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Ladies and gentlemen . . . the moment I’ve been waiting for.

Wait! Wait!  Background information first!

So for years I worked as a children’s librarian and I’d get girl after girl after girl coming up to my desk asking for funny books.  I credit some of this to Diary of a Wimpy Kid.  The boys and the girls loved that series and wanted more of the same.  Sometimes they wanted it in a notebook novel format, like Kinney’s book.  Sometimes they just wanted something hilarious, and they seriously didn’t care who wrote it.  So I’d grab books for them and then it slowly began to dawn on me.  Huh.  For all that I could find some pretty fantastic and hilarious books out there for kids, where were the funny story collections written by women?  Turns out, there weren’t any.

Until now.

I would like you to join me in applauding the following authors and author/illustrators . . . .

• Cece Bell
• Sophie Blackall
• Libba Bray
• Lisa Brown
• Adrianne Chalepah
• Alison DeCamp
• Carmen Agra Deedy
• Kelly DiPucchio
• Lisa Graff
• Shannon Hale
• Charise Mericle Harper
• Jenni Holm
• Akilah Hughes
• Amy Ignatow
• Christine Mari Inzer
• Lenore Look
• Meghan McCarthy
• Mitali Perkins
• Leila Sales
• Raina Telgemeier
• Deborah Underwood
• Ursula Vernon
• Rita Williams-Garcia
• Delaney Yeager
• and Mackenzie Yeager

Each one of these women has contributed to my new book Funny Girl: Funniest. Stories. EVER.

Behold!  The cover by the aforementioned Charise Mericle Harper:

And here’s the full jacket in its entirety:

A portion of the proceeds of this book go to Write Girl, a Los Angeles-based creative writing and mentoring organization that matches girls with women writers who mentor them in creative writing.

When’s it out?  May 9th, 2017!  Feel free to pre-order it.

Oh! And while I’m thinking of it, there’s this other really fun thing that just started that I have to let you know about.  As I may have mentioned before, my husband’s first book The Secrets of Story just came out recently and I could be prouder.  He’s already put up a couple great videos alongside it (the latest is here and is about those little moments of humanity that make you like a character).  But fun upon fun upon fun, he’s created a podcast with YA author and 90-Second Newbery Film Festival creator James Kennedy and it may well be my favorite thing of all time.  I love it when James and Matt get together because they agree on NOTHING!  And now they’ve a podcast together where they can extol the beauty of that nothing together.  It’s huge fun for me, and it ends with a little feature where they mention a story idea they had that they decided wouldn’t work and give it away (as it were) to the masses for use.  So if you like the process of writing or you just like banter, I’ve your new favorite podcast.  The Secrets of Storytelling podcast is available through iTunes.  Subscribe today!

I would like to thank everyone who submitted first pages this month. If your first page was not critiqued, please do not think it was due to your writing. The committment with Leila was to critique four first pages and there were many more than that submitted. It was very generous of editor Leila Sales of Viking Books for taking the time out of her busy schedule to read and critique the March First Page Picture Prompts. I also want to thank Kris Aro McLeod for providing the picture inspiration this month.

Falling Stars by Eileen Balesteri

The flashing red lights outside the old, abandoned building made Lena’s heart sink. The structure had always been an eyesore in the neighborhood, but over the past few weeks, it had served as a shelter to Lena and her little sister, Evie.

Lately, more and more houses on their once, cheerful street were turning from happy homes to foreclosed prototypes of broken dreams.

Squatting in an abandoned building had not been part of Lena’s life plan. But, everything changed the night her RA knocked on her dorm room door with the emergency call about her parents.

From that day on, Evie would be her responsibility.

She turned and looked down the block to the dark house with the “bank-owned” sign that used to be theirs–and then forward to the burning building that was their present home.

As she watched the flames lick the outside of the chimney, all she could do was hope that the others got out okay. They must have run, because she didn’t see any of them around. Not even Terrence…which was strange, since he always took charge when things got scary. Maybe he’d gone looking for them.

She gripped her little sister’s hand, grateful they had not been inside when it started.

“What’s going on, Lena? I’m tired. You said I could sleep when we got back from the dumpsters!”

“Just let me think for a minute, Evie.”

The blankets she had put out to air on the fence behind the building should still be there. If she could just get around the police and fire trucks to the back yard, they’d at least have something to keep them warm for the night.

“Evie. Follow me, and don’t say a word. Just copy everything I do.”

Squatting down to keep out of sight, they inched along the fence behind the overgrown shrubs and tall, dead weeds leading to the back.

FALLING STARS

The author does a good job quickly and unobtrusively telling us who Lena and Evie are, how old Lena is, and what the girls’ relationship is. There’s some immediate suspense from wondering 1) what happened toLena’s parents? 2) who are Terrence and “the others,” and what is their connection toLena? 3) how did this building catch on fire? The reader will want to keep going to find out the answers to these questions.

There’s some overwriting here that would be funny if this were a humorous story, but in a serious story it comes off as melodramatic. For example: “Lately, more and more houses on their once, cheerful street were turning from happy homes to foreclosed prototypes of broken dreams.”

My immediate response to the premise is that I have trouble believing a girl could go from college to homeless so quickly. I would expect Lena and Evie to have family and friends from their old life, when their parents were alive, who would be looking out for them in some way. But, as an editor, I would keep reading this story to see if Lena’s quick slide into poverty was done in a believable way o