Storyteller’s Shelf Podcast: Demystifying Publishing, One Story at a Time by Jackie Garcia-Morales and Theresa Maria Villarreal

Happy Wednesday Everyone! Today I’m excited to have Jackie Garcia-Morales and Theresa Maria Villarreal here to share about their Storyteller’s Shelf Podcast and how it can help you on your journey to become a published author. 

Here’s Jackie and Theresa! 

Demystifying Publishing, One Story at a Time 

How It All Began 

It all began with what was supposed to be a quick coffee chat. Jackie was working in trade publishing, and Theresa was deep into writing her middle grade series. We met on LinkedIn, bonded instantly over a shared love of children’s books, and decided to hop on a call to talk about the industry. Two hours later, we were still talking about publishing as both art and business, the barriers that make it hard to break in, and how so much of what happens behind the scenes still feels like a mystery to so many creatives. 

At some point, Theresa laughed and said, “This should be a podcast!” Jackie didn’t miss a beat: “Let’s make it one.” And just like that, an idea became a promise. What started as two women venting about the gatekeeping and complexity of publishing turned into a mission to make knowledge accessible, practical, and encouraging for everyone who dreams of working in this world. 

We spent months sketching, researching, and planning every detail of what would become The Storyteller’s Shelf Podcast. By the time we officially launched in April 2025, we had poured our hearts and countless late nights into it, often still editing or brainstorming at two or three in the morning. We do it on top of our existing jobs because it matters. Every episode reminds us that this work is worth the effort. People write to tell us that the podcast has given them hope, clarity, or courage to keep going, and those messages are what keep us going too. 

Building a Foundation for Storytellers 

That spark has grown into The Storytellers Foundation, a creative hub dedicated to uplifting voices in children’s literature and championing stories as a force for connection, access, and joy. We believe that in a climate where voices are needed more than ever, community is essential. We are here to give platforms to voices that deserve to be heard and to connect people by making opportunities and education accessible. 

Our 2025 season has been inspiring. We have spoken with Lois Lowry, the Newbery Medal–winning author of The Giver and Number the Stars; Eric Litwin, the number one New York Times bestselling author of Pete the Cat; and Max Beaudry, an Emmy Award–winning screenwriter whose credits include DreamWorks, Netflix, and Nickelodeon. We have also featured Farida Ladipo-Ajayi, founder of The Bookworm Café in Nigeria; Lori Wieczorek, Senior Editor in Trade Licensing at Scholastic; and Janna Morishima, literary agent and founder of Kids Comics Unite. 

Our guests have joined us from around the world, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Egypt, Australia, Nigeria, South Africa, Singapore, and Canada. Each conversation reminds us that behind every great story is a person who took a leap of faith, and that storytelling has the power to build bridges and spark possibility.

As we continued through 2025, we realized that we were learning right alongside our listeners. Each episode, interview, and collaboration helped us grow into better authors, better listeners, and better neighbors in this creative community. That sense of connection inspired us to take our mission beyond conversation and into action. We wanted to share not only knowledge, but also stories and opportunities with those who might not otherwise have access. 

Guided by that spirit, we partnered with nonprofits including BookSmiles, StoryMonsters Greenie Box, and Books Between Kids to host book drives that brought stories into the hands of families in need. Along the way, we built a volunteer program that helped nearly 20 participants strengthen their résumés through hands-on experience in blog writing, publicity, and social media marketing. The kindness, enthusiasm, and support we have received continue to remind us why we do this work. 

Looking Ahead to 2026 

As we look toward 2026, we are excited to evolve. For the podcast, we will be introducing a selective new segment and inviting editors to join us for our upcoming season. We have just three interview spots left in our expert Q&A series focused on career journeys and behind-the-scenes insights into publishing. For creatives who would like to be featured, we welcome written Q&A blog interviews so we can continue spotlighting and celebrating your work. 

