Guest Post & Giveaway: Julia Rachel Barrett

Passion
I am a passionate person.  I’m passionate about my family and my children…my pets, my parents, my political values, my sports teams, my exercise, my food and wine, and my spiritual beliefs.  I’m even passionate about my ketchup – there better be plenty of it served with my French fries! 
I’m especially passionate about words.  Words have the power to change the world.  Let’s not kid ourselves – throughout history, the written word has provided impetus for forward progress.  It’s given us something else, pleasure, pure pleasure and an invaluable venue to express our imaginations.  I love the written word.  Books, magazines, newspapers, ebooks – I love ‘em all!
So how much fun is it to be a writer?  Hey, for …

All YA Love: Guest Post by Alexandra Diaz

It is our pleasure to have with us today Alexandra Diaz, author of Of All Stupid Things which was released in December. Alexandra shares with us how growing up and being home-schooled shows up in her writing. Thanks so much Alexandra, take it away…

“How Home-Schooling Inspired My Writing”

(photo credit: Owen Benson)

My schooling was quite unconventional compared to my friends. While my friends rode off to first grade in a yellow school bus, I went to a Montessori school where they didn’t know what grades (neither years nor marks) meant. In high school when kids stayed up late to study for tests, I was up all night with a goat in labor. In many ways I envied the “normal” childhood of others and wanted very much to be a part of it. Or at least the idealized part of …