Coming soon - YA Scavenger Hunt Fall 2018

The YA Scavenger Hunt is back again. Running from October 2 through 7, join 140 YA authors for fun, exclusive content, and prizes. Lots of prizes.

We are organized into teams of 20 authors. (I'm on Team Purple.) Each team will award one major team prize--20 books to one lucky winner. And individual authors will be giving out prizes, too.  So check us out. Join me here again, starting Tuesday, Oct 2.

For more details, visit the official YA Scavenger Hunt website.

Autism and religious inclusion

Do you love someone who is on the autism spectrum? Are you an autistic? If so, we need your help!

My daughter is autistic. She is in graduate school, studying world religions. She is also a passionate advocate for inclusion for people with autism. She is bringing these two passions together in her graduate studies by researching how autistics experience religious environments and faith communities.

She has an anonymous survey where she is collecting data on how welcome autistics feel at churches, synagogues, temples, religious centers, mosques--wherever people gather to worship or express their spirituality. She will be attending a conference in Toronto in November and hopes to present her findings about:

• how autistics are included in religious environments
• how the sensitivities and traits of autistics can affect their religious experiences
• what steps religious environments and faith communities can take to become more inclusive and welcoming

If you have experiences (past or present) that you would like to include her research, please consider sharing your thoughts in the anonymous surveys below. She will protect personally identifiable information (PII). Her presentation(s) will provide education about autism, summarized information from her research, and recommendations for being more inclusive. If you fill out the survey, share what you feel comfortable saying; you are not asked for your name.


If you are autistic, please fill out the For Autistic Individuals survey.

If you have a loved one with autism, please fill out the For Families, Friends, Associates survey.


Thank you!

UK trip and the view from the hotel

In August, my daughter and I traveled to the United Kingdom for a 2-week vacation. I have hundreds of photos to record all of the fun, beauty, history, food, and culture of this amazing nation. I can't show all of them (of course), but I will write a few blog posts and feature some of my favorite parts of England, Scotland, and Wales.

Today's post has a simple theme: the views from the hotel rooms we stayed in. With one exception, we could peer out the window of our room and enjoy the view.

London hotel, overlooking the River Thames. This was a great location, near the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and the London Eye.

Cardiff, Wales -- I'm happy to say that the road noise didn't awaken us!

Liverpool, England-- overlooking the Albert Dock

Glasgow and the River Clyde
This city is Scotland's largest, and it is an industrial/business center. We enjoyed the unique and varied architecture.

Carrbridge in the Scottish Highlands
This was a small, charming town--about an hour from Inverness. It was centrally located for the sites we visited in the Highlands and Isle of Skye.

Here is the exception to beautiful views from our hotel rooms. In Edinburgh, we stayed in a Holiday Inn. Our room overlooked the parking lot. Beyond the opposite trees was the Edinburgh Zoo. Although the view is boring, each morning, the noise of excited animals awakened us--a memorable kind of alarm clock.

We ended where we began, in the same hotel on the Albert Embarkment on the River Thames!