And 2026 will bring something even bigger. We are launching Pitch an Agent, a bi-monthly virtual event connecting KidLit creators with agents in a welcoming and inclusive space. These events will include scholarship opportunities for underrepresented creatives and will serve as the heart of our next chapter together.  

Join Our Community 

If you are an author, illustrator, editor, or agent who believes in the power of storytelling and community and would like to be involved with our events, we would love to connect with you. Visit thestorytellersshelfpodcast.com, subscribe to our newsletter, or contact us at the email: directors [@] thestorytellersshelfpodcast.com. 

Together, we can build a more open, inspired, and connected publishing world, one story at a time. 

Upcoming Interviews, Guest Posts, and Blog Hops 

Saturday, November 1st, I’m participating in the Thanks a Latte Giveaway Hop 

Wednesday, November 5th, I have an interview with Pamela N. Harris and a giveaway of her YA Through Our Teeth and my IWSG post 

Monday, November 10th, I have a guest post by Darlene P. Compos and a giveaway of her MG The Center of the Earth 

Wednesday, November 12th, I have an agent spotlight interview with Mara Cobb and a query critique giveaway 

Sunday, November 16th, I’m participating in the In All Things Give Thanks Giveaway Hop 

Monday, November 17th, I have a guest post by Mike Steel and a giveaway of his MG Not Lucille 

Wednesday, November 19th, I have an agent spotlight interview with Carter Hasegawa and a query critique giveaway 

Monday, November 24th, I have a guest post by R.M. Romero and a giveaway of her MG The Tear Collector 

I hope to see you on Saturday!

 

 

Author Interview: Dusti Bowling and Holding on for Dear Life Giveaway

Happy Monday Everyone! Today I’m excited to have Dusti Bowling here to share about her new MG Holding on for Dear Life. I’m a huge fan of Dusti’s and am excited to read her new contemporary story about bull riding, which I know nothing about. 

Here’s a blurb from Goodreads:

 

Acclaimed author Dusti Bowling takes the bull by the horns in this moving novel about a boy struggling to keep his family together while facing the side effects of bull riding.

Thirteen-year-old Canyon loves bull riding, but the sport doesn't exactly love him back. His body is in constant pain and doctors have warned him about the dangers of his repeated concussions, but bull riding is the only thing he and his dad connect on ever since Canyon's mom died. Canyon is convinced winning the Junior World Bull Riding championship will be the thing to bring them together again, that once he has that shiny belt buckle all the pain will be worth it. Besides, Canyon has a secret way to help his playing the fiddle.

When Canyon is unexpectedly chosen for a music competition show, a new dream begins to form. But Dad is getting worse, and Canyon feels more pressure than ever to hold his family together--even if it means choosing to hurt himself bull riding over healing through music. Soon Canyon begins to wonder if he's holding on to all the right things, or if there are some he needs to let go of. 

Hi Dusti! Thanks so much for joining us. 

1. Tell us about yourself and how you became a writer. 

I’ve been a lifelong reader, but I didn’t start writing until I was about 28 years old. I’d always thought about it—how wonderful it would be to create my own stories—but I honestly never thought I could. And even if I managed to write a whole book one day, who on earth would ever want to publish it? I thought traditional publishing was an impossible goal. So I focused on other career paths, getting degrees in psychology and education, and also starting a family. I worked as a teacher for a short time before deciding to stay home to raise my kids. It was then that I realized if I never even tried to write a story, I would regret it forever and always wonder What if? It would be nine more years before Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus would be published. It wasn’t the first book I ever wrote, but it was the first book I tried wholeheartedly to have traditionally published. And it ended up being just as challenging as I expected it would be. But certainly not impossible. 

2. I’m impressed you wrote a draft of your first manuscript in one day. Where did you get the idea for Holding on for Dear Life? 

This story was inspired first and foremost by the character of Canyon and his relationship with his father. I had long wanted to write a story about a child dealing with an alcoholic parent because I grew up with two alcoholic parents, and I know countless kids are living through that right now. I wish I’d had books when I was a kid that addressed this issue so I could see that I wasn’t alone in my experience.  

