Posts Tagged Author Interview

STEM Tuesday — Polar Ecology — Interview with Author Rebecca Barone

By STEM Tuesday on January 26, 2021 / Polar Ecology, STEM Tuesday

Welcome to STEM Tuesday: Author Interview & Book Giveaway, a repeating feature for the fourth Tuesday of every month. Go Science-Tech-Engineering-Math!

Today we’re interviewing Rebecca Barone, author of RACE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE EARTH : Surviving Antarctica, a thrilling narrative nonfiction tale that chronicles two different centuries’ treacherous expeditions to the South Pole and the men who raced to be first. The newly released book has received multiple starred reviews, including one from Booklist that says: “Readers will be caught up in the real-time action sequences and should end up rooting for everybody as these determined individuals face unimaginable physical and mental hardships.”

Mary Kay Carson: Tell us a bit about Race to the Bottom of the Earth and how you came to write it.

Rebecca Barone: First off – thank you Mary Kay Carson and the team at STEM Tuesday for hosting me today! It’s an honor to be featured here! Race to the Bottom of the Earth is the story of two races through Antarctica: one in 1912 to be the first to reach the South Pole and one in 2018 to be the first to cross Antarctica solo, unsupported, and unassisted.

Antarctica has always captured my imagination! There’s something about how entirely inhospitable it is to life, and yet humans go there! I’ve always been mesmerized by the contrast. When I saw a New York Times headline in November, 2018 that two men were attempting a “first” in Antarctica – right as I was sitting at home eating lunch – I rushed to read the article. As luck would have it, I had read a Wikipedia article about the 1912 race to the South Pole not too long before. So that adventure was fresh in my mind as I was reading about the 2018 race.

It was like a lightning bolt hit. Before I had even finished the NYTimes article, I knew that I had to put these two races together into a story. What really sealed it for me was finding out that neither race was intended to be a race. That the two adventures could parallel each other, entirely inadvertently, more than a century apart, was like a story-telling gift. I had to write this book!

MKC: The book goes back and forth in time, in alternating chapters, between the two races. Why did you choose this structure? Did you write it in that order?

Rebecca: From the start, I was struck by the parallels between the two races. By placing the two stories so directly side-by-side, I wanted my readers to draw history forward into the present. It’s so easy to place 1912 as nothing more than static, black-and-white pictures in a textbook, but they’re really men with personalities and characters like people we know and love today. I did an in-depth outline in the book’s order, but I drafted it with each timeline separately. Even more so, I went through and wrote all of Amundsen’s story, then I went and wrote all of Scott’s, then O’Brady’s, and finally Rudd’s. It wasn’t in the book’s order at all!

MKC: How was your research process different for the 1912 and the 2018 race?

Rebecca: I could talk with people involved in the 2018 race! (Not so much with the men who were around in 1912…) Both involved a ton of reading to research. But it was wonderful to talk with some of the Antarctica expedition experts involved in setting up both O’Brady’s and Rudd’s journeys. And I shouldn’t be glib about the 1912 race; talking to experts in 2018 was certainly helpful with the Amundsen/Scott race, too. Even today, it seems like anyone who is interested in Antarctica comes down heavily as either Team Amundsen or Team Scott. It kept me on my toes to talk with people so heavily invested with Antarctic history!

Rebecca E. F. Barone is an engineer who has worked on a diverse array of projects: NFL injury analysis, development of gait biometrics, and engine calibration of hybrid cars. Realizing her love for books in addition to numbers, she now describes the world with words rather than equations. Race to the Bottom of the Earth is now available, and her second book, about breaking the Enigma cipher of WWII, will launch in the fall of 2022. Visit her at rebeccaefbarone.com or follow her on Twitter @rebeccaefbarone.

MKC: To whom did you imagine yourself writing to while drafting the book?

Rebecca: I always write for myself. If I don’t like it, if I can’t get excited about it, then I figure no one else will.

MKC: Why do you choose to write STEM books? Do you have a STEM background?

Rebecca: I do have a STEM background! I’m a mechanical engineer! I love knowing how the world works, and STEM has taken me to some pretty amazing places: hot testing development cars in Death Valley, learning about car crash biomechanics in Spain, and even developing injury criteria on the sidelines of an NFL game. I don’t see STEM and books as all that different – both describe our environment, both are ways of explaining and making sense of the world around us. They’re both ways of telling stories. If I ever do write fiction (who knows?!), I imagine even those stories would have some STEM elements to them as well. I can’t imagine divorcing any story from technical subjects – for me, the narrative and the STEM inform and support one another.

