Dublin has so many fantastic bookstores, but this might be my favorite! Books Upstairs has a great selection of books and a wonderful cafe. (Ironically the books are downstairs and the cafe upstairs.) I recommend the carrot cake--and love the no laptops policy. They ask you to read a book instead.📚

This is an encouraging post, and true in my case, too. I've had manuscripts that I've put in a drawer until something changed--editors, the market, or me.

This is a great way to celebrate the return of flamingos to Florida! 🦩🌴 www.popsci.com/environment/...

I know @ericsmithrocks.bsky.social keeps a list of freelance editors for hire. Does anyone know of a similar list of freelance designers? A friend of my sister is looking to self-publish a picture book. www.ericsmithrocks.com/blog/tag/Fre...

This is a really great post. I'm bookmarking it to share with people who ask me about self-publishing vs. traditional publishing.

I've been in many amazing overstuffed bookstores all over the world, but I've never seen anything like Red Books in Wexford, Ireland. ☘️📚

Ellen was a force. She was one of the first people I knew in kids books, when I was working at a fellow indie kids bookstore and only dreaming of someday working in NYC for a publisher.

Ask Me Anything sessions with Connie Hsu, Alvina Ling, or Rotem Moscovich? These are amazing auctions. Connie was my editor for Besos for Baby and Marta! Big and Small and remains my dream editor to this day.

The best way of describing someone who’s all talk and no action that I’ve ever heard in the UK, by far, is “they’re all wardrobe and no Narnia.” * read on for fun ways of saying “all talk and no action” in other languages (a thread)

This interview is very funny. www.thenation.com/article/soci...

Introverted editor friends, be warned! These signs are all over Dublin trains. 😉 I mean, I know the Irish are super friendly, but this is a little extreme.

😂

RT this with your home river. The Hillsborough River, Tampa, Florida

I was so happy to walk into a store in PA while Christmas shopping and find a Richard Scarry print vending machine! Of course, I got one--the toothpaste car. A week later, I was passing by and got another. Pickle car! Best quarters I've spent in a long, long time.

Not just good . . .

No cheating. Reskeet with the most recent picture of your pet.

I'm so happy--today is the book birthday for Abrazos for Baby! 🎉🍾🎉🥂 Blanca Gomez's art is the BEST. I feel so incredibly lucky to be paired with her. (She did the art for Besos for Baby and Sonrisas for Baby board books, too.) It's so pretty, I just want to hug the book. Abrazos, libro, abrazos!

I noticed recently that in the analytics section of my website, suddenly over half of the traffic I'm getting is coming from China. Until a month ago, 95% of the traffic was from the US. Anyone else seeing this? I assume it's AI scraping my site. Is there anything that can be done?

Last night, I was hanging out at a Tampa brewpub with friends when a surprise visitor showed up. This little owl flew in through the rolled up garage door and took up a perch right by the bar. Maybe it came to invite someone to Hogwarts. 🦉🪄🦉

What I reposted earlier may have been a misleading article (see below), but I was still super happy to finally figure out how to turn off predictive text. It drove me crazy to have Gmail guessing what I wanted to say in my emails. Now it's GONE.

Oh, this dog! ❤️ (Basically reposting this so I can go back and look at it over and over on my profile page.)

I had a blast at the Louisiana Book Festival in Baton Rouge this weekend! Thank you to everyone I got to meet at my panel, program, and signing and thank you to the young readers who voted for Acorn Was a Little Wild as their favorite picture book of the year!

Technically, this is a book of spells.

Love this! Watch the whole thing. 😊

My inner 8-year-old got super excited when I opened Impossible Creatures and saw the absolutely beautiful illustrations. 😍 More of this please!

I love that if I like a post on BlueSky, I know my feed won't be flooded with similar posts. I liked a few #NoKings posts on IG and now that's all it shows me. I check Denis Philips for hurricane reports on Facebook and now it feeds me every two-bit midwest weather forecaster. Thank you, Bluesky!

$41 million: The amount of money we’ve raised for indie bookstores since 2020. $0: The amount of money Amazon has raised for indie bookstores since 1994.