Secondly, I wanted to write about rodeo because it’s so incredibly popular where I live, and there are very few middle grade books out there that have to do with rodeo. When deciding on a sport for Canyon, it was an easy choice to settle on bull riding for a couple of reasons. One: Bull riding is very exciting, of course. And two: Bull riding is extraordinarily dangerous. I’ve long been concerned about children participating in dangerous sports and the lifelong effects they’ll face—effects, it turns out, many children aren’t even aware of. 

Your Writing Process 

3. Share about your writing process once you got the idea for Holding on for Dear Life. How long did it take to finish and revise your first draft before you submitted it to your agent and publisher? 

After I got the idea for Holding on for Dear Life, I wrote up a proposal, which consisted of a pitch and the first few chapters, for my agent. She loved the idea right away, so we sent the proposal out on submission to a few publishers I was interested in working with. It had quite a bit of interest, and I ended up going with Bloomsbury to publish it. Once we had the book deal, it took me a few months to write the first draft, then several months for revisions. Usually, once I have a proposal accepted by a publisher, it’s about a year and a half to two years until publication. 

4. It’s interesting that you could start with a proposal and a few chapters and go on submission before writing your first draft. Holding on for Dear Life is about bull riding, which most of us know nothing about. What research did you do into bull riding and kids training to be bull riders for your story? 

I really enjoyed the research for this book, maybe more than for any other book I’ve written, because it mostly consisted of going to a lot of rodeos (which are always entertaining) and watching a lot of professional bull riding. For part of my research, I attended a qualifying round for the Junior World Finals that takes place in Las Vegas every year. I had the opportunity to interview several of the young bull riders and watch them ride. It was both exciting and terrifying. Several got injured, and one boy was even taken away in an ambulance toward the end of the day. It was then that I knew I needed to focus on the risks of bull riding a lot more in my story. 

5. Yes, your research sounds fun! You’ve raised the stakes for thirteen-year-old Canyon and made him make such difficult choices. Reviewers have said they couldn’t put your book down. What techniques did you use to make your story such a page-turner, which can be harder to do when telling a contemporary story?

Conflict is always what keeps your readers turning the pages, and this story simply has a ton of conflict. There’s Canyon’s relationship with his father and his father’s alcoholism, Canyon’s constant injuries and internal battles about bull riding, Canyon’s exhaustion with taking care of his little sister, Canyon’s secret desire to pour himself into fiddling, and his hesitation to fully do so because of what he thinks it will cost him—his ability to financially care for his family, bringing his dad back to who he once was, his relationship with his best friend, and his entire lifestyle really. I don’t think I could pack more conflict into one book if I wanted to. 

I was at a book festival not that long ago, and I watched a wonderful author’s lovely presentation, but she said something I found really funny. She said she hated hurting her characters, and it bothered her so terribly to do anything bad to them. I sat in the audience giggling when she said that. I, on the other hand, put my characters through more strife than any one person should ever be able to handle, even bringing my characters to the brink of death at times. And you know what? It doesn’t even bother me to do it! Because I know the whole time everything will end up okay for them, and these are the things that keep my readers turning the pages—because they need to know that everything will turn out okay, and I try to never let my readers down as far as that’s concerned. It might not be all perfect peaches and cream in the end, but they will always be left with hope—hope that if the characters in these books can get through these terrible things, then they can get through whatever’s going on in their lives as well. 

Your Journey to Publication 

6. Your agent is Shannon Hassan. How did she become your agent, and how did you get your first publishing contract for Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus, your first book? 