MKC: For readers who loved Race to the Bottom of the Earth, what other middle-grade books would you suggest?

Rebecca: I’m deep, deep into researching and drafting my next book about breaking the Enigma cipher in WWII (so much fantastic STEM!!), so I’m woefully behind on new MG. But, from 2019/2020, I loved Jennifer Swanson’s Save the Crash Test Dummies. I mentioned it earlier, but I worked in an auto safety lab in grad school where we regularly crashed cars, and I loved revisiting that topic in her book. She did such a great job of weaving information in an accessible, entertaining way! For older readers, I thought Candice Fleming’s The Rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh was spectacular. She makes the subject and the themes immediately and obviously relevant to readers living through the events of the early 21^st century.

Thanks again for inviting me to the STEM Tuesday blog! If any of your readers have more questions about Race to the Bottom of the Earth, I’d love to chat via social media or my website.

**Win a FREE copy of RACE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE EARTH!**

Enter the giveaway by leaving a comment below. The randomly-chosen winner will be contacted via email and asked to provide a mailing address (within the U.S. only) to receive the book.

Good luck!

Your host is Mary Kay Carson, author of Wildlife Ranger Action Guide, The Tornado Scientist, Alexander Graham Bell for Kids, Mission to Pluto, and other nonfiction books for kids. @marykaycarson

STEM Tuesday — Coding– Interview with Janet Slingerland

By STEM Tuesday on December 22, 2020 / Coding, STEM Tuesday

Welcome to STEM Tuesday: Author Interview & Book Giveaway, a repeating feature for the last Tuesday of every month. Go Science-Tech-Engineering-Math!

Many of us on the STEM Tuesday team work hard to showcase the often unsung heroes writing books that spark the imagination of young readers. But it is not often that we get to celebrate one of our own. Today we are interviewing Janet Slingerland – author Coding Creations, Coding 123 and Video Game Coding. Janet is a STEM advocate whose books have covered a wide range of non-fiction topics for k-12. The subjects include plant development, atoms and molecules, nanotechnology, military vehicles and more.

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Christine Taylor-Butler: Janet, You are a kindred spirit. We both grew up reading, writing and conducting science experiments as kids. What was the most ambitious experiment you tried as a child? Was there praise and encouragement or were your parents (like mine) a bit flabbergasted?

Janet Slingerland: When I was growing up, I did a little bit of everything. I wrote really bad poetry, played lots of instruments (everything but strings and percussion) and sang, wandered around the woods, did theater, played sports, and read A LOT. When I was really young, I remember making mud pies and performing “experiments” at the dinner table. I’m sure you can guess what my parents thought of those experiments. I’m not sure I ever got really ambitious with science experiments after that. I fell in love with math and physics in high school – that propelled me into engineering school.

CTB: Women in children’s literature aren’t often acknowledged for our technical backgrounds. You earned a degree in electrical engineering and wrote computer software before becoming a writer. Tell us a bit about that journey. What it was like writing subroutines for submarines (and other machines)!

Janet: I’m not sure I really knew what I was getting into when I went to engineering school. I loved physics and math, but the science and math I had to learn in college was at a level I had never imagined! It was in college that I wrote my first computer program. Programming (or coding) combines learning another language with logical thinking – two things I’m pretty good at. (I was almost fluent in Spanish when I graduated from high school – unfortunately, I’ve forgotten most of it since then.)

When I graduated from college, I entered the Edison Engineering Program at General Electric Aerospace. The location I worked at was originally an RCA/Victor facility – where they once made Victrola phonographs. It still specialized in communication systems, so I ended up working in both coding and codes. I programmed computers inside things like submarines, telephones, and airplanes. The programs I worked on supported secure communications – things that used cryptography to make the communications unintelligible to anyone spying on them.

I found the work incredibly rewarding. I still remember the first day we got our secure telephone system working in the lab. We were talking back and forth, and it sounded like we were just talking over a regular telephone. We spent several days convincing ourselves that our voices were being encrypted and decrypted – old encrypted systems would warp the voices so it was obvious you were not talking on a normal phone.

CTB: When I was learning coding, it was Fortran, then PL1. Computers were room sized. That was a long time ago. How much has coding changed since you were in the field? Ever think of diving back in?

