I am so very lucky to count among my friends some of the most talented, generous and kind people in the kidlit world. In the past month or so, I have been celebrating a very special set of friendships.

L to R: me, Winston the Wonder Dog, Susan Hill Long, Augusta Scattergood and Barbara O’Connor

A few years back, I invited Barbara O’Connor, Augusta Scattergood and Susan Hill Long to our beach place for a writing retreat. Even though Susan only knew me, it took about three minutes before superglue bonds were formed. And, as you may have heard elsewhere, the four manuscripts we brought to work on that long weekend were all bought by publishers and all had 2016 book birthdays!

We thought that was so gosh-darned amazing that we decided to band together to talk about it. And, thanks to the caring and savvy women at BlueSlip Media, a “campaign” was born. The good kind. A #TrueFriends campaign. And all kinds of amazing things have happened.

Brief videos about our books, complete with classroom writing prompts, were made. (Take a gander here.)

Book kits were created. (download them here)

Giveways of sets of books and Skype visits were planned. (enter here).

One of the best things about the whole experience has been the chance to reflect on what this friendship has meant to each of us. And just this week, that reflection appeared in Bookpage (read it here).

On top of all this great stuff, I had another book come out this week! (more here)

*Sigh* I am one lucky duck.