I’ve been waiting to announce this: Norton Young Readers acquired my new middle-grade novel Behold! The Legend of Frogboy, and You Shall Read It in a two-book deal! I’m thrilled to be back in kidlit. It will come out in 2027, with another middle-grade book of mine coming out in 2028.

Thanks to my masterful agent John Cusick at Folio Literary Management for making yet another dream come true. Readers who liked The Order of Odd-Fish will love this one! More details to come as we draw closer to the publishing date . . . in particular, about how Frogboy had its origins in a musical I wrote in college with my friend Joe Cannon.

I’ve been busy with other stuff lately, too. Last Saturday I did a “Best of the 90-Second Newbery” screening at San Antonio’s City Base Cinemas, in which I featured the finest 90-Second Newbery movies from the past 15 years! Thanks to H-E-B Read 3, Bibliotech, and the Alamo Film Group for making this possible (and they made that snappy video chronicling the day above!).

I was particularly delighted that many of our Texas filmmakers attended: Daric of this hilarious standup version of A Wrinkle in Time, Sara, Caitlyn, Emerson, and Ava of this “Catchelor” version of Millions of Cats, and the young men of Keystone Academy’s modernized adaptation of Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!.

In the days leading up to the screening I did author visits at six Texas schools: Memorial Elementary, Veramendi Elementary, and Morningside Elementary in New Braunfels; McNair Middle School in Atascosa; Resnik Middle School in Von Ormy; and Barbara Jordan Intermediate School in Cibolo. I introduced the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival to students, helped some of them on their movie ideas, and at some schools talked about The Order of Odd-Fish too. It was a great time!

At Resnik Middle School I met Arrabella, who made this fantastic on-the-spot fan art of Jo from The Order of Odd-Fish:

At Barbara Jordan Intermediate School, the teacher Ginger made cookies that had the covers of all my books on them, as well as the logo of the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival! Later that night I went out with her and all the other teachers (including the primary organizer, Jennifer Wagner) to Mi Tierra for a great dinner. The line of the evening: when I remarked my margarita was delicious, one of the Texans at the table said, “washes the Yankee right out of your mouth, don’t it?”

San Antonio is fantastic every time I visit!

Thanks, San Antonio! I’m looking forward to seeing the movies you make for the film festival! Remember, the Texas deadline is March 20, 2026 and the San Antonio screening will be at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts on May 9, 2026. Complete information about the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival here.

I have another book review up in the Wall Street Journal! This time I’m reviewing Dan Chaon’s circus-freak literary horror One Of Us. It’s very enjoyable and I ultimately wrote a positive review, although I had a few nits to pick. (I’m a big fan of Chaon, especially his 2017 novel Ill Will, so when I heard this book was coming out, I put in a specific request at the WSJ to review this one.)

In other news, I’m in the middle of my usual fall round of school visits, talking about the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival and my young-adult fantasy The Order of Odd-Fish. As part of my presentation, I usually show off Odd-Fish fan art that I’ve received over the years (I’ve collected it all here) and that sometimes inspires young artists to make their own fan art for the book . . .

And I just received two great pieces of fan art from Lennon M. of Decatur Classical School in Chicago! (It’s the school that both my daughters went to in Chicago, but I mercifully refrained from doing any presentations there until they graduated.) The art on the left is of the foppish cockroach Sefino getting humiliated by the centipede gossip columnist Mr. Chatterbox, and on the right is the wannabe villain Ken Kiang telling Hoagland Shanks about The Pie of Innocence Slain:

I love the supercilious look in Chatterbox’s eye and the way Lennon indicates the centipede’s disdain at Sefino’s mustard-blotched ascot through the speech bubble—and Sefino looks hilariously mortified, too! Likewise, the picture with Ken Kiang clearly relishing regaling Hoagland Shanks with dire visions such as a dead cat, a scythe, a skull, and so on, while Shanks contentedly eats his pie and claims it tastes like peaches is inspired. In both pictures, the looks on everyone’s faces and their body language are so expressive and communicate the vibe of the scenes so well. Top notch work, Lennon!

I also have some super exciting publishing news of my own coming up. Stay tuned!

I lived in Japan twice. The first time was a yearlong stay from 1997-1998 in Tokyo, teaching conversational English. The second time was when Heather and I lived in Nara Prefecture for two years, from 2004-2006, on the JET Programme. This summer we returned to our old stomping grounds for two weeks, with Lucy and Ingrid in tow!

Above is me posing in front of the “saru-ishi” (monkey stone) near the ruins of Takatori castle, which is near where we used to live. Have I changed much? I’m certainly much sweatier in the second picture . . .

Instead of zipping all over Japan for our two-week trip, we settled in to a traditional-feeling house (tatami mats! shoji screens!) in Kashihara City, which is where we used to live, and is within striking distance of Kyoto, Nara City, Yoshino, Asuka, and other great places in Nara . . . and many of our friends are still around, and we got to hang out with them and catch up with them! Lucy and Ingrid even did a presentation at an elementary school.

I kept my family and friends abreast of our Japanese adventures through short videos I shared out on Instagram and Facebook. Here they are below!

The first video is something I put together after our first full day. It’s our visit to Nara City, with its famous deer who come right up to you and you can feed (and they sometimes fight each other!), and the huge and gorgeous temple Todaiji with its giant Buddha and various other temples and shrines such as Nigatsudou and Kasuga Taisha, finished off with a splendid bowl of ramen at Susuru Susuran. It was way too hot, though—as it was almost every other day of the trip!

In this next video, we go up Yoshino mountain to visit the off-the-beaten-path Kimpusen-ji temple (home of the ascetic wilderness Buddhism sect of Shugendo) and the nearby Shinto shrine Yoshinomizu, followed by delicious noodles overlooking the valley. We show the house we’re staying at in Kashihara City, and visit a nearby bamboo grove with the mysterious carved megalith of unknown origin “Masada Iwafune”!

In this third video, we explore the mountain vermilion gate maze of Fushimi Inari, hang out with Japanese friends old and new, and hike up to a mountaintop castle ruin (and the statues and temples beyond).

And finally, our friend Fumie takes us to a matsuri and to her house for dinner, we explore Asuka by bicycle (and go in an old tomb!), we tour temples and shrines in Kyoto, Murou, and Kashihara, and have parties with friends old and new!

It was so wonderful to see old friends and visit our old haunts. I will return to Japan again someday!