Janet: My first programming language was also Fortran – Fortran 77, to be exact. My college year was one of the first that wasn’t required to program a computer using punch cards. (It was fun to see those in the movie Hidden Figures.)

Example of Fortran 77

When I was working, I programmed primarily in assembly language and C. Assembly language doesn’t read like a normal language. It’s designed at a very low level. Grace Hopper was one of the visionaries who felt that a computer language should read in a way that you could tell what the programmer was intending for the computer to do.

I know coding has changed a bit since I first learned it. There are a lot more languages out there, running on a lot more platforms (like cell phones and e-readers/tablets). But I think at its core, coding hasn’t changed much at all. Logic really doesn’t change over time, and a coding language is really just a tool coders use to communicate with a computer. It’s easy to learn a new tool once you know the basics.

I do sometimes feel the desire to get back to coding. There is something very satisfying in starting with just an idea and building up code that brings that idea to life.

CTB: Your books cover a wide range of topics. Why did you make the switch from engineering to writing books about STEM?

Janet: I’ve always loved books and reading. It turns out, I also always had a love of writing. I was often the person (or one of the people) who wrote the documentation for our work – whether that was a lab in school or a project at work.

I found being a woman in the field of engineering/coding to be very challenging. When I was pregnant with my 3rd child, I struggled a lot with the work environment. When he was born, I found the joys at work were too few compare to the struggles. I started following my second love – writing. My background in math, science, and engineering, and my endless curiosity made writing STEM a natural fit.

CTB: So one advantage of writing in STEM is that you are never bored. It’s a major component in the development of just about everything.

Janet: So true! I have yet to find a subject that wasn’t totally fascinating once I started learning about it

CTB: For purely selfish reasons I was fascinated by your book, Coding Creations, which covers Scratch, a free coding language for young people developed by my alma mater. I had not realized MIT’s Media Lab had a Lifelong Kindergarten Group division. Did you have an opportunity to experiment with Scratch while writing the book?

Janet: Absolutely! The first thing I had to do for Coding Creations was to decide on what computer language we would use. I tried out a few, including Scratch and Python – two free coding languages. (I didn’t want money to be a barrier that would keep a curious kid from learning about coding.)

A lot of people dismiss Scratch because it is a block coding language. Each command is represented by a block you connect together to build a program. Scratch doesn’t let you put the blocks together in a way that won’t work. In traditional coding languages, you have to use the proper syntax – you need to spell commands correctly, give them the correct inputs, and use the proper punctuation – in order for it to work. Sometimes, a simple error in syntax can take a long time to figure out.

Scratch 3.0

When I was working with Scratch for the book, I realized it’s actually a very powerful language. It has some limitations, but there are ways to work around most of them. It also works on many different platforms. You don’t even need to download it onto your computer – you can work with it online, if you have a reliable internet connection. That means you can work on your code from different computers if you have to.

My kids used Scratch when they were in school. One of the things that frustrated them is that they were given a lot of time to “play around.” Unfortunately, they didn’t really know much about coding and didn’t feel comfortable playing around with it. My goal with Coding Creations was to introduce readers to Scratch so they would be comfortable playing around with it. Not only did I want to give them a taste of what they could do with it – animation, music/sound, drawing, and coding – but I wanted them to see what other resources were available from Scratch so they could explore more on their own.

CTB: For students interested in video games as a career, your book on Video Game Coding might serve as a launching point for exploring careers. At my daughter’s college, for instance, students in the video games division had a 100% rate of employment at graduation. If you had to do it again, would you code video games? Or better, what’s your favorite if you play them?

Janet: I wrote the Video Game Coding book mainly because I have a son who is interested in coding – specifically in video game coding. I wanted to learn how video game coding was similar to and different from the coding I did. As I suspected, the basics are pretty much the same, but there are differences in the details – and, of course, in how fun the end result is.

I think a lot of young gamers imagine video game coding to be a very glamorous career. While I’m sure it has its moments of fun and glamour – it’s like all other programming careers. It’s a lot of work and long hours.

All of my kids are big gamers. My favorite video games are puzzle and word games. I’ve tried playing games with my kids, and it’s pitiful – I have no idea what I’m doing. If it’s a game where you lose lives, I die VERY quickly. I could probably get into something like Animal Crossing (one of my daughter’s favorite games), but I honestly prefer to read.

