Hello friends! Today is the official on-sale date for my novella Resist. Yay! The book has been around for a while, but is now finally available to buy in print. If you’ve been following my newsletter for a while, you’ve heard me talk about this novella—and its strange path to publication—a few times.
The recap: In 2019, I published Allies, a novel about D-Day. In that book, Samira Zidane and her mother are members of the French Resistance. It’s their job to tell the rest of the resistance in Normandy that today, June 6, 1944, is the day the Allies are invading. When her mother is captured by the Nazis, it’s up to Samira to complete the dangerous mission on her own.
I tell the story of how Samira goes back to rescue her mother in Resist, a novella that was given away for free that year to teachers who subscribe to Scholastic’s Book Clubs. Resist is short—just 59 pages—and that edition was never meant to be sold. But soon some of those free copies began appearing in used book stores for exorbitant prices, all because the freebie editions were the only print versions in existence, and were rare!
Scholastic made Resist available as an ebook, and then an audiobook, but today is the first time you can officially buy a print copy—at a reasonable price, at least! 😄
And after complaining last month that they took the cute dog off the cover, I do want to point out that Cyrano is featured on the back cover:
(And this is a good time to remind everyone that nothing bad happens to the dog!)
Resist can be read independently, or before or after reading Allies. It’s also a perfect entry to my books for readers making the transition from chapter books to full-length novels. Buy one for the young reader in your life today:
Buy RESIST from Barnes & Noble
Buy RESIST from Green Bean Books
All of my books ordered from Green Bean Books come signed!
I have three more free, live, hour-long virtual school events coming up this school year! Join me as I talk about my books, background, and writing process, and then answer questions from attendees. Whether you’re watching from home, a classroom, or an auditorium, there’s no fee to attend, and no limit on how many people can watch.
Here’s my upcoming schedule. Click the links to register!
Tuesday, March 18 at 1pm ET, 12pm CT, 11am MT, 10am PT
Thursday, April 17 at 11am ET, 10am CT, 9am MT, 8am PT
Tuesday, May 20 at 1pm ET, 12pm CT, 11am MT, 10am PT
Can’t join me live? Want to replay an event for readers who missed it? Each virtual event is recorded, and is available for at least a month afterward to anyone with the link. (I usually just take the old one down as soon as a new recording is available.) You can even sign up and view a presentation after the fact! Regardless of how or when you watch, I hope you’ll tune in.
Finally, I wanted to alert you to a book I contributed to called Spinning Toward the Sun.
Billed as a guidebook for writers, Spinning Toward the Sun offers inspiration, insight, and practical advice from an array of nationally-acclaimed authors (including yours truly). The anthology is a call to action too, as 100% of the proceeds from the book will go to the recovery efforts in Western North Carolina communities devastated by Hurricane Helene.
My contribution is an essay on how and why I’ve come to think of my books as “social thrillers.” More than 30 other authors have contributed essays on writing, resilience, and the creative life too, including two-time Newbery winner Erin Entrada Kelly, and Coretta Scott King and Newbery winner Alicia D. Williams. You’ll also find essays by my friends William Alexander, Linda-Marie Barrett, Chris Barton, Nora Shalaway Carpenter, Cinda Williams Chima, David Macinnis Gill, Shannon Hitchcock, Constance Lombardo, Beth Revis, Megan Shepherd, Padma Venkatraman, and Allan Wolf.
Spinning Toward the Sun comes out March 18, 2025. I hope you’ll help me support relief efforts in Western North Carolina by buying a copy when it’s available. You can learn more about the anthology here:
Learn more about SPINNING TOWARD THE SUN
That’s it for this month! If you liked it, please share this newsletter online, or with anyone you think would be interested:
And if you aren’t already a subscriber and you’d like to be, you can sign up here:
Thanks! And remember, resistance is NOT futile, no matter what the Borg say.
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