It was a happy day, here at my writer’s residence in Amsterdam. I’d been working on The Pot Boat, my new YA novel, getting into a – not too literal – pot flow and drawing up questions for my esteemed science connection about tappin’ ‘n volts ‘n watts. I know, I know, once I was a science girl, too, but most of that priceless stuff they put in my in head in high school, kinda got lost along the way. I need my facts straight, so I turned to the best high school science teacher in Amsterdam and far beyond (he’ll be in the book!) to guide me along electrocution’s fine lines.

So there I was, at my desk thinking up all the questions my protagonist has, when I heard a soft plonk in the downstairs mailbox. Good old snail mail! The plonking suggested something more exciting than just bills. I ran downstairs – o, the things we writers do to procrastinate…
A big envelop was today’s prize. I took it upstairs and opened it. And there it was…
Ridders, dino’s en piraten – Knights, Dino’s and Pirates – a volume of read aloud stories for tough boys published by Ploegsma. On page 42/43 is my story ‘De koekjesdief’ – ‘The Cooky Thief’ – with an awesome illustration by Noëlle Smit. I am so happy with it. It looks so good!
I was even happier when I noticed that quite some of the other writers are Famous: Paul Biegel, Astrid Lindgren, Annie M.G. Schmidt, Tjibbe Veldkamp…

Ridders, dino’s en piraten will be in the stores any day now!

Page 42/43 - The Cooky Thief (by Mina Witteman)