As many of us know, the world has been mourning the loss of the late great Kobe Bryant. Award-winning novelist, writer, and former world-ranked squash player Ivy Claire Pochoda who collaborated with Bryant on their number one New York Times bestselling series Epoca shares her perspective on his passing while working on Book 2, The River of Sand (Granity Studios, December 15, 2020). “It’s been really hard, I mean, … Read the rest
Interview With “Something to Say” Author Lisa Moore Ramée!
Voice is a common thread in So Booking Cool’s conversation with bestselling, critically acclaimed children’s book author, Lisa Moore Ramée. There’s the beloved ‘Shay’, Ramée’s debut protagonist from A Good Kind of Trouble (which has garnered renewed interest and now an Indie bestseller in paperback), whose voice has been praised and prompted whether it is important for Ramée to create resonant voices within her characters; there’s Ramée sharing the time … Read the rest
Interview With “A Butterfly Universe” Author Vanessa Chen!
14-year-old Vanessa Chen, author of A Butterfly Universe (Star Moonstone Books/Story Monsters LLC, 2020), doesn’t know if she has written enough to have established her own writing style, however, she does know the techniques she appreciates in other writers. “I really admire whenever an author sort of goes on [the] entire scene,” Chen tells So Booking Cool. “They’re very descriptive about it, but not extremely ‘blah, blah, blah’ … Read the rest
Interview With “Stand Up, Yumi Chung!” Author Jessica Kim!
The adage: ‘if you love something let it go and if it comes back to you, it’s yours’ fits Stand Up, Yumi Chung! (March 17, 2020, Kokila) novelist, Jessica Kim. Before becoming a debut critically acclaimed published author, Kim had quit writing at one point. When she was a youth, in addition to comedy, she enjoyed writing, but didn’t foresee it as a profession, at least not as a … Read the rest
Interview (Part 1) With “For Black Girls Like Me” Author Mariama J. Lockington!
Books can help people escape the world they are living in. Books can also help people navigate their world. It is just as powerful to have refuge as it is to have something or someone you can relate to. When she was a young girl, Mariama J. Lockington couldn’t find books about black female youth adoptees like herself. Her forthcoming novel For Black Girls Like Me, the book she … Read the rest
Interview (Part 2) With “A Good Kind of Trouble” Author Lisa Moore Ramée!
When we have a passion, it is easy to become consumed by it. But it is important to make sure that we don’t ignore the other experiences that life has to offer. For example, if you are a writer, don’t literally spend all of your time writing. “Some advice I would give to other writers is find something else that you do,” Lisa Moore Ramée tells So Booking Cool… Read the rest
Interview (Part 1) With “A Good Kind of Trouble” Author Lisa Moore Ramée!
While the novel A Good Kind of Trouble has pretty much been dubbed the junior high school version of The Hate U Give, also a Balzer + Bray title, it is a book that had been more than 20 years in the making. It is based on the author, Lisa Moore Ramée’s experiences in elementary and middle school as well as her daughter’s, who is now in college. … Read the rest