I've been thinking about my career lately

I've been thinking about my career lately. Looking back over the thirty-five years since my first novel was published. Looking forward to … what? And to how much longer?
No answers there, only a clear desire. That I will have enough passion, enough hope for the world that comes after me, and enough insight to go on writing for whatever years remain.

A long career at work that is loved is a deep privilege. But even such a loved career requires constant refreshment, which is why I keep exploring the far reaches of what I know how to write:  novels, picture books, board books, novelty books, early readers, nonfiction, essays. Each new genre gives me fresh challenges and new pleasures.

My latest challenge—and pleasure—has been a verse novella called Little Dog, Lost.  I use the term "verse novella" advisedly.  The story is young, short, more a novella than a novel, and while it is written as free verse, with all the attention to rhythm and language such a form demands, I wouldn't dare call it poetry.

I turned to the form because, while I enjoy writing for younger children, I have grown weary of the limits of vocabulary and sentence length such an audience usually requires to be able to read on their own. I decided that the broken lines of free verse could me more freedom, giving developing readers manageable, bite-sized chunks to navigate, even if the sentence itself is sometimes long, even if the language is sometimes complex.

And even though I've been known to argue against the form, maintaining—rather archly?—that most poetry novels work neither as poetry nor as novels, I fell into writing Little Dog, Lost with utter delight. I found I could play with language the way I do in a picture book while concentrating on story as I have in the best of my novels.  An intriguing pairing.

And so Little Dog, Lost, with delightful drawings by Jennifer A. Bell, will be coming into the world on May 1st from Atheneum, and even though it will be—if I'm counting accurately—my 83rd book to be published, I'm as excited about it as if it were my first.

Keep looking for Little Dog, Lost.  I'm hoping she will find a home in your heart as she has in mine.