Hiya!

Jennie Baker Photography

I'm Melissa Wiley, a children’s book author living in Portland, Oregon. I write about the ways my family and I engage with all kinds of creative practice. This means posts about books (reading them and writing them), art, handstitching, backyard habitat development, film club, music, tidal homeschooling, and the apps and systems I use to enable all this juicy exploration to happen.

Show-and-tell is my love language

This space is my catalog of enthusiasms—the digital equivalent of the pile of books and links and apps and art supplies and conversation topics I would be sure to thrust upon you if we were hanging out in person. 

Who I am

I'm the author of more than a dozen books for kids, including The Nerviest Girl in the World, The Prairie Thief, Fox and Crow Are Not Friends, and many others. I also write literature guides about middle-grade novels for Brave Writer and am co-host of the Brave Writer podcast with Julie Bogart.

My hope is to help fill the well for your own creative practice.

My actual studio is crammed so full of books and art supplies and project tables that you might have to sit on the floor. But this Substack is wide open. We have all the space we need. Let's get cozy, let's get creative, let's make connections.

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Subscribe to get full access to the newsletter and website, including community discussion threads. Never miss an update. If you are able, I invite you to become a paid subscriber, which grants you access to additional content including juicy discussion threads and behind-the-scenes updates on new books.

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Show-and-tell is my love language

People

Melissa Wiley

Author of THE NERVIEST GIRL IN THE WORLD, THE PRAIRIE THIEF, FOX AND CROW ARE NOT FRIENDS, INCH & ROLY & other books for kids. Cohost of The Brave Writer Podcast. Obsessive stitcher. Tidal homeschooler. Henry Winkler told me I have a good handshake.