Steve Cotler Steve Cotler

Category: Cheesie Mack

Cheesie Mack’s Second Book Is in the Bookstores!

— 9:03 pm · View all 3 comments

Cheesie Mack Is Cool in a Duel is everywhere! It’s now available in bookstores and online in every format.

With a cast of hundreds at the greatest summer camp in the whole known universe, Cheesie and his best buddy Georgie are stunned to find out they will not be the oldest of the Little Guys (with all those privileges and special benefits), but instead will be bunking with a cabin of unfriendly Big Guys.

From champs to chumps before the summer even gets started!

The bullying and taunting Continue reading “Cheesie Mack’s Second Book Is in the Bookstores!” →

Cheesie Mack in “Publishers Weekly”

— 12:29 pm · Comments Off on Cheesie Mack in “Publishers Weekly”

My first book, Cheesie Mack Is Not a Genius or Anything, was released by Random House Children’s Books almost exactly one year ago. Since then I have visited over 80 schools across the country…in Massachusetts (Cheesie lives in Gloucester), New York, California, Oklahoma, Nevada, Florida, Washington, Idaho, and I can’t remember where else.

Kids love the book (witness this comment on Cheesie’s website today from a girl in Florida: “This book is so great i finished reading it in 2 days!!!!!i just don’t want to stop reading it!!!!!!). Even better, teachers have told me the stealth educational content I slipped into the laugh-out-loud story ties right in with middle-grades lesson plans.

Laughing and learning…the perfect combo!

The paperback will be released in May, and the second book in the series, Cheesie Mack Is Cool in a Duel, comes out in June. Publishers Weekly noted all this in today’s issue and included the terrific photo above from a visit I made this month to Calusa Elementary School in Miami.

This is great fun. I am having a ball!

photo credit: Maggie Diaz

Two Lives in a Small Town

— 6:22 pm · One comment

The following, in Shonnie Brown’s “Neighbors” column, appeared in The Healdsburg Tribune, our local weekly, on February 9, 2012. [Most of the images were not in the original.]

*     *     *     *     *

Ann, born and raised in Casper, Wyoming, has the dubious distinction of attending high school with both Dick and Lynne Cheney and participating in student government with Dick. Dick, who Ann recalls as being “good looking” back then, wrote “I’ll be your friend forever” in Ann’s yearbook.

Ann attended a Catholic college in Denver and then got married — resulting in a breakup and three kids. She returned to college, putting herself through law school, and then became a New Jersey prosecutor. She moved to the Bay Area in 1984 and Continue reading “Two Lives in a Small Town” →

School Breakfast Sugar

— 11:07 pm · View all 3 comments

At a school I recently visited on my Cheesie Mack book tour, I arrived as breakfast was being served. It was a sugary, carbo feast, consisting of a paper carton of chocolate milk, a plastic container of sweetened applesauce and a hard boiled egg in a twist-tied plastic bag, and a cinnamon bun in cellophane. All four items were packaged in a plastic container. Of the forty children (ages 7-11) whom I witnessed, a few paid their $1.50, but most of the breakfasts were subsidized by government funds. Since I had 15 minutes until my first group of students would arrive for their hour with an author, I observed the breakfast.

Most striking was the gusto the cinnamon buns engendered. Every child consumed every crumb and icing drizzle. Continue reading “School Breakfast Sugar” →

Celebrating the Holidays and Rewriting

— 10:46 am · Comments Off on Celebrating the Holidays and Rewriting

My web design firm, Waxcreative Design, knows how to get authors noticed.

In addition to great aesthetics, they are expert at branding, marketing, and promotion. They are also good people. I am honored this Holiday Season to be featured on their New Year’s card.

photo credit: Ros Edmonds

About 100 school sessions ago, Continue reading “Celebrating the Holidays and Rewriting” →

Steve with students at an author event

Posts by Month

Categories

Tags

AAUW Abraham Lincoln Altarock Energy Argosy Music Barack Obama Bernard Madoff Capitalism Cheesie Mack Cheesie Mack Is Not a Genius or Anything Connecticut Dennis Hopper EGS England Enhanced Geothermal Systems evolution Final Four Florida George W. Bush Harvard Harvard Business School HEARTWOOD Hy Zaret It Could Be a Wonderful World Lake County Lincoln Little Songs on Big Subjects Lou singer Madoff Martin Luther King MLK New York Times Obama Oxnard Pobba Prius racism SSP st. croix Summer Science Program The Geysers The Jesters Tolerance Traveling Broadens One wine country Wyoming