CTB: One of the things I love about your website is that you include resources to pair with each book. For instance, for your graphic novel on The Secret Life of Plants, you list not only links to science experiments, but a plant detective game, and the world carrot museum. Whats one of the most unusual or fascinating resources you encountered?

Janet: That’s a really tough question. In addition to writing, I do a lot of work with scouts. When my daughter was younger, I was a Girl Scout leader. Now, I’m a Scouts BSA merit badge counselor. For that and for STEM Tuesday, I’m always looking for new ways to engage with or learn about things.

There are a few things that pop into my head as being unusually compelling – and the World Carrot Museum is definitely up there. Another is the Molecularium Project – which was put out by one of my alma maters, Rensselaer – https://www.molecularium.com. It’s like a video game where you can explore molecules.

I also love PhET – https://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulations. This site is filled with simulations that illustrate just about every math and science concept you can think of. For instance, here’s one that shows how people see color: https://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulation/color-vision . It shows that seeing color actually involves more that one science – it involves the physics of light and the biology of the human eye.

CTB: People often conflate STEM with pushing young people into careers in coding. Your book Sports Science and Technology was an excellent example of how STEM is used everywhere, including careers that might dovetail with a person’s real interest. For instance, part of helping a gymnast improve their skill is understanding physics. What one thing fascinated you as you researched sports related applications for STEM?

Janet: I think we need to stop thinking putting things in bins. People think they’re either artsy or mathematical. They’re either sporty or sciencey. There are crossovers in everything.

My father was a gym teacher. Growing up, I played field hockey, volleyball, and track and field. I also marched in marching band. It amazed me that people didn’t view it as a sport – it was just as physically demanding as the other sports I participated in.

I think what fascinated me the most while researching my Sports Science books was how old the idea of sports science is. These ideas started long, long ago, when gladiators were fighting in the Roman coliseum. What’s kind of amazing is how long it took for those ideas to catch on in modern-day sports.

CTB. What’s next on the horizon for Janet Slingerland? Any upcoming books or projects we should be watching out for

Janet: A few years ago, I wrote a 12-book series about the weird creatures in the world. The books were delayed, and then 2020 happened. I hope I get to see them in print before too much time goes by. I have another book coming out in 2021 from The Child’s World called Quiet vs. Loud. This book helps young readers learn about the physics of sound.

There are a few other books I’m working on. Hopefully, I’m able to get some publishers as excited about them as I am. I call one of them a SHTEAM book – it adds history to science, technology, engineering, art, and math – all related to an object so common people barely notice it anymore.

CTB: Thanks, Janet, for taking time out to talk to us!

Win a FREE copy of “Coding Creations” or “Video Game Coding”.

Enter the giveaway by leaving a comment below. The randomly-chosen winner will be contacted via email and asked to provide a mailing address (within the U.S. only) to receive the book.

Good luck!

Janet Slingerland studied engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Drexel University. She has written many science books for children, including The Secret Lives of Plants!, which was named a Top 40 YA nonfiction book by the Pennsylvania School Librarians Association. Janet lives in Mount Laurel, New Jersey with her husband, three kids and a dog named “Rocky.”

To learn more about Janet and her books, please visit www.janetsbooks.com. You can follow her on Twitter @SlingSong. Or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/janetsbooks

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Your host is Christine Taylor-Butler, MIT engineering nerd and author of Bathroom Science, Sacred Mountain: Everest, Genetics, and more than 70 other nonfiction books for kids. She is also the author of the middle grade sci-fi series The Lost Tribes. Follow @ChristineTB on Twitter and/or @ChristineTaylorButler on Instagram

Author Spotlight: Christine Kendall… plus a GIVEAWAY!

By Melissa Roske on November 27, 2020 / Author Interviews, Giveaways

Let’s give a warm Mixed-Up welcome to Christine Kendall, the NAACP Image Award–nominated author of the MG debut, Riding Chance (Scholastic, 2016). Christine’s sophomore novel, also published by Scholastic, The True Definition of Neva Beane, came out in September and was lauded by Lesa Cline-Ransome as “an inter-generational story written with humor, heart, hope—and the power of self-discovery.

Here is a summary of Neva Beane:

Being twelve isn’t easy, especially when you’re Neva Beane. She knows she’s beautiful and smart, but there are so many confusing signals in everyday life about, well… everything, including the changes taking place in her preadolescent body; her relationship with her best friend, Jamila; and her admiration for the social activist on the block, Michelle.