I wrote Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus during NaNoWriMo in 2014. It was quite a short book and a simple story about two quirky kids becoming friends. The first eighty or so agents I queried thought it was too simple. Too quiet. So I rewrote it to try to make a bit more exciting. I would send out about another twenty queries before Shannon would become my agent, though. Then Shannon had me do some light revisions on the story before sending it out to about a dozen publishers. One editor at a Big Five publisher really liked it and asked if I would do a rewrite. I did that rewrite and she rejected the book anyway. Then Shannon sent the rewritten version out to six more publishers, including Sterling Publishing (now Union Square). Nearly two years after I’d written that first draft, Union Square made an offer for it. I always tell people this book was a breath away from never being published, and that’s really true. 

7. Since your first book was published in 2017, you’ve published approximately 12 other books. Your books are Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selections and have been named best books of the year by the Chicago Public Library, Kirkus, Bank Street College of Education, A Mighty Girl, and Shelf Awareness. They’ve also been nominated for over 50 state awards. Share about how you grew your career as an author and the keys to your success. 

I think authors focus far too much on online promotion when the best thing they can do to grow their career is just focus on writing. I credit a lot of my success with wonderful committees placing my books on those coveted state lists. A lot of schools use those lists for their own reading lists, Battle of the Books competitions, and when making author visit requests. But the only way to get on those lists is to write the very best books you possibly can! That’s why I really do stand by the advice that working on your craft, rather than promotion, is the best way to spend your time if you want to grow your career. Putting out books regularly is important to maintain your readership as well. 

Promoting Your Book 

8. That’s great advice. I saw on your website that you held a book release party, did school visits, and went on a book tour to celebrate the release of Holding on for Dear Life. How were all these events organized? 

Most of these events were organized by my publisher Bloomsbury. However, I also take school visit requests all year long and do a lot events that I organize myself when invited. 

9. How has your book marketing approach changed over the years? What advice do you have for other authors trying to promote their books? 

I started out very enthusiastic about trying to market and promote my books, mostly through trying to build a strong social media presence. I focused heavily on Twitter throughout the years, built a wonderful following of educators on there, and then a ton of people left because of political reasons and the whole thing kind of fell apart. Now I feel like there’s no longer good visibility on there and a lot of people I’d connected with are gone. The whole situation left me feeling extremely frustrated and weary of social media—I’d put all this time and effort into building this platform only to have it ripped out from under me for reasons I have absolutely no control over. I feel more and more all the time that so much happens in publishing that I have no control over, and my social media posts probably don’t make that great of a difference. Now I may post on X and Instagram every now and then, but it no longer brings me joy so my posts are infrequent. Now I’m trying to keep my focus on writing and doing school visits as those requests come in. I get quite a few school visit requests and love connecting with readers personally in that way. Those are the things that bring me joy. 

10. Your advice on social media is very reassuring. What are you working on now? 

So many things! I have my new series, Sir Edmund of the Wild West, beginning early next year. There will be two books told from the perspective of a service dog who thinks he’s British. Then I have my first young adult book, Aquaphobia, scheduled to release next fall. I’m also working on another middle grade book with the same publisher for Holding on for Dear Life. But maybe the thing I’m most excited about is the graphic novel version of Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus! Charlotte Blocker is doing the illustrations, and I couldn’t be more thrilled with how it’s all turning out. Sorry to say that isn’t scheduled to release until 2027, though. 

Thanks for sharing all your advice, Dusti. You can find Dusti at: 

www.dustibowling.com 

Giveaway Details

Dusti is generously offering an ARC Holding on for Dear Life of a giveaway. To enter, all you need to do is be a follower of my blog (via the follower gadget, email, or bloglovin’ on the right sidebar) and leave a comment by November 8th. If I do not have your email (I can no longer get it from your Google Profile), you must leave it in the comments to enter the contest. Please be sure I have your email address. 

If you mention this contest on Twitter, Facebook, or other social media sites and/or follow me on Twitter or Bluesky or follow Dusti on her social media sites, mention this in the comments, and I'll give you an extra entry for each. You must be 13 years old or older to enter. This book giveaway is U.S. 

Marvelous Middle Grade Monday is hosted by Greg Pattridge. You can find the participating blogs on his blog. 

