YAY! We finally have our winners for the Toothpaste Tournament – which means I now have my character names for my short story tentatively titled “Pink Snow.” You will definitely want to see how these names work within the framework of a story when the Winter Wonders Anthology releases through Compass Press in December 2012! (Check out that list of contributing authors – I can guarantee that this will be a FUN anthology of stories!)

The girl who brought in the most individual votes and who will now become my main narrating character in “Pink Snow” is…



SOPHIA

 Not only does Sophia have a really beautiful name, but she also happens to be one of my students! I’m excited to see what hidden Sophia-isms I can write into this story. Haha.

And the boy who had the most individual votes and who will now become my leading guy in “Pink Snow” is…



BOOKS

 I love this, too, because Books is also one of my students and he does have a cool name – especially for a potentially magical and quirky male character! The only weirdness will be reminding myself that I am only using names – NOT writing a story about the Sophia and Books that I know!! LOL. This will get interesting…

Congratulations to Sophia and Books – email me what you want. A book or a t-shirt!

Now for my surprise news… there was such a CLOSE gap between the 1st and 2nd places in this tournament that I decided to go ahead and take the names of the 2nd place girl and 2nd place guy and work them into the story somehow!!

So you can plan to see these two names for peripheral characters in the story!!



KERRA



CONNOR

Kerra and Connor are both really cool kids (and I hear Kerra is graduating this year? Congrats, girl!)!Your names will work perfectly in my story!

Thank you to all of you who voted in the tournament! And a very special thank you to the brave ones who took pictures of themselves in toothpaste – you are forever the most awesome kids I know!!

Now let me remind you that it was a scene in Watercrossing that inspired this toothpaste mania. And let me also remind you that TODAY is Watercrossing’s official national release!! Yay – happy book birthday to this special “baby” in my life! I’m very proud of Watercrossing and hope that you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it for you. You can wish this book a happy birthday today by posting a status, a tweet, or a picture online of it! Let’s flood the internet with Watercrossing!

Now available!
To read what early reviewers are saying about Watercrossing, click below!