Mom and Dad are on tour in Europe and Neva and her brother, Clay, are left at home with their traditional grandparents. The household descends into inter-generational turmoil and Neva is left with what comforts her most—words and their meanings. While the pages of her beloved dictionary reveal truths about what’s happening around her, Neva discovers the best way to define herself.

And here’s a summary of Riding Chance:

Troy is a kid with a passion. And dreams. And wanting to do the right thing. But after taking a wrong turn, he’s forced to endure something that’s worse than any juvenile detention: He’s “sentenced” to the local city stables, where he’s required to take care of horses. The greatest punishment has been trying to make sense of things since his mom died, but through his work with the horses he discovers a sport totally unknown to him—polo. Troy’s has to figure out which friends have his back, which kids to cut loose, and whether he and Alisha have a true connection.

Q&A with Christine Kendall

MR: So glad to have you with us, Christine. Welcome to the Mixed-Up Files!

CK: Thanks so much for inviting me. It’s a pleasure to be here.

MR: I can’t tell you which of your novels I enjoyed more, Riding Chance or The True Definition of Neva Beane. They are both wonderful in such different ways. I know you wrote Riding Chance because you were inspired by a story on NPR (more on that later), but what prompted you to tell Neva’s story? Were you like Neva growing up?

CK: It warms my heart to hear you enjoyed both books as I consider them companion novels. They’re both coming of age stories that take place in current-day Philadelphia. The True Definition of Neva Beane isn’t memoir but, like Neva, I paid a lot of attention to words as I was growing up, and I came to understand their power pretty early on.

One of the things that prompted me to write the book is my fascination with how young girls are seen, and how those notions about who they are may or may not align with how they define themselves. This is important because the period in a girl’s life when she moves from early childhood into adolescence is magical, but it can also be very confusing. People read girls differently as their bodies develop and often make judgments about them based purely on their physical selves. I wanted to explore those issues. Once I had the Neva Beane character I thought about other issues she may be confronted with in today’s world. That led me to think about her political awakening and various ways a person can make a positive contribution to their community.

Body Positivity in MG Fiction

MR: Speaking of Neva, it’s clear from page one that she has a strong sense of self, particularly when it comes to her changing body. She feels beautiful in her first bra, a “glorious white cotton status symbol,” and admires herself in front of the mirror until she’s “dizzy.” I love this scene because it’s such a gorgeous display of girl power and body positivity. Was that your intention when you wrote the scene—to encourage tween girls to take pride in their changing bodies? If so, what role does body positivity play, or should play, in MG fiction?

CK: I’ll confess that I wrote Neva Beane’s “mirror scene” based on memory. I was eleven years old and, unbeknownst to me, I was seen admiring myself in front of a mirror by one of my brothers. Well, of course, my brother almost died laughing and I was humiliated. I spent hours trying to figure out why I felt that way before I realized there’s no shame in acknowledging your own beauty. I just hadn’t expected to be seen in that moment by anyone else. I think many young teens have experienced moments like that and I wanted them to know that I see them and their beauty. Body positivity is an issue for boys as well as girls and MG fiction is a good place to explore it.

What’s the Good Word?

MR: As above, Neva Beane is obsessed with words and finds great comfort in them. In fact, her most beloved possession is a Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. What is it about words that fascinates and comforts Neva—and maybe you, too?

CK: Words have power. Neva Beane is fascinated by them because she sees how they can be used to elevate or to wound. I share that fascination and wanted to show how Neva’s ability to analyze words brings her comfort especially when she is in the midst of confusing situations. I also wanted to provide a concrete example of how a person can use words to elevate. Neva chooses that path at the end of the book.

Work to Ride Program

MR: Turning our attention to Riding Chance, I know you wrote the book because you were inspired by a story on NPR about a program called Work to Ride, where inner-city kids work with horses and learn how to play polo in exchange for stable chores. Can you tell MUF readers a bit about the program and how it inspired you? Also, what kind of research did you do in order to make the polo-playing scenes realistic? I’m guessing you weren’t a horseperson prior to writing the novel…?

CK: You’re right about my not being a horseperson before I wrote Riding Chance. I hadn’t planned on writing a novel. I was simply inspired when I heard the wonderful story about how kids in a mentoring program in Philly won a polo national championship in 2011. It was such an incredible story about what can happen when young people are given opportunities to explore and develop themselves in new ways.

