Update on After the Ashes

It's been a year since friends of mine started sending me messages on Facebook that they had received their copy of After the Ashes in the mail.

I still have a hard time believing that a novel I wrote was published.

Since the official publication date in October, a great deal has happened to me.

I accepted a new job and moved to Indiana in December. That has been an adjustment, since I am certainly not a winter person.

But the good news is that After the Ashes received some recognition.

First, it was named to the National Science Teachers Association list of Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K-12. That was a shock, because science was not my best subject in high school. I avoided it almost entirely in college. After the Ashes was one of only two fiction titles on the 52-title list. Other authors on that list are science writers I've been reading for years -- Cathryn Sill, Steve Jenkins, Robin Page, Sneed B. Collard III, Gail Gibbons, Sandra Markle, Sy Montgomery, and April Pulley Sayre. Marianne Dyson, one of the members of my former critique group in Texas was also on the list, so I am humbled by the company I'm in.

After the Ashes sharing a list with authors I admire.

Then, as if that weren't cool enough, it was also named to the Bank Street College of Education's Best Children's Books of the Year for ages twelve to fourteen! Once again, After the Ashes is sharing space on the list with amazing historical fiction authors like Avi, Melanie Crowder, Carolyn Meyer, Michael Morpurgo, and Pam Muñoz Ryan.

On top of the recognition, I even got to speak at the Wizard World Comic Con in Philadelphia with Marie Lamba and Genese Davis, who also arranged everything. That was incredible. I never in a million years thought I would be speaking at a comics convention.

I also participated in the B-Fest Teen Book Festival at my local Barnes & Noble. Although it was a small group in attendance, I talked about the research I did for After the Ashes, and it went well.

It has been quite a ride with After the Ashes. I hope to keep pushing forward. In the meantime, I'm working on another manuscript.