To all facing a closed door. To all who knock. I've enjoyed hearing responses to The Almost Book over the years. Ever since posting it, I've been curious to share similar content. So here's another... The original draft for this story was written in July of 2021 in the middle of the night on my iPhone when I couldn’t sleep (you know you do it too!). I had been feeling frustrated with not finding a home for my second book (what would eventually become This is Not a Sleepy Bear

Happy Friday and welcome to Picture Book Spotlight! Yesterday, my wife, Katherine, and I got to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary (or as we describe it, our family's 15th birthday). To make it fun for our kids, we all had cake to mark the occasion. New tradition! Katherine is and always has been (aside from my parents) my biggest fan and supporter of this little author thing I do. She gets to see me excited and frustrated by creative problems, watch me laugh at my own du

Happy Thursday and welcome to Picture Book Spotlight! I am writing to you from the crystaline figurative waters of summer break. Ahhhhhhh...this teacher is happy. I love my job and working with my students and team, but this was a challenging year. Not the time to get into the weeds of exactly why, but being an English teacher in the age of AI and launching a book and having a third child in the middle of the school year might have had something to do with it... But now summe

This post is so long overdue that it's almost hilarious. Wait, Brian... didn't your book come out like six months ago?! Yepp. Straight up. Six months to the DAY, in fact. And it's doing really well! We got our royalty statement for presales through December, and it was a truly solid start. I know when the fall rolls around again, and things start crisping up, and the trees begin whispering of winter, we'll see an increased buzz for Owl and Bear as seasonally-associated pictur