Yesterday, I shared some photos from the 1906 Earthquake in San Francisco, the setting for my young adult novel, Shaken. Photos have helped me imagine the scene, but another thing that has aided my research are letters. In the early hours after the disaster, people immediately began writing letters to their loved ones describing the … Read More
Author: Karen Barnett
Observers
While working on revisions to Shaken, I’ve been digging back into my original research and trying to immerse myself in the time period. I’m always amazed when I look at all of the photos of the 1906 quake. In many ways, they are eerily similar to photos taken in the recent Italy earthquake. I thought … Read More
Only Uni — Book Recommendation Friday
It’s Friday again — the perfect day to pick a good weekend read. Today’s recommendation is Only Uni by Camy Tang. It’s actually the second book in the Sushi Series. When I was in the bookstore at Mount Hermon, I accidentally grabbed the second book instead of the first, but that didn’t really seem to … Read More
Double Vision
We’ve recently discovered that our nine-year-old’s eyes are not functioning as a team. One eye wanders to the side when he is trying to focus, making everything blurred or doubled. He’s always passed eye tests with flying colors, because they only test one eye at a time. To fix this, he is going to weekly … Read More
Scribe
There’s a hymn called “The Love of God” that was written in 1917. Our church’s worship leader taught us a new version that mixed the beautiful old words of this hymn with a newer melody. The words of the final verse truly captured my heart, as a writer. Could we with ink the ocean fillAnd … Read More
Mom Can Write!
Yesterday, I posted about my writing journey. I wrote about my sad lack of time-management skills and my inability to write when I had children underfoot during the day. If you are a mom and have a desire to write, I do not want to discourage you! In fact, quite the opposite. Many moms have … Read More
My Writing Journey
Many people ask me the impossible question: “How long have you been writing?” I never know how to answer that. I learned to write in Kindergarten, and I imagine most of you did, too. Somehow, I don’t think that’s what they are asking. When I was little I filled notepads with stories. My favorite was … Read More
Shade — Book Review Friday
Well, my hubbie pointed out the grammatical error/typo that I made on the first line of yesterday’s blog. Ugh. Yes, I be a writer! Oh, well. It’s a good thing that blogs aren’t graded, right? Today is “Book Review Friday,” but I’m wondering if I shouldn’t call it “Book Recommendation Friday.” It’s doubtful that I … Read More
Imaginary Friends
Several people have asked me how lately how the rewrite of Shaken is going. Usually I smile and say, “Great, great. A lot of work, but it’s going great!” That is mostly true. I’m a little overwhelmed at the idea of doubling the length of an already-finished story, but it’s going surprisingly well. What is … Read More
My Next Book
I had the grumps last night. The weather was gorgeous outside and I desperately wanted to sit outside and read a book. Instead, I did the right thing and cooked dinner for my family. My son proceeded to complain about what I served. He’s nine and has suddenly become finicky and opinionated. Okay, maybe not … Read More