If you want to get in touch with me, send me an email! I’d love to hear from you. My address is: cbell1@nyc.rr.com. My publicist is Deb Shapiro at Bloomsbury Deb.Shapiro@bloomsburyusa.com.
Princeton Book Festival -- Saturday Sept 10th
If you live in the Princeton, NJ area come see me this Saturday: I will have a Little Blog on the Prairie table at the Princeton Public Library’s book fair 11am-4pm.
Where I’ll teach any and all how to make butter.
And where I will not wear a bonnet.
(I’m not kidding about either of those things.)
For more info on the festival, go to: www.princeton.lib.nj.us/children/festival/index.html
Little Blog picked for Texas Lone Star Reading List
I was thrilled to hear this week that Little Blog was selected for the Texas Lone Star reading list. This is great news and I felt appropriate with the frontier connection to Texas. The list goes out to middle school librarians all across the state, which means that kids in Texas are likely to get exposed to the book. Hooray.
It was just simply wonderful to feel this validation all week, whenever I put my head up for air––I’ve been organizing a pie sale at school. We were planning for 20-30 pies and ended up selling 74 and having to find people to bake all of them!
Here’s a link to the list.
http://www.txla.org/groups/lone-star
The other authors and books are:
Paolo Bacigalupi, Ship Breaker
Cathleen Davitt Bell, Little Blog on the Prairie
Robin Brande, Fat Cat
Ally Carter, Heist Society
Tera Lynn Childs, Forgive My Fins
Ally Condie, Matched
Carl Deuker, Payback Time
Erin Dionne, The Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet
Brian Falkner, Brain Jack
Catherine Fisher, Incarceron
Donna Gephart, How to Survive Middle School
Julia Golding, Dragonfly
Jason Henderson, Vampire Rising
David Klass, Stuck on Earth
Polly Shulman, The Grimm Legacy
Neal Shusterman, Bruiser
Jordan Sonnenblick, After Ever After
Francisco X Stork, The Last Summer of the Death Warriors
Deborah Wiles, Countdown
Richard Yancey, The Monstrumologist
2nd Printing
Okay, some people out there are reading Little Blog on the Prairie. I have got a few more letters from readers, and my editor just informed me that she’s ordered a second printing. Hooray!
In other exciting news, a really cool film producer is interested in trying to put together a movie package based on the story.
Meanwhile, a friend tells me her children are engaged in games where they are Gen and Gavin. I think this is possibly my favorite bit of news in awhile.
Mother Daughter Book Club
On Saturday afternoon, I visited a mother-daughter book club up in northern Westchester. It was a lovely afternoon–hot, but okay on Stacey, Sarah and Laura’s deck in the shade, sipping lemonade spritzers and eating fresh-baked caramel brownies. I brought along my friend Elizabeth who was a lot of fun, talking to me across the circle about all the things she loves in the book. I had attended this book club about a year ago and although I remembered nobody’s name, everyone’s faces had been indelibly etched in my brain. I think this was a special group––all thoughtful girls and moms, and each one so different.
Some were opinionated and interested in pushing up against the story, seeing if I could defend it. Others pointed out what they thought were disloyalty on the part of characters that I (a Hobbesian!) hadn’t thought about at all. Others were looking for themes, wanting to go deeper. Others still were interested in discussing threads that delved away from the story––imagining themselves experimenting in life on the frontier. One mom, Judith, analyzed the book in terms of its themes of connection and authenticity in a way that made my heart stop beating for a second. I have been obsessed with connection and authenticity in every phase of my life, but I hadn’t seen this book as yet another example of this until she spoke. I felt like she was a palm reader. All in all, a kind of magical afternoon.
NYC Reading on June 2nd
I’ll be reading June 2nd as part of Teen Author Reading Night at the Jefferson Market Branch of NYPL, 425 6th Ave @ 10th Street.
I’ll be in the esteemed company of:
Lila Castle, Star Shack
Susane Colasanti, Something Like Fate
Donna Freitas, This Gorgeous Game
Emily Horner, A Love Story Starring My Best Friend
Eliot Schrefer, The Deadly Sister
Book Party in Brooklyn!
Little Blog on the Prairie comes out a week from today and I’m getting ready to celebrate! Please join me.
Sun May 16 @ 1pm
Book Court (Court St at Pacific in Bklyn)
Kids encouraged
Snacks, drinks and juice boxes will be served but BYO Bonnet
RSVP Cathleen at cbell1@nyc.rr.com
Gen's Blog is LIVE!
My new book, Little Blog on the Prairie, comes out in a month, and for fun, I’ve written up the blog that is such a huge part of the book. It’s gone live TODAY. I am really excited about this and hope that you will check it out at
It’s also on Facebook (Gen Prairie) and twitter.com/LittleBontheP.
Website Redesign
Look everyone, the website is totally new and cool. It’s not that different, but I’m able to update it a lot more easily now.