Upcoming Interviews, Guest Posts, and Blog Hops 

Wednesday, October 29th I have an agent spotlight interview with Renee Runge and a query critique giveaway 

Saturday, November 1st, I’m participating in the Thanks a Latte Giveaway Hop 

Wednesday, November 5th, I have an interview with Pamela N. Harris and a giveaway of her YA Through Our Teeth and my IWSG post 

Monday, November 10th, I have a guest post by Darlene P. Compos and a giveaway of her MG The Center of the Earth 

Wednesday, November 12th, I have an agent spotlight interview with Mara Cobb and a query critique giveaway 

Sunday, November 16th, I’m participating in the In All Things Give Thanks Giveaway Hop 

Monday, November 17th, I have a guest post by Mike Steel and a giveaway of his MG Not Lucille 

Wednesday, November 19th, I have an agent spotlight interview with Carter Hasegawa and a query critique giveaway 

Monday, November 24th, I have a guest post by R.M. Romero and a giveaway of her MG The Tear Collector 

I hope to see you on Saturday!

 

 

 

Writing the Difficult Conversation: How Child Characters Navigate Adult Pain Guest Post by Claudia Mills and The Last Apple Tree Giveaway

 Happy Monday Everyone! Today I’m excited to be part of Claudia Mills’ blog tour to celebrate the release of the paperback version of her MG, The Last Apple Tree. It sounds like a fantastic contemporary story about friendship, family secrets, and grief, and I’m looking forward to reading it. 

Here’s a blurb from the publisher:

 

Twelve-year-old Sonnet’s family has just moved across the country to live with her grandfather after her nana dies. Gramps’s once-impressive apple orchard has been razed for a housing development, with only one heirloom tree left. Sonnet doesn’t want to think about how Gramps and his tree are both growing old—she just wants everything to be okay.

Sonnet is not okay with her neighbor, Zeke, a boy her age who gets on her bad side and stays there when he tries to choose her grandpa to interview for an oral history assignment. Zeke irks Sonnet with his prying questions, bringing out the sad side of Gramps she’d rather not see. Meanwhile, Sonnet joins the Green Club at school and without talking to Zeke about it, she asks his activist father to speak at the Arbor Day assembly—a collision of worlds that Zeke wanted more than anything to avoid.

But when the interviews uncover a buried tragedy that concerns Sonnet’s mother, and an emergency forces Sonnet and Zeke to cooperate again, Sonnet learns not just to accept Zeke as he is, but also that sometimes forgetting isn’t the solution—even when remembering seems harder. 

Now the guest post written and sponsored by Claudia Mills! 

The Haunting Pain of Family Secrets

            I grew up in a house filled with secrets – or at least haunted by things never spoken about. 

It was years before I learned that the man who sometimes came to visit was actually my much older half-brother from my father’s first marriage that ended in divorce. My mother plainly wanted to pretend that first marriage had never happened. More painfully, in those days when gravely disabled children were often institutionalized, my younger brother who had Down’s Syndrome was sent away when I started elementary school and never mentioned again. Only after my mother’s death did my sister and I discover that he was still living. His very existence was also something we were supposed to pretend had never happened. 

From these experiences I learned that the only thing more painful than talking about difficult subjects is not talking about them. 

The Last Apple Tree

            In my recent book The Last Apple Tree, classmates Sonnet and Zeke are (unwillingly) paired together to interview her recently widowed grandfather for a seventh-grade oral history project. Their teacher gives them a list of possible questions: e.g., did your family have a car? What holidays did you celebrate? What games did you play when you were young? Sonnet is determined to stick to safe questions only – certainly nothing about Nana that might make Gramps start to cry. She tells her little sister, “You and I have to try to make Gramps happy. Or at least happier. That’s the most important thing for both of us.” And if they can’t do that, at least they can try never to make Gramps feel sad.             