I had to do a lot of research including taking horseback riding lessons, studying the game of polo, going to polo matches, and learning about the powerful bonds between humans and animals. I was fortunate in that there were a couple of horsepeople in the critique group I was a member of who were more than happy to offer constructive criticism. I learned quite a bit and really enjoyed the process.

Themes in Christine’s Books

MR: I noticed that loss and abandonment is a theme in both of your novels. In Riding Chance, Troy is grieving the death of his beloved mom; in Neva Beane, Neva feels as if she’s been cast aside by her best friend, Jamila. Neva also misses her musician parents while they’re on tour in Europe. What is the message you’re trying to convey? Resiliency? Grit? Something else?

CK: You hit the nail right on the head with resilience. I think it is such an important skill for young people to develop. Life can be difficult at times and we need to believe we can work our way through tough situations. One of the ways people develop resilience is by not being afraid to take reasonable risks. We will not always succeed at everything we try but even our failures provide opportunities to learn and to become more confident.

Ch Ch Changes…

MR: Before writing Riding Chance, you were in the legal profession. What prompted you to make the switch from the law to writing? Can you tell Mixed-Up Files readers about your path to publication? Was it a steady canter or a wild Headless Horseman-style gallop? (I know… 🙂)

CK: I like the visual of a Headless Horseman-style gallop especially since my path to publication was somewhat unusual. As you mentioned, I had a career before I became a writer. I worked with large law firms in the areas of attorney recruitment, associate relations, and diversity and inclusion. I enjoyed my legal career but I got to the point where I wanted to do something more creative. I had always loved books and reading so I took a big step, talk about taking a risk, and left my job to focus on writing.

After about a year of sitting at home by myself struggling with picture book manuscripts I took a writing workshop with an editor from Scholastic, the amazing Andrea Davis Pinkney. She saw my fascination with Philly kids playing polo and encouraged me to use that as inspiration for a novel. It took me three years to research and write and revise but, in the end, she wanted the book.

This Writer’s Life

MR: What your writing process like, Christine? Do you have a specific routine? Writing rituals?

CK: I don’t have a specific writing routine, but I often need something like music to move me from real life into the fictive world. I love jazz so I may listen to that while I’m working. I also read my work aloud as I go along and I write with my whole body. What I mean is I get up and sometimes act out what my characters are doing so I can describe their actions accurately. Needless to say, I write at home. I don’t think people would put up with me in other places.

MR: Finally, what’s next on your writing agenda, Christine? Care to share a bit about your latest project?

CK: I’m working on another MG novel. I wrote a short story a few years ago that doesn’t feel like it’s finished even though it’s been published. I’m expanding that story into a longer work.

MR: Oh! Last thing…

No MUF interview is complete without a LIGHTNING ROUND!

Preferred writing snack? Popcorn.

Coffee or tea? Tea.

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary or Oxford English Dictionary? Merriam-Webster.

Favorite word? Milieu, although I don’t think I used that word in Neva Beane.

Mister Ed or Mister Rogers? Mister Rogers.

Zombie apocalypse: Yea or nay? Nay.

Superpower? Ability to find humor in most any situation.

Favorite place on earth? Mashomack Nature Preserve on Shelter Island, New York.

You’re stranded on a desert island, with only three items in your possession. What are they? A book, my eyeglasses, and a flashlight.

MR: Thank you for chatting with me, Christine—and congratulations on the publication of The True Definition of Neva Beane. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I know MUF readers will too.

And now…

A GIVEAWAY!!!

For a copy of The True Definition of Neva Beane, comment on the blog–and, if you’re on Twitter, on the Mixed-Up Files’ Twitter account–for a chance to win!

CHRISTINE KENDALL grew up in a family of artists, the fourth of six children, where everyone studied the piano along with one other instrument. She still feels sorry for the neighbors. They woke up one morning and found themselves living next door to a flute, two clarinets, a French horn, a cello, a set of drums, and always, always somebody on the piano. Christine wasn’t any good on the piano or the clarinet, but she loved writing. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous literary journals and her debut novel, Riding Chance, was nominated for a NAACP Image Award in the category of Outstanding Literary Work for Youth/Teens. The True Definition of Neva Beane is her second novel. Christine lives in Philadelphia where she co-curates and hosts the award-winning reading series, Creative at the Cannery. Learn more about Christine on her website and follow her on Twitter.

Posts Tagged Author Interview

STEM Tuesday — Polar Ecology — Interview with Author Rebecca Barone

**Win a FREE copy of RACE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE EARTH!**

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