September kicks off a busy fall of corrupting the minds of students across the country. Six schools have selected my books as common reading experiences (4 for WEARING and 2 for EATING). Visiting a university full of students who have read (or were supposed to have read!) your book is about the best experience I’ve had as an author.
This month’s schedule is below. If you are in any of these areas, I’d love for you to attend, or drop me a tweet or Facebook message and maybe we can meet up for coffee.
9/6 Union City, Ohio @ 6:30 PM (open to public)
I’m talking about WHERE AM I EATING? at the EUM church where my mother attended as a child and my in-laws attend today. It…
Kyle, either posing like a “scientist” or planning to takeover the world.
My brother, Kyle, always led my earliest adventures into imaginary realms. We fought trolls with wooden swords, goblins with clumps of dirt scooped from the field surrounding our club house. (Once I was the goblin and Kyle made a throw that could’ve been on SportsCenter’s Not Top 10 as it connected with my face.)
He was the best big brother an annoying little brother looking to prove himself could have. He never whooped me. Not once. I tried like hell to fight him and he would figuratively and sometimes literally hold out a brotherly stiff arm atop my head as I swung…
I’m honored to be a committee member of the Midwest Writers’ Workshop. The annual conference celebrated its 40th year last month. That’s 40 years of volunteers working to put on a conference for one reason: they love to help writers.
The workshop, located in my hometown of Muncie, is where I met Caren (Johnson) Estesen who sold WEARING to Wiley. It’s where it all began for me, so I love the chance to give back to it and the awesome group of writers who attend each year. Many of them are like family now.
When folks ask me about how to get into writing, my second tip after the obvious and often forgotten first tip (WRITE!) is to attend a conference.
The last writing award I won was in 4th grade. I wrote a story about a boy who stumbled upon a pair of flying shoes that he wore, flew into the heavens, and met Thor. It won honorable mention in the county writing competition.
My first two books have been well-received, and launched my career as a writer, but they’ve yet to win me any awards. Sure, if the publishing world had a superlative category, I would definitely have a good shot at, “Most likely to go anywhere, in search of anything.” But no actual awards, yet.
That’s why I’m thrilled to announce that I’m an Emerging Author Finalist for the 2013 Eugene & Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award, alongside Tricia…
Summer is a time of rest, bike rides, backyard pools, and teaching my 4-year-old daughter to rider her bike without training wheels (on Father’s Day! I won Father’s day!). But I love summer events. They tend to be more intimate and laid back.
Here are my July Appearances
July 20 – Paso Robels, CA: Project Hope & Fairness Fundraiser at Pear Valley Vineyards. Wine and chocolate? Yes please! I traveled with Tom Neuhaus of Project Hope and Fairness in Ivory Coast while researching WHERE AM I EATING? Happy to help them raise money to improve the lives of cocoa farmers in West Africa.
July 22 – Columbus, IN: Batholomew County Library. Love visting libraries and happy they are having me back to talk about EATING after I spoke there about…
John Sutter interviewed me about the Boy Scouts of America’s possible decision to allow gay scouts, but ban gay scout leaders in his well thought out essay on CNN. He quotes me:
The group’s attitudes on gay rights are “more out of style than the scout socks,” said Kelsey Timmerman, a former Eagle Scout who mailed his badge back to the organization because of its discriminatory policies.
“I never wore those damn socks,” he said, laughing.
If you want to know my thoughts on this whole issue, read John’s, that’s pretty much where I stand.
I have a busy morning of national and regional radio programs tomorrow. If you get one of the shows below in your area, tune in to hear me talking about Where Am I Eating? I’ll be the one that sounds like a mix of Joe Dirt and Matthew McConaughey.
I’m giving the keynote address at the University of Oklahoma’s Social Entrepreneurship Symposium Tuesday at 4:30.
I’m free all day on Wednesday, how should I spend my time? I’m thinking maybe I’ll play flag football with Kevin Durant, but if that doesn’t work out I’m open to suggestions.
I held up my “Gas Eaters” and asked them what they thought they were. There were the typical guesses (adult diapers), but then I called on a bright-eyed girl sitting on the floor in the back.
“They go over your underwear,” she said, “so you can dance in the rain and not get your underwear wet.”
That was a response I had never heard before, and I loved it. And here’s the thing…none of the kids laughed at her. They thought it was quite possible that these were my dancing-in-the-rain underwear.
Kids aren’t bound by reason or logic; they are freed by curiosity and imagination.
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