Follow Bonny Becker!!

Fellow SCBWI member Bonny Becker whose story, A BEDTIME FOR BEAR, won the SCBWI Crystal Kite Award for the NW region is starting an e-newsletter for those who want to follow Mouse & Bear News.

If you'd like to be on the mailing list e-mail Bonny at bjb(at)site7000(dot)com. Just put "Mouse and Bear News" in the subject line and she'll know what it's about.

You can also follow Bonny on her Facebook Bonny Becker Author Page.

Andrea K Lawson News

Andrea K. Lawson has news to share! First Andrea announces the debut of her Rainforest Portraits and her new Poodle Series at The Director's Gallery, Bainbridge, Washington! Please stop in at The Director's Gallery anytime to view Andrea's small affordable whimsical paintings in oil and acrylic; landscapes, bouquets and small Poodles and Rainforest Paintings.

Second, Andrea is now donating 5% of her sales from her new Rainforest Portrait Series to The Washington Wilderness Coalition to preserve our rainforests. For more information visit this link. For more information on Andrea, and her work, visit her website.

No more Kirkus Reviews

Drat! Now I'll never get a starred Kirkus review. Nielson announced today that it's shutting down the prepublication-review journal Kirkus Reviews.

The Pepsi to Publishers Weekly's Coke when it comes to prepub press, Kirkus was always known, to the booksellers and industry reporters who relied on its write ups of forthcoming titles, as the cranky one. Where PW went soft for a big name or a fresh face, Kirkus could usually be counted on to demolish the overblown writers, and to be unsparing when it came to first novels by photogenic young things. A rave in Kirkus was truly a prize; a hatchet job was an easy enough excuse for a bookstore owner, besieged by the sheer volume of books being flogged, to move on.

Read more: First They Came for the Trade Publication: Kirkus Closes -- Vulture