You guys, I am SO excited to finally share with you the cover for my new book Awesomely Emma! I love this book with my whole heart and can’t wait to get it out into the world. Additionally pre-sales are live now! AND… I’m doing a really cool FREE giveaway for each pre-order… details below!

I have been so blown away by your support for my first book, When Charley Met Emma. The DM’s and messages of what it has meant to you and your children have been absolutely amazing. I was recently asked what it was like to hold my book When Charley Met Emma for the first time. My answer was while that was exciting (and it was!) it has been nothing compared to seeing the book live out in the world, and hearing about the impact it has had in your homes and communities. I am so excited to see Awesomely Emma out in the world as well, hopefully spreading just as much joy, love, inclusion and acceptance.

Are you ready to see the cover? Here it is:
[readmore title= “click through to see the cover of Awesomely Emma and to receive a really cool freebie!”]

The past week and a half has been somber, sobering, educational, transformative, emotional, draining, humbling, and so many other things. Like many White woman who are bloggers and have a presence on Instagram I chose to “mute” my voice for the week, and amplify the voices of People of Color, most specifically Black people. In addition to amplifying, I also absorbed a lot of information and as an exercise of compiling some of my thoughts all in once place (to some extent… there was just so much to take in) I’d like to do a round up of what has stood out to me this past week, what I feel like I’ve learned and new voices I’ve started to follow online.

I don’t have to be an activist to be an anti-racist.
Without a doubt this has been my most personal paradigm shift. As you know for so many years I have spent my time interviewing various people from the disability community, sharing their stories, sharing our own and learning about disability rights over the years. Of course having a daughter who is disabled is a huge part of why I do this work. And because ableism and the general discrimination of disabled people has been such (and continues to be) a huge wake up call to me, I felt the need to fully divest myself into this kind of activism. And I still do. That hasn’t changed.

But what has changed is the reality that being a disability advocate does not divest me from the need to actively engage in anti-racism. See, for so long I felt like “they have enough voices, everyone talks about race… disability discrimination is not even on people’s radar.” I thought, I don’t have time to do both–disability is my lane. But what I didn’t realize, is that no one is calling me to become an anti-racism activist per se, they are calling me to engage in anti-racism work for myself, as an individual person. The work of anti racism is not spreading the word and sharing awareness, as I had once assumed (because that’s what I do with disability). The WORK is a personal study of anti-racism, which then means recognizing racism and actively working to dismantle those systems of power that are the root cause of inequity. It is a personal venture that every White person should be actively learning about and working toward regardless of any other activism you are a part of. Of course activism will certainly be a part of it–as there will always be a need to speak up and share, but there is a difference between what I do as a disability activist and as an individual engaging in anti-racism work. This was a light bulb moment for me.

Also, I am more fully aware of the need for me to actively engage in anti-racism work on a consistent basis. Right now that looks like taking courses, reading books, having open discussions with my kids and family, and committing myself and my family to supporting Black owned businesses. As I continue to move forward with this work I am sure this list will fill out and grow.

[readmore title= “Sharing more thoughts about this historic past week… I’d love to hear your thoughts as well.”]

This post is sponsored by Full Circle Home. Thank you for supporting sponsors here on TLM so that I can keep bringing you content we care about.

The initial shock of the pandemic has worn off, and we’ve settled (somewhat) into this brave strange new world a little. It’s not to say that it’s gotten easier, it hasn’t. For many people, (most people?) things have become harder. Working from home and homeschooling your children for a week? OK, we can do that. Eight weeks into the homeschool and work-from-home game and you’re nerves are more worse for the wear. One week without pay? Hard, but doable. Eight weeks without pay? Earth shattering for most. One week without socialization? An introverts dream! Eight weeks and even the most miserly among us misses that essential human contact.

And while life has never been fair, the inequalities that stem from imbalanced and prejudiced systems are showing up in drastic ways.

It is still hard to grasp how something so small–microscopic–has brought worlds and economies screeching to a halt. And while medical experts certainly knew something this devastating could and would happen, I admit that it was never on my radar. 

When we come out of this–and history tells us we will–I hope we adjust our lives and our priorities for a more sustainable future–environmentally, mentally, medically, economically, socially, spiritually and politically.

I hope we see that we need each other so much more than we previously thought. We know who the essential works are now, and that they deserve dignity and living wages. Small businesses are the backbone of our country and they are losing, while Amazon is winning (although in full disclosure I am an AmazonPrime member and I sometimes use their affiliate links. Considering how I can change this habit.) Men who have been home with their families are seeing first hand just how much work it takes to run a household and pitching in more at home. We now see that businesses can provide flexible environments to employ more disabled people.

We can and should champion and vote for causes that can bring broader, sweeping changes for the better. However, as usual, a lot of changes for a more sustainable future will rest of the shoulders of individuals to show up and do their part.

Today I’d like to talk about showing up for a sustainable future environmentally. I’ve worked with Full Circle Home in the past and continue to enjoy working with them as their products are the perfect blend of sustainable and beautiful.
[readmore title= “Click through to read about how I’m trying to break our paper towel habit.”]

I have had this post rolling around in the back of my mind for a while, and lately it seems like I’ve gotten an extra amount of emails and DM’s asking me for tips about getting a children’s book published. I am very open about my experience and happy to share everything I’ve learned the past few years. Instead of sending individual responses to every person, I’d much rather make the information widely available here, on my blog. That being said, once you’ve read this if you have additional questions go ahead and leave a comment and I’ll do my best to answer it.

I also want to say that this post does not address self-publishing, but if that is something you are interested in know that there are so many great resources out there, but I am not one of them! And please know that self publishing is just as valid as traditional publishing. Neither one is inherently better or worse, and they both have their pros and cons.

My Process
First, I want to quickly take you through my process of getting a book deal, because I followed the “traditional” route but my publishers and I ended up finding each other in an untraditional manner. As I said, I followed the traditional steps, which is to say, I wrote the manuscript, I did a lot of research, and I sent individual query letters (emails) with my manuscript to publishers and literary agents. This is the traditional route, and I have a lovely pile of email rejection letters to prove it, thankyouverymuch. However, what led to me actually getting a deal was that I wrote a blog post (yes on this very blog!) talking about the need for disability representation and in that post I mentioned that I had written a children’s book I was hoping to put out into the world, to add to that representation. A woman named Rachel read that post. She had found my blog when her daughter was in the NICU, and she happened to work for a small publishing house out of Minneapolis. And while she wasn’t a “decision maker” as she said, she offered to pass my manuscript onto her publishing house. And she did!

As you’ll come to learn most publishing houses will tell you that if you don’t hear back from them in 6-8 weeks, you can consider it a no. Therefore you can imagine my surprise when 6 MONTHS after sending Rachel my manuscript, I heard from my soon-to-be editor Andrew, that Beaming Books, would like to publish my children’s book! 

[readmore title= “Click through to read all my best tips for getting a children’s book publishing contract.”]