It’s here! Sharing My Family / Compartiendo Mi Familia is available to purchase online!

Here’s the short version: buy my book! (Then leave a review letting others know what you think!) This bilingual English-Spanish picture book is available in hardcover (click here to buy hardcover version), paperback (click here to buy paperback version), or ebook (click here to buy Kindle version).

And the longer version: this book has been a long time coming…about 9 years by my calculations:

  • 2016: My first desire for a book like this to exist, that helps the children welcoming a foster child into their family, is born.
  • 2019: I first seriously consider that maybe I could write the book that I wish existed.
  • 2021: I write (get feedback, revise, etc.) the manuscript and send to a few publishers who specialize in children/family/mental health/coping type books and accept unsolicited manuscripts. (No one picks it up.)
  • 2023: I first seriously consider that maybe I could independently publish the book that I wish existed…but I will need illustrations! I also realize it would be a great resource to have available in Spanish as well as English.
  • 2024: I take an illustration class with the goal of deciding whether I will illustrate myself, or hire an illustrator…I decide to illustrate myself, and begin work. Expanding Circle Press is founded, my publishing imprint based in Sioux City, Iowa. I hire an amazing translator to help me make it a bilingual reality.
  • 2025: I finish illustrations, design the cover, and design the book (get feedback, edit, etc.)…and make decisions (many more than I realized I would need to make!) about where to print, how to distribute, what to charge, how to share, etc.
  • September 1, 2025: Book is available for purchase! Yay!
  • …and heads up: October 11, 2025: Book Signing & Launch Party!

Thanks to America’s Kids Belong!

Thank you to America’s Kids Belong, an organization dedicated to improving the outcomes and experiences for children in foster care, for adding Sharing My Family to their resource list!

The goal of my book is to help children understand what foster care is, and the adjustments that are needed on the part of children involved in it, both foster children being added to a family and children already in that family. In order to be helpful, the book needs to find its way into the hands of parents, teachers, social workers, etc.! Do you know of a resource list or website that reaches foster parents or potential foster parents? How about a local library, school library, or local bookstore? Recommend that they add Sharing My Family to their recommendation/resource list or to their collection for lending or for sale! You can get a pdf of the “sell sheet” for the book (with all the information that book stores, libraries, etc. need to decide whether to order a book) on the Products Page of Expanding Circle Press (where you can also find links to pre-order/buy the book yourself!): https://expandingcirclepress.com/products/

Details, details…help me check the details?

illustration of girl character Amara
illustrated by Jessica Pleuss

Well, turns out there is lots to be done as an illustrator long after you *think* you have done the bulk of the work! Meet Amara, above. She is Zee’s little sister in Sharing My Family. She likes to fingerpaint…and I like adding fingerpaint to those tiny little fingers! If you have an eye for detail, I would love additional eyes on my near-final draft of the book to help me catch typos and incongruencies, both in text and illustrations. As such, I am now welcoming feedback on the book from beta readers! If you would like to be one of them, click here: Beta Reader Feedback for Sharing My Family

Back in the swing of things

School is out, for kids and myself, and so I am back in the swing of things author/illustrator-wise, working away on Sharing My Family. Jackson, in this image, is peeking out the door of his new bedroom, about to venture downstairs. He is a bit nervous.

I can relate–I feel like I am peeking around a corner as well: a nearly-final version of the book is on the horizon. I plan to send to it to a number of beta readers to get some final feedback before making minor adjustments/corrections and then hopefully going to press in fall 2025!

Some of you were kind enough to serve as alpha readers way back when I first had a manuscript draft (now several years ago!). If you participated then, you may be getting an email from me in the coming weeks asking if you will be a beta reader. And if you were not an alpha reader (or don’t remember) but are curious and would like to help by reviewing a near-final draft and providing me with honest feedback about it, you can let me know by filling out this form before the end of June.

Soon-to-be Published!

They say not to publish the book as your first book. You know, the one you’ve worked on and dreamed about and that motivated you to become an author or illustrator. No need to risk making a silly rookie mistake with the formatting or some such thing and being disappointed in the quality of the book. This seemed like sage advice to me. And so, I have been busy creating a lower-stakes first book for myself, and am excited to announce…not the book (which I am working on illustrations for and plan to publish later this year), but my first book, which is due to release at the end of May: Radial Designs to Color and Draw. This will be published by Expanding Circle Press (expandingcirclepress.com). It has been a steep learning curve with software programs, formatting requirements, design elements, and business aspects related to independent publishing…but the finished product is in sight: as of today, I have ordered my proof copies!

Time and Backfill

Apparently WordPress doesn’t want me to post just one entry to my ‘blog’…which is really just meant to be a periodic update page for anyone wanting to know what’s coming next. It has decided to backfill with automated ‘how-to-blog’ type text so that it appears I have posted several times already. Which I have not. By the end of today, however, I will have…if only to replace their auto-generated text without my own words. (Sure, why not…we all have limitless time, right?….)