Sara Ryan

If you are a creature of habit, as most of us are to varying degrees, you probably operate with a significant number of routines: your usual route to work, your standard hangout spots, the typical ways you spend a weekend day and/or evening. I realized earlier this summer that simply by tweaking one or more [...]

Hey, thanks to all who attended my YA Trends and Audience workshop this morning at the Ooligan Press Write to Publish conference, and to the conference folks who were super helpful with the usual tech troubleshooting hassles. Special shoutouts to fellow YA author Emily Whitman and to brand new local YA publisher RainTown Press! As [...]

1. If you missed Mr. Gordon Edgar, author of Cheesemonger, the virtues of which I have previously extolled, when he was recently in Portland, you are in CRAZY LUCK because he will be here again TOMORROW, May 19, at 6:30 pm at Square Deal Wine and Cheese. If you suspect that the name of the [...]

Hey hi! Short post, lots of exclamation points! The new What A Girl Wants post is up! (And I am blushing because Colleen says very kind things about my work in the introduction.) We wrote about the books we wished we’d read when we were sixteen. Portlanders! On Saturday, 5/22 I’ll be giving a talk [...]

No, really. An actual walk in an actual park. I, um, don’t spend a lot of time outside typically. So today I met up with my friend Deborah in an attempt to partially remedy that. Outside can be awfully pretty. And because we are in Portland, sometimes it includes giant acupuncture needles. Tuley investigated the [...]

Specifically, I’ll be on KBOO‘s queer youth show The Other Team tonight from 6-7 pm, talking about queer YA & children’s lit along with the fine folks from Bare Bones Press and Productions and Marcus Ewert, author of 10,000 Dresses. I have never been on the radio before! And yes, you can listen online.

I have recently become a fan of the Grilled Cheese Grill. Its sandwiches are delicious, and the mural on the ceiling of its seating area — a schoolbus — is fantastic. See: The artists are Eatcho and Jason Graham. I’m particularly impressed by how they blended their styles. Now for a tiny nap, and then [...]

I’m working on the graphic novel all day today, and listening to John Coltrane and Miles Davis. While staring into space (because that is, of course, an important component of working) I suddenly noticed the pleasing industrial geometry above. If you look closely, you can see the reflection of Steve’s drawing table.

I took a different route home today. Here are some of the things I saw: Five unblinking cats, camouflaged by the brown-and-black facade of the house they appeared to be guarding A man rinsing out a toilet for repurposing as a planter A miniature Stonehenge in an otherwise unremarkable yard An angry note addressed to [...]

On our way to sell/donate books at the majestic Powell’s warehouse in the northwest industrial district, we saw this: Any Portlanders familiar with this tiger? My Flytrap characters would’ve scaled the fence and done circus stunts on it.