Happy New Year’s Eve 2016! I hope everyone is having a happy holiday season! My last blog for 2016 celebrates the holidays by encouraging everyone to give back! I want to promote these three organizations as worthy causes for your donations – the Orlando Youth Alliance, the Southeast Symphony, and We Need Diverse Books. More information below on these wonderful groups…

The opening ceremony for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio is tonight! I always look forward to the Olympics (both winter & summer) because my first published children’s picture book was about Olympic champion diver Dr. Sammy Lee, a Korean American who broke racial barriers with his back to back Gold Medals in the 1948 and 1952 Summer Olympics. Dr. Lee ...

It’s 11:30 PM on a Tuesday night, and I just got home from visiting artist TIM YOUD as he typed Novel #47 out of his 100 Novels Project. He’s currently typing John Rechy’s City of Night at the LACE art gallery on Hollywood Boulevard from June 15 to July 1, 2016 every night from 10 PM to 3 AM. (Info here: http://welcometolace.org/event/overnight-at-lace/)

UPDATE AS OF JULY 18, 2016: Thank you to everyone who donated YA novels and children’s books, comic books, and DVDs featuring positive LGBTQIA+ characters and themes for the Orlando Youth Alliance. I received a beautiful letter from their president, Michael Slaymaker, thanking us. He wrote the following: “Roberto, a longtime member of the Orlando Youth Alliance, left Pulse Night Club 30 ...

Welcome to THE GREENHOUSE! I’m excited and honored to be working for the U.S. adaptation of the extremely popular and awesome youth TV series from Israel for Netflix! “The Greenhouse,” slated to be released in 2017 from Netflix, is set in an elite boarding school in Southern California, where students are divided into two rival houses that must join forces ...

We’ve Moved to a New Website! Welcome to the official NATIONAL PICTURE BOOK WRITING WEEK ARCHIVES now here! From January 1, 2016 onwards – NAPIBOWRIWEE has moved. It is NO LONGER HERE. Please visit our NEW website here: http://napibowriwee.com This old website now hosts the 2009 to 2015 NAPIBOWRIWEE archives only. The new website will host the May 1-7, 2016 NAPIBOWRIWEE event ...

Hi! I’m excited to announce that my next book project will launch on February 15, 2016 from LEE & LOW BOOKS. I wrote the first two books of the new “Confetti Kids” early reader book series from Lee & Low’s new “Dive Into Reading” line. The books are illustrated by the wonderfully talented artist SHIRLEY NG-BENITEZ. In the the first book, ...

I’m still recovering from an intense but fun weekend in beautiful Madison, Wisconsin, where I was one of the winners of the 2015 South Asia Book Awards for my children’s picture book biography, TWENTY-TWO CENTS: MUHAMMAD YUNUS AND THE VILLAGE BANK (illustrated by Jamel Akib, Lee & Low Books 2014).  The South Asia Book Award is given by the South Asia National ...

Hi! Hope everyone is having good summer! I haven’t posted a “real” blog in a long time. Mainly because I tweet everything live @paulayoo. So I decided to do a “greatest hits” blog of my recent tweets. 🙂 Here’s my Summer 2015 Update blog to let everyone know what I’ve been up to lately!  Awards Round-Up:  I’m honored that my ...