Happy New Year! My wife was asking me for a New Year’s baby– so this one is for her.

The 2015 retrospective I promised on Thursday should be up on Monday morning. And hopefully by that time I will have decided what I’m going to do on this site for the next year.

The post Happy New Year 2016! appeared first on rob-peters.com.

A longtime reader wrote to ask if everything’s okay. He was concerned because I post here so rarely.

Everything is okay! My stepdaughter, Autumn, turned twenty-one! Often I still think of her as the little waving girl in the photo above. But she is an astounding young woman, a clear and compassionate thinker, a poet, a gift, my only child. Also, my goddaughter and her mom moved away. I miss them tons. And my cats died, a few months apart. Oof, as my friend Carrie says. That was sad. 

After Emily’s death in July, we got Florian to keep Percy company, and then after Percy’s death in November we didn’t want Florian to be alone, so we got Wanda. They’re great — we’re so comforted by their companionship and antics — but losing pets is as awful as Laurie Anderson says. I actually got Emily after I lost my dog, Ripley, back in 1997. After Emily’s death, I finally felt ready to have a dog again, but our coop doesn’t allow them. Neither, for that matter, did Percy.

Right now there’s a blizzard outside. I’m drinking water and tea and working on my book, which is usually what I’m doing, unless I haven’t refilled the water and tea recently.

The manuscript is due in 2016, and I asked for regular installment deadlines with my editor to keep myself on task, and I’m so busy writing that I actually got excited when an app I use to keep myself from wasting time online malfunctioned for a few weeks. It cut off my access to half the Internet, including this very site. I’m also working on a related profile-essay thing that’s taking me a long time to finish to my satisfaction, and I’m very excited about it. And I’ve been doing a lot of weird, wide-ranging reading, which I’m sure will all be reflected in my book, if you’ve missed my meandering fixations.

I hope to fixate here, too, from time to time. Until that happens, or in case it doesn’t, you can as usual more frequently find me on Twitter, Tumblr, The Begats (my other Tumblr), Instagram, and Facebook. It’s also possible to sign up for my verrrry sporadic “ideas and intimacies” dispatches at Tiny Letter. And I’ll be speaking at A.J. Jacobs’ Global Family Reunion on June 6, if you’d like to catch up in person.

For now, we’ve just gotta get through January. And I keep reminding myself, so I’ll remind you, too: the days are already getting longer.

I love January, but my sweet homeschool kiddos don’t seem to love it quite as much. Thus, a blues poem for my girls and all the students who wish they were still on  Christmas vacation…   School is in session Equations are flying Students are moaning Brain cells are frying Reading and painting Dividing and…

It’s strange. From October to December, there seems to be very little time to do much other than marvel at how fast time flies. I do as much as I can to get done what needs to be done. I love that time of year, even the hustle and bustle of it all. But from…

I’ve been working on my list of January 2013 releases by authors of color. Last year, I was able to list 17 January releases and this year I’ve found 8. I’m going to continue to do some searching and publish my list tomorrow. Please!! Feel free to mention MG and YA titles of which you’re aware. You can find my list beginning to for on the bottom of this page. 

As I’ve been gathering titles, I ran across a publishing company with which I haven’t been familiar: Tiny Satchel Press. What a wonderful find! Tiny Satchel was found by columnist, award winning journalist, cancer survivor and community leader Victoria Brownworth. In an interview with Lambda Iiterary, she gave the following insights into Tiny Satchell Press.

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Let’s talk about the new imprint. What was the inspiration behind Tiny Satchel?

I’d been acquiring and editing young adult books for five or six years for a mainstream publisher. I was enjoying doing it, but I kept being aware that some books I pitched would get the “we don’t think there’s a readership or audience for that.” And consistently it seemed to me to be books with characters of color or queer. It started to irk me. My own fiction always has a political undercurrent I just don’t think anyone can be too young to have a range of characters with whom to identify. I wanted more range. So I wanted to provide books that I would want to read if I were nine or 12 or 15.

One of the biggest complaints I hear from young readers and parents is that there are few middle-grade books coming out with LGBT themes, why do you think that is?

Fear and money. Publishing is unbelievably expensive. Printing is expensive. Marketing is expensive. Writers and editors have to make a living. The tried-and-true is easy.

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HOORAY for Tiny Satchel!

In January, they’ll be releasing Bereft by Craig Laurance Gidney.

I love train stations. That may seem weird since stations are so much like waiting rooms. It could be that I used to watch movies from the 1940's all the time (I still think that was the best decade for films) and everything important changed at a train station. People were always going off to war in Europe or waving them home from somewhere amazing while standing on train platforms.

Later on, I am taking a train from the Philly Amtrak station (see picture above) and I can't wait to take some pictures of the station. Here's another one:

Of course, my leaving the house has caused major questions from the kids because Mom only leaves to
a) work
or
b) get them food.

When I told them I was going to the ALA Conference in Boston, they wanted to know what our room would look like and if they got a day or maybe two off from school. "I'm not actually sure how much I like history," Emma reminded me, "and that's all like Pilgrim stuff, isn't it?"

They were stunned when I told them I would be back on Saturday night, and I was leaving and returning alone. These are kids who never even had a babysitter (I know, I know)

After the initial shock wore off (indicated by uncharacteristic silence), Philip asked me, "So are you like famous now or something?"

"No, it's just a conference."

He looked at me suspiciously. "You know what happened to Tupac when he became famous, right?"

I had that coming.

For years, it's been, "What? You ate a PORK HOT DOG THERE? Did you know they are associated with childhood leukemia?" "You forgot to wash your hands? WHAT? That's how the PLAGUE spread!"

You get the idea.

"Yes, I know what happened to Tupac. But these people are mostly librarians, people like that. They tend not to be violent."

"Maybe they are," he insisted. "They just cover it up."

"Gangsta librarians? The image just isn't forming, Philip."

They are coming with me all the way to the Amtrak station in Philly. Then I get to spend a day or so with a bunch of people who like books and reading and all that stuff as much as I do, probably even more. I'm betting I get over a hundred texts from my kids - and that will be within an hour of leaving the station.

But it's okay; I finally get to wave from a train - both ways.