Hi, Reader,

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My new middle grade graphic novel UNHAPPY CAMPER releases today!!

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I wrote it during the first few months of 2020. Leaving the house every day to cross the driveway to enter my campervan, I worked on this story of two sisters, one who embraces her Taiwanese culture and one who realized very early on that to fit in is to reject her cultural heritage. Writing this story was my anchor.

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And, now Ann Xu who also illustrated MEASURING UP was kind enough to bring her brilliance to UNHAPPY CAMPER.

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The sky is blue, the sun shines, I will talk to readers at a Seattle Public School this morning, and later at 6 pm, I will do my book release event in conversation with Diana Ma who wrote THE UNBEATABLE LILY HONG at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park, WA. And, best yet is seeing friends at it. In person!!

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Also, I have a few other events coming up:

• Indie Book Store Day this Saturday with Ann Xu and Nicole Chen for LILY XIAO SPEAKS OUT
  • Hicklebee’s in San Jose, CA from 2:30-3:30 pm
  • Linden Tree Books in Los Altos, CA at 4:30 pm
• Mother’s Day in a dual book event with Suma Subramaniam for A BINDI CAN BE at Brick and Mortar Books in Redmond, WA at 2:30 pm
• July 25 & 26 at LITapalooza in Napierville, IL
• September 7 at Bigfoot Book Festival at Brick & Mortar Books in Redmond, WA

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I’d love to sign a personalized copy for you of UNHAPPY CAMPER (and of course MEASURING UP and CHLOE’S LUNAR NEW YEAR). Contact Imprint Bookstore at hello@imprintbookstore.com or (360) 379-2617.

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And now for something completely different. I’ve made a few small, simple baby quilts. When I saw a YouTube video from Jordan Fabrics showing the Ocean Current pattern, I knew I needed to make it. It was quite the learning process! So many mistakes both piecing and quilting the top!! Especially quilting the top. It doesn’t have a regular quilting pattern that is standard but is instead a willy-nilly sample of patterns from my sewing machine’s embroidery unit. It looked like such a mess. I found that patterns didn’t fit in the space being either too small or too big. I fumbled through it, placing patterns here, patterns there, accidentally overlapping patterns, rotated patterns, shrunk some, expanded some. In the end, I’m super happy with it. In the end, all that mess came together. In the end, it was very much like working through the chaos of writing a book and having it finally come together into a whole.

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Thanks so much for being a reader! I’m so grateful that you connected with my books!!

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~~Lily LaMotte