INK Sisters Write

Dear Kim (and friends!!), Our students are nearing the finish line (teachers too.) A quick sprint to the end is all that we have left. At our school, the students literally speak in terms of "finish lines", "touchdowns", and "goals". Not because of the annual field day, but because of the new reading program. The final unit in the American Reading Company's curriculum is SPORTS FICTION. No SPORTS FICTION unit would be complete without a poem from Mr. Kwame Alexander. But, what Kwame book to discuss? CROSSOVER? BOOKED? THE PLAYBOOK? Since many students are shin guard-deep in soccer right now, I picked BOOKED. In this verse novel, Kwame Alexander uses a variety of poetry styles to bring his main character, Nick Hall, to life. Nick is obsessed with soccer. When he becomes sidelined, books are his new game. The lesson: After reading from the book, we "borrowed" one poem and used it as a seed for our own poetry. Students were ab...

Dear Alison and friends, It’s a bird. No, it’s a plane. No, it’s Matt Phelan, superhero of the graphic novel. Picture it. A man, an ordinary man, sipping his coffee, his highly caffeinated coffee, while the sun rises in the early morning. One child hangs from his left arm. Another hangs from his back. To most these young humanoids serve as a distraction, but not to this man. He sits with a smile and an unwavering determination to finish his coffee. Next Frame. The man steps outside his front door with his hands on his hips, a flowing red superhero cap draped artfully off his shoulders. To most he looks like a man with an overactive imagination and a propensity to cosplay. To his readers, he looks like a superhero. Next Frame. Matt enters his art studio. He closes the door. He glances at his desk with his pens, pencils, paint, and paper scattered across it waiting for him to return. His cap lifts. A light bulb appears above his head. Next Frame. He sits, takes p...

Dear Alison and friends,  This week you are in for a treat. (Well, I hope it's a treat.) We've had three posts in three days, but for excellent reasons. Alison needed to have a dance party to celebrate her new Work in Progress  and aside from the fact that everyday should be reason for a dance party, I'm participating in a Book Blitz and Blog Tour for Starr Fall in anticipation of the upcoming release of Starr Gone, Book Three of my young adult series. In case you missed the cover reveal, here's the post.  So, over the next two weeks, a load of different blogs are hosting me. I've written some cool posts about Starr Fall, shared details about the characters, created Character Pinterest boards, and shared new excerpts, so be sure to follow along with the Blog Tour and comment. Plus there's a giveaway for a $10 Amazon Gift Card...  Let's get the  Starr Fall Book Blitz rolling! One Starr falls, and a killer rises. STARR FALL Kim Br...

Dear Kim, I put Girls of Summer away for a spell to let her simmer before big revision #6,402. So, as you know, this means PARTY TIME. 🎉🎉🎉 Okay, not like streamers and gin parties, but starting a new novel PARTY. It is such a happy, anything-is-possible time. I can fall in love with my characters as they uncover themselves to me. Not worry about... tightening plots... revising scenes... word-freaking-choice... too many ellipses. I mean, I know where I want to go with Untitled Story. She's been the star of my journal for two weeks. See? Isn't that journal adorable. Gift from my bestie. She knows that I have a BIG obsession with LITTLE things. I filled all fifty, itty-bitty pages with backstory for CeCe, the star of  Untitled Story. ( And, don't worry, I'm not going all meta on you here, the title isn't " Untitled Story".  Just not feeling the working title: OBEAST .) Anyway, the most surprising thing for me so far with CeCe is that sh...

Dear alison & friends, Friday was the official reveal for Starr gone, Book three of the starr fall series. I can't even contain myself right now. Check it out and guess what, people can preorder... ⭐⭐⭐ Unveiling a new cover ⭐⭐⭐ STARR GONE by Kim Briggs Series: Starr Fall Series, Book 3 Genre:  Young Adult Contemporary, YA Romance, YA Thriller Publication Date: June 3, 2017 Add to Goodreads A Starr gone. A team betrayed. You never know who your true friends are until a gun’s pointed at you. One will take a bullet, and the other will pull the trigger. Starr learned that lesson the hard way. The perfect smile. A killer attitude. General Treadwell wanted nothing more than to turn Starr Bishop into the ideal assassin, but she’s far more valuable as Jessica Chamberlain, granddaughter and heir to Chamberlain Chocolates. Luckily, he’s found two enthusiastic replacements. They lack Starr’s intelligence, but no matter, they possess their own weapons of ...

Dear Kim (and friends!), I was shocked... I mean really, truly SHOCKED to find that neither one of us wrote a book review for Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli. This was one of my favorite books from 2015, yours too! I made mention of the book in another review , but did not give Simon, his Oreos, or his humor any of the LOVE they deserved. Thank you, tinyobsessions for the image! Well, I won’t make the same mistake with Becky Albertalli’s second book, The Upside of Unrequited .   In June of 2016 the cover reveal for her second book hit the # Twittersphere , along with the blurb: “Seventeen-year-old Molly Peskin-Suso knows all about unrequited love- she’s lived through it twenty-six times. She crushes hard and crushes often, but always in secret. Because no matter how many times her twin sister, Cassie, tells her to woman up, Molly can’t stomach the idea of rejection. So she’s careful. Fat girls always have to be careful.” After r...