Is there any warmer welcome than going to a new city and a new bookstore and finding lots of copies of your books? Thank you so much, Austin and @bookpeople.com!

I'm visiting Austin for the first time soon! I can't wait to go to @bookpeople.com because I've heard it's such a wonderful bookstore. 😊 📚 But what else should I do? Where should I go? And what should I eat?

Thirty years ago tonight, a monumental event: the first installment of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE premiered on BBC One. @cristinabeltran.bsky.social & I have watched the five-hour series . . . how many times? A dozen? Two dozen?

The 25 Greatest Picture Books of the Past 25 Years | Slate

Apparently today is World Car Free Day! Tonight I'm going to ride the FREE #1 bus to downtown and back. What should we do there? 1) Check out the '80s bar. 2) Walk the Riverwalk. 3) Get really bad Tampa pizza. (New Yorkers, you have no idea how lucky you are!)

Thinking about the idea that you need to do something 10,000 times to become good at it. With so many kids using AI for school assignments, and even to write texts, where will the next generation of writers and editors come from?

Students in Louisville, Ky., are checking out library books at record rates after their public school district instituted a cellphone ban | WAVE

🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

I got this box in the mail and my husband was concerned. He knew it probably was the MerryMaker plush for Acorn Was a Little Wild, but calling it "creepy pair of underwear"? He thought that was to discourage porch pirates. 😂 Luckily there were acorns inside!

Grownups, if you are envious of kids Summer Reading contests and are motivated by PRIZES, join me on the @nationalbook.bsky.social ‘s Summer Reading Adventure! www.nationalbook.org/adventure/

My best advice for writers? Read like a writer. When you love a book, read it again & pay attention to how the author made you love it. What is it about their writing that makes you love the main character (or despise the villain!) or feel so much suspense that you can't wait to turn the page?

Allen Lane’s @penguinpress.bsky.social published its first ten paperbacks ninety years ago today. In 1935, @theguardian.com gave the series a thumb’s up: “The type is clear; the boards stout enough to stand the wear and tear of pocket or haversack. The enterprise deserves a warm welcome.” #BookSky

This is so not important at all, but I've been wondering, why are red hearts black on BlueSky? ❤️❤️ Other hearts retain their color. 💙 💚 🧡 Broken hearts stay red. 💔 (I thought it was me, but I just saw someone else's post with the same thing.)

Writers often focus on outcomes well outside their control, ranging from landing an agent to winning a literary prize or writing a bestseller. @amylbernstein.bsky.social looks at how to avoid a cycle of disappointment and failure by focusing on perseverance of effort instead.

ALA in Philly was a blast! I saw old friends, made new friends, and reconnected with colleagues from all different parts of my publishing life. Plus I came home with some great books to read! 📚📚📚

I hope someday to write a picture book good enough to earn a review as awesomely enthusiastic and unconventional as these from @fuse8.bsky.social. My TBR list just tripled! afuse8production.slj.com/2025/06/04/a...

I love that The Cat Who Saved Books includes a note from the cover illustrator. I've never seen that before! It seems like a great idea in light of all the AI generated art we've been seeing.

USA Today's 10 Best Indie Bookstores as voted on by readers. 📚📚📚 This is like a TBR list for traveling! 10best.usatoday.com/awards/best-...

My hair stylist told me yesterday that she read 140 books last year. Wow, I love that! I consider myself a big reader and I read 50 last year.

Another great quote from Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live, written by Susan Morrison: "One of Michaels's core teachings . . . is telling people to spread credit around. Credit, he likes to say, is the easiest thing to give away." 💙

A quote from Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live: "Copyrights, [Paul] Simon told him, are like children; they'll take care of you in your old age, in the form of passive royalty income." 🤞📚

Manuscript calling to you from the grave? Get ready for #KidlitZombieWeek 2025. Just two more weeks until all of the blog post-discussion-& great #prizes fun kicks off! For the official rules: sites.google.com/view/kidlit-... #WriterSky #Kidlit #WritingCommunity

This might be the absolute greatest reply we have ever received. Thank you, Cookie Monster 📕🍪💙