Zeke, however, finds the assigned topics boring and asks probing follow-up questions that lead into dangerous territory, all connected with the old man’s beloved apple tree, lone survivor of a vanished orchard. It’s where he proposed to his wife, beneath its branches. It’s where he grieved the destruction of the orchard’s other trees when the land was sold for a housing development. And it’s where a tragedy occurred decades ago, never spoken of since, but one that left deep scars on the tree – and on Sonnet’s family.           

Now, when I began writing The Last Apple Tree, the initial inspiration was an article I read about the Boulder Apple Tree Project, sponsored by the University of Colorado, which was created to locate and preserve one-of-a-kind heirloom apple trees in the county, as well as the stories connected with them. So I decided to write about an heirloom apple tree, the old man who loved it, and the two kids who would learn its stories in the course of their school oral-history project. I also knew that to provide a compelling plot for young readers, at least one of the stories would need to involve the revelation of some long-hidden secret. I didn’t yet know what the secret would be, just that I had to come up with one! And when I did, the secret ended up involving a family tragedy: the death of Sonnet’s mother’s twin sister at a very young age in a fall from one of the tree’s branches. A tragedy that was never spoken of again. A tragedy that Gramps and Nana had decided to pretend had never happened. 

            Unwittingly, I was writing the story of my own childhood all over again. 

I realized how much Sonnet’s desperate desire to avoid any painful conversations that might aggravate her grandfather’s grief for his dead wife was exactly like my family’s avoidance of any mention of my father’s first marriage and of the little brother I never saw again. Avoidance of pain at any cost was the operative principle. The best way to avoid pain was never again to talk about the source of the pain. 

Why We Need Not to Silence Painful Stories

Here is what Sonnet – and her mother and her grandfather – learn about this failed strategy for pain avoidance as the story comes to its close. Whenever I write a book, the truths about human life and experience I impart to young readers are not only ones I wish I had learned when I was a child; they are ones I am still working on understanding and acting on now. 

So what do they learn?

1.     It’s okay to be sad. It’s part of being human to be sad. Sonnet’s little sister creates an imaginary country called Happy Land. But at the end of the story, Sonnet tells Villie, “Even in Happy Land, people need to be sad sometimes.” 

2.     Emotions that aren’t outwardly expressed don’t disappear. Driven inward, they continue to be an ache in the heart that never gets a chance to heal. Sonnet’s mother, who has repressed all conscious memory of the incident that led to her twin’s death, leaves home as soon as she can and avoids returning. When Sonnet asks why they saw so little of Gramps and Nana, her mother isn’t sure how to answer: “I don’t know . . . there was just something sad about this house.” 

3.     Repressed emotions take a toll on interpersonal relationships. Sonnet’s mother’s perception of the sadness of her childhood home led to near estrangement from the parents who loved her – and who avoided the painful conversations only in a futile effort to protect her. 

4.     Perhaps most significantly, when we don’t know the true story behind traumatic events, the human need to make meaning out of our experiences drives us to make up alternative – false – stories of our own. The silence surrounding her twin’s death led Sonnet’s mother to believe that the tragedy somehow had to be her fault: “I must have done something bad, something so unforgiveable” that all evidence of her sister was taken away. She carried a hidden load of guilt until the day that Sonnet and Zeke discover the true account of what happened on that terrible day: an accident when an already cracked branch breaks entirely.

 

“The truth shall make you free.”

 

           I hope that young readers of The Last Apple Tree, and the adults who share the book with them, will feel inspired to start sharing previously untold family stories – funny ones, touching ones, exciting ones, and yes, and perhaps especially, sad ones, too. Zeke’s father quotes this famous line of scripture to his son: “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” Stories – true stories – can help us understand ourselves and each other better. I do believe they can free us to lay down burdens we should never have been carrying in the first place.

 

Thanks for sharing all your advice, Claudia. You can find Claudia at https://www.claudiamillsauthor.com/

 

About Claudia: Claudia Mills is the author of over 60 books for young readers, including most recently the verse novel The Lost Language and the middle-grade novel The Last Apple Tree, as well as two chapter-book series: Franklin School Friends and After-School Superstars. Her books have been named Notable Books of the Year by the American Library Association and Best Books of the Year by the Bank Street College of Education; they have been translated into half a dozen languages. Claudia is also a professor emerita of philosophy at the University of Colorado and a faculty member in the graduate programs in children’s literature at Hollins University. She has written all her books in her faithful hour-a-day system while drinking Swiss Miss hot chocolate.

TOUR SCHEDULE

Monday, September 22, 2025 The Children’s Book Review Book Review of The Last Apple Tree

Tuesday, September 23, 2025 @nissa_the.bookworm Book Review of The Last Apple Tree

Wednesday, September 24, 2025 The Children’s Book Review Author Interview with Claudia Mills

Thursday, September 25, 2025 The Starlit Path Book Review of The Last Apple Tree

Friday, September 26, 2025 icefairy’s Treasure Chest Book Review of The Last Apple Tree

Monday, September 29, 2025 Deliciously Savvy Book Review of The Last Apple Tree

Tuesday, September 30, 2025 Q&As with Deborah Kalb Author Interview with Claudia Mills

Wednesday, October 1, 2025 The Children’s Book Review Book List Featuring The Last Apple Tree

Thursday, October 2, 2025 Country Mamas With Kids Book Review of The Last Apple Tree

Friday, October 3, 2025 Crafty Moms Share Book Review of The Last Apple Tree

Monday, October 6, 2025 Crafty Moms Share Book Review of The Last Apple Tree

Tuesday, October 7, 2025 Glass of Wine, Glass of Milk Book Review of The Last Apple Tree

Wednesday, October 8, 2025 Writer with Wanderlust Book Review of The Last Apple Tree

Thursday, October 9, 2025 The Fairview Review Book Review of The Last Apple Tree

Friday, October 10, 2025 Un Viaje en Libro Book Review of The Last Apple Tree

Monday, October 13, 2025 Life Is What It’s Called Author Interview with Claudia Mills

Tuesday, October 14, 2025 Froggy Read Teach Book Review of The Last Apple Tree

Wednesday, October 15, 2025 Spring Falls Chronicle Book Review of The Last Apple Tree

Thursday, October 16, 2025 A Blue Box Full of Books Book Review of The Last Apple Tree

Monday, October 20, 2025 Literary Rambles Guest Post about The Last Apple Tree

 

Giveaway Details

Enter for a chance to win one of ten signed paperback copies of The Last Apple Tree by Claudia Mills. But wait, there’s more! One lucky grand prize winner will get a special one-hour Zoom author visit with Claudia herself, plus signed copies of The Lost Language and a book from her wonderful chapter book series.

The Last Apple Tree: Book Giveaway

Marvelous Middle Grade Monday is hosted by Greg Pattridge. You can find the participating blogs on his blog. 

Upcoming Interviews, Guest Posts, and Blog Hops 

Monday, October 27th, I have an interview with author Dusti Bowling and a giveaway of her MG Holding on for Dear Life 

Wednesday, October 29th I have an agent spotlight interview with Renee Runge and a query critique giveaway 

Saturday, November 1st, I’m participating in the Thanks a Latte Giveaway Hop 

Wednesday, November 5th, I have an interview with Pamela N. Harris and a giveaway of her YA Through Our Teeth and my IWSG post 

Monday, November 10th, I have a guest post by Darlene P. Compos and a giveaway of her MG The Center of the Earth 

Wednesday, November 12th, I have an agent spotlight interview with Mara Cobb and a query critique giveaway 

Sunday, November 16th, I’m participating in the In All Things Give Thanks Giveaway Hop 

Monday, November 17th, I have a guest post by Mike Steel and a giveaway of his MG Not Lucille 

Wednesday, November 19th, I have an agent spotlight interview with Carter Hasegawa and a query critique giveaway 

Monday, November 24th, I have a guest post by R.M. Romero and a giveaway of her MG The Tear Collector 

I hope to see you on Monday!