November 17th-18th, 2017 Cottonfest – Robstown, Texas
Attended my second Cottonfest, this time as both an author and musician as our 80s band Freeze Frame opened up for the Spazmatics Saturday night (I play bass). Had a great time meeting new readers, talking about my books and catching up with old friends. As for taking the stage, enjoyed playing to an electric crowd. Successful weekend and special thanks to the organizers of Cottonfest and everybody who helped set up and break down after it was all over!
November 11, 2017 McAllen Book Festival – McAllen, Texas
Had a blast at the McAllen Book Festival on Saturday, Nov 11th. Beautiful library, great staff and met some big-time readers and enjoyed spending time with fellow authors. Love the writing community! Thanks to all volunteers & organizers and especially for the opportunity to be a part of this excellent event.
November 10, 2017 Sgt M. Chacon Middle School – Mercedes, Texas
Got to visit the 7th and 8th graders of Chacon Middle School Mercedes with 4 sessions. Had a GREAT time. The Chacon students & staff were welcoming and fun (special thanks to head librarian Dahlia de la Cerda!) Thankful for the invitation and special note – I got to sign my first set of sneakers! Air Lobos, maybe? I’ll keep working on that one…
October 31, 2017 Halloween Reading at River Oaks Elementary
Reading and speaking to Mrs. Gomez and Mrs. Olivos’ 4th-grade classes at River Oaks Elementary in Austin on Halloween morning. Great start to the day!
August 3, 2017 LitPick Video Review
Have spent most of this summer writing, working on Books 2 and 3 to the Dead Club and also working on an adult/YA supernatural book. Today I received a surprise e-mail from LitPick, the student-based review site that gave Lobo a great written review back in March. Apparently, one of their students put together a video review on YouTube and I just watched it. Check out my first video review…
May 16, 2017 Career Showcase at Union Hill Elementary in Round Rock, Texas
Career Day visit where I spoke to about fifty 5th graders throughout the day in multiple 25 minute sessions. Kids were engaged, energetic and EXTREMELY polite! A few days ago I received a package with thank you letters written by some of the students and enjoyed reading every one of them. Excellent visit and thank you to Union Hill for the invite!
March 31, 2017 5-Star Review for Lobo Coronado!
Lobo received its first official 5-Star review from Litpick.com! What I enjoyed about this site is that books are reviewed by preteens/teens and young adults and they use their reviews to recommend books to librarians/educators and parents. Lobo was reviewed by a 15-year-old student and fortunately, he seemed to like it
You can click the icon below to read the full review.
March 18, 2017 Official Book Signing for Lobo Coronado and the Legacy of the Wolf
The first official book signing for Lobo Coronado at the Nueces County Keach Family Library was a success! Thanks to family, friends, loyal readers and new readers that made it out. Enjoyed it and had fun speaking to the crowd.
March 3, 2017 Read Across America visit in San Antonio
Had a great visit with 5th graders at Esparza Elementary in San Antonio last Friday. It was supposed to be two 30 minute sessions but it was a short day and the kids had so many questions they turned into 45+ minutes each. The students were truly excited about the books on the last day of “Read Across America” week and I had so many volunteers willing to participate. That’s something I love to see! Thanks to Reading Specialist Kristin Valadez, Librarian Malissa Mobley and especially Casey Wilder for their hospitality. I actually attended school in San Antonio for 4th and 5th grade and it was nice to be back visiting the district.
I also got to take my niece Andrea, a Junior at UTSA, for a Chick-Fil-A snack before heading back home! Long day, but had fun!
Here are a few pics with the classes, including my volunteer actors who help me teach concepts of creating characters and moving a story along and dealing with changes during editing and Chick-Fil-A snack time!. I even got an awesome illustration from a young student named Olivia – my very own Pluffarin!
February 18, 2017
Participated in the 3rd annual Teen Bookfest by the Bay (my 2nd year) in Corpus Christi! Had an absolute BLAST! The American Bank Center was cool, my panel was incredible and the folks who spent a YEAR putting this together – those amazing librarians, volunteers and sponsors – went above and beyond. The great Texas hospitality and organization of the event was mentioned to me by several out-of-state authors and I couldn’t be prouder how this represented Corpus Christi! Thank you, thank you, thank you! Special shout out to Debbie Carroll VanZandt and the entire crew who made this so special.
February 17, 2017
School visit to Miller High School in Corpus Christi, Texas. Students from 7th grade through Seniors in four sessions throughout the day. Had fun! Special thanks to Librarian Luanna Ortiz and Library Asst. Santos Franco. Special Note: Signed my first Pokemon card! 🙂
February 9, 2017
Lobo Coronado and the Legacy of the Wolf is LIVE! Available on E-book and Paperback – click the “Buy Lobo” link to the left or the cover below to buy!
FREE SHORT STORIES