richmond is trying, and that’s not nothing. I don’t know, since thestory ends before we get there, that Hailey and Grandma Richmond are going tohave a lasting relationship (that’s a question for Esteemed Reader to resolve).I know only that Hailey is doing her best to be open to such a relationship becausethat’s what her Grandma Smith taught her and one of the ways in which GrandmaSmith lives on.

And that, whateverelse may come to pass, is beautiful and worthy of celebration.

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Anthony Peckham and I discuss the differences between writing a screenplay and writing a novel, as well as the inspiration for and craft employed in his incredible debut, CHILDREN OF THE BLACK GLASS. We also talk about why making terrible things happen for your character is a form of love, working with such incredible people as James Patterson, Tobey Maguire, Matt Damon, Gary Oldman, and Bill Clinton, the advantages of not plotting, writing a character for a specific actor, a ghost story, and so much more.

Anthony (Tony) Peckham is a South African–born screenwriter, surfer, and farmer who now lives on an island in the Pacific. Decades ago, while exploring a remote, high-altitude landscape with his children, he came upon a mountain made of black glass which inspired his debut novel. His other work includes Clint Eastwood’s Invictus and Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes. He is a Writers Guild of America Award winner and an NAACP Image Award nominee. Children of the Black Glass is his novel-writing debut.

Howl’s Moving Castle meets Neil Gaiman in this middle grade fantasy, set in a world as mesmerizing as it is menacing, following children on a quest to save their father who get embroiled in the sinister agendas of rival sorcerers.

In an unkind alternate past, somewhere between the Stone Age and a Metal Age, Tell and his sister Wren live in a small mountain village that makes its living off black glass mines and runs on brutal laws. When their father is blinded in a mining accident, the law dictates he has thirty days to regain his sight and be capable of working at the same level as before or be put to death.

Faced with this dire future, Tell and Wren make the forbidden treacherous journey to the legendary city of Halfway, halfway down the mountain, to trade their father’s haul of the valuable black glass for the medicine to cure him. The city, ruled by five powerful female sorcerers, at first dazzles the siblings. But beneath Halfway’s glittery surface seethes ambition, violence, prejudice, blackmail, and impending chaos.

Without knowing it, Tell and Wren have walked straight into a sorcerers’ coup. Over the next twelve days they must scramble first to save themselves, then their new friends, as allegiances shift and prejudices crack open to show who has true power.

To watch new episodes as they air, go to my YouTube channel and subscribe.

For shorter clips, subscribe to the Middle Grade Ninja YouTube channel.

Middle Grade Ninja is available on Anchor, Spotify,  Stitcher, Amazon, itunes, Podbean, RadioPublic,  Listen Notes, and many other fine locations.

David Ezra Sein and I discuss his career in picture books and now graphic novels, such as his newest, BEAKY BARNES: EGG ON THE LOOSE. We talk about adapting his INTERUPTING CHICKEN series as an Apple TV series, why I own three copies of POUCH, his childhood influences, why he walked away from a contract with Harper Collins while still in college, a UFO sighting, walking with an idea and getting to know it, puppetry, and so much more.

Click here to see David face the 7 Questions.

David Ezra Stein is the Caldecott-Honor illustrator and author of INTERRUPTING CHICKEN, DINOSAUR KISSES, I'M MY OWN DOG, and many other award-winning picture books, including LEAVES, winner of an Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award. He lives in Kew Gardens, New York.

Caldecott Honor winner David Ezra Stein takes readers on a slapstick journey in his debut graphic novel series, featuring Beaky Barnes, a no-nonsense chicken who's determined to save her desirable egg. But with a hungry inspector, a desperate chef, and an entrepreneurial woman on her tail, Beaky has to use every tool in her chicken coop to make her grand escape.

All the inspector wanted was an egg to go in his sandwich, so he heads to the cafe. The problem? The town is entirely out of eggs, and the local chef is panicked. Luckily, he spots a lovely duo having lunch: a woman and a chicken named Beaky Barnes. It's his lucky day. But when the woman and Beaky have a fight over an offensive business arrangement (chicken-pulled coach service, anyone?), chaos ensues. With a chicken on the run, and an inspector and woman in hot pursuit, three stories emerge with hilarious results!

With laugh-out-loud madcap comedy on every page, David Ezra Stein's (Caldecott Honor winner of Interrupting Chicken) signature humor is on full display in this debut graphic novel!

DavidEzraStein.com