Why Does Any of This Matter? 🌿

May updates + and the origins of EACH AND EVERY SPARK

I respect all of you cozy-pumpkin-spice readers but I have to tell you, this time of year is when I finally start to feel like myself again. I’m pretty sure if you cut me open you’d find I’m made up of Birkinstocks, iced tea, lake water, and twinkle lights.

May is a wild ride for all parents but I will toot my horn a little extra: all three of my children and K’s birthdays all take place in a two-week span at the end of April/beginning of May. So our days are not only filled with teacher appreciation reminders and soccer practices, but also birthdays on birthdays on birthdays. Furthermore, I would like to formally reprimand whatever absolute dingbat invented the A-Z countdown for the end of the school year¹. I started putting all of the different day reminders in my calendar before I remembered I have a 9 and 7 year old, so I promptly hung the list on the fridge and told them if they wanted to participate, they’d have to check the schedule each morning. Zero regrets.

Luckily, I am finally done with line edits for both my next middle grade novel (Each and Every Spark, out 2/17/26) and my next adult novel (Like a Mother², out late spring 2026).

That means this summer is the Summer of Drafting: I’m currently drafting a new middle grade (!!!), as well as a side writing project for young Catholic girls, and attempting to keep my head above water. Summer is a fun time for drafting because it’s footloose and fancy free. What is grammar? Organized timelines? Never met ‘em.

I’m also continuing to promote Take it From the Top; releasing a summer camp book in November was a choice that had pros and cons but I truly think that as kids begin packing their summer camp trunks and learning their lines for their summer shows, more of that book’s readers will find it.

Today, however, I wanted to share a bit of the origin story for Each and Every Spark, my new book about a 13-year-old girl named Penny whose family relocates to Paris due to her mom’s fancy-pants art job. While there, she discovers an old painting with a note attached, and her determination to learn who it once belonged to eventually throws her headfirst into a long-unsolved mystery about the French resistance. Her narrative is interspersed with that of 13-year-old Marie Bonnet, a courageous girl making impossible choices in 1943 Paris.

I don’t remember how or why I began scribbling out Each and Every Spark.

Truly, I don’t. But I do know this: I’ve been obsessed with Paris as long as I can remember. I was always drawn to the francophile aesthetic in the most basic-millennial-girl way, listening to Carla Bruni and rewatching Julie and Julia. I was #ThatGirl instagramming croissants and loved telling people in an off-hand way “oh, my family’s French,” as if we had just stepped off the boat instead of the reality (a great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother from Rouen, who came over to Canada for a promise of a cow and a husband).

I was also raised with parents who had The History Channel on in the background my entire life. Ken Burns’ voice is basically the soundtrack of my childhood. The way some parents listened to Delilah or Rush Limbaugh, my parents listened to stories about Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson. I was brought from museum to museum as a child, posing endlessly with toothy grins in front of statutes and gravesites. My sister and I used to joke that our family’s brand of vacation was Dead Presidents’ Childhood Homes, and I have to admit that some of my fondest memories include seeing the bathtub where Taft got stuck or getting scolded for walking off of the carpet in Truman’s Missouri abode.

World War 2 in particular has always been an interest, either because I’m a 52-year-old man in disguise or because I think it knocks on the door of our spirits’ quest to fight evil. All of us feel that pull, sometimes, to be part of something greater than ourselves. To be heroic in horrendous circumstances. Few of us realize that simply by attempting to practice virtue in day-to-day life, we are living that out, and instead we crave adventure and excitement that millions of people around the world were forced to live with and would have done anything to escape. There’s something almost grotesque about our constant desire to imbibe media that offers some of the worst of humanity, but I think it’s because it simultaneously offers some of the best.

All of this to say: writing historical fiction was always going to happen for me³. It was always in the cards, and starting with 1943 Paris, a place I’ve already learned so much about, was perfect. As a writer of children’s fiction, I knew this, too: we have books upon books upon books about our war heroes, with far fewer stories about what it was like for the thousands of children being yanked around by adults’ decisions. Out pops Marie: a 13-year-old Parisian, a girl with no mother who is navigating the impossible. A neighbor boy, something like an older brother. A sister, with secrets.

She is where the story starts.

But while I’m daydreaming about this—about code words and spies, about violence and frost—there are other things happening in the world. Politicians on TV wreaking havoc. Gangs of people whirling around the world, frothing at the mouth to harm.

I go to a school board meeting and they talk about how we need to be more focused on things that will help kids (5-10 year olds) get jobs. I go to a school board meeting and they talk about test scores. I go to a school board meeting and they talk about funding.

Someone I know who works in the arts posts: I don’t want to read any poems about this unless they’re wrapped around a rock thrown through a window. I realize the person does not realize that is, in and of itself, a poem.

I read Waugh and Towles and Bronte and Doerr and Tolkien and lots and lots of Beatrix Potter. I inhale Gary D. Schmidt novels. I revisit Gail Carson Levine.

Art is what reminds me to be a human, when times are hard. And when have they not been? When will they not be? It’s the stabilizing force that brings me back to what is true.

I go to a school board meeting and when I ask about finding times to read aloud to kids above first grade, they remind me of our math test scores.

Out of this sea of chaos comes Penny. Sometimes I have a there you are feel for characters, and that was how I felt about Penny Marks. I’m so often writing the sweeter, quieter character (Kate, Anna, Eowyn) with the more bombastic friend (Taylor, Rachel, Jules) but the time, I’m letting the snarky one take center stage. Penny is sassy, she’s sarcastic, she’s suffering. She wants to go home. She wants to understand if or why or how her love of painting makes a difference (Marie, in 1943, wonders the same). She wants to know if any of this crap matters. She wants her annoying brothers to shut up. She also wants them to see, know, and love her, even—or especially—when she feels like an outsider in her very own family.

Each and Every Spark taught me a few things—that I don’t need to be married to writing in order. That I’m capable of doing immense amounts of research and confidently putting forward a historic work. And that these scribblings, this feeble attempt to squeeze art out of daydreams, mean something. In the best of times, and the worst of them, too.

Just a reminder that in the early summer, I’ll be speaking about Funeral Ladies of Ellerie County at the public library in Hartland, WI. I’d love to see you there on June 24! Books will be for sale and I’m happy to sign any that you bring.

Also, teachers: if you’re looking to book a school visit for next fall, I would reach out ASAP. I have limited availability left for September + November. Please reach out hereif interested—I have a bit more room in my schedule to travel next year and I’d love to come to your school!

And lastly, a book (or two) I’ve loved lately for…

Picture book fans: On a Magical Do-Nothing Day by Beatrice Alemagna is such a delightful read—sweet message, sharp writing, stunning illustrations.

Middle graders: I’m currently knee-deep in The Hurricane Girls by Kimberly Willis Holt and am enjoying it so much. I lived in New Orleans for a year, so I adore the swampy sweetness of the setting, but I also am just always a sucker for a great middle grade friendship story.

My kids recommend: Bridget (4) is deep in a Franklin phrase, and her personal favorite is Franklin’s Blanket. Tess (7) is attempting the fantasy Beyond Mulberry Glenn by Millie Florence and really enjoying it, even though I’m pretty sure it’s a touch above her reading level. Benjamin (9) is obsessed with Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales—he has genuinely read every single book in the series at least 10 times, but Raid of No Return is the one getting brought into the car on eery single errand. They’re historical graphic novels with just the right amount of slightly inappropriate humor to keep a third grader satisfied.

Adults: Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb are my favorite historical fiction writing duo, and I tore through Three Words for Goodbye. It’s the story of two sisters traveling through Europe just before World War 2 breaks out, and it’s coinciding nicely with my current Andor obsession. How does fascism rise? What do budding rebellions sound like? These are topics that have long fascinated me and I love that Gaynor and Webb’s fiction dives into the history while also being so character-driven.

Thanks for reading along!

1. A day: bring an ANIMAL! B day: wear BLUE! all the way until the end of the year. Because we all need extra things to remember in late May lest our children shame us that they were the ONLY ones not wearing their clothes inside out on I day!!! 😇

2. I can’t say much about this one just yet but know that it involves momfluencers, supper clubs, and a very reluctant parenting advice column writer. To be 100% honest, it’s probably going to be a little sticky having two books release two months apart. So please bear with me as I set out on this bizarre marketing voyage.

3. And I hope to write so, so much more. I absolutely fell in love with the research and writing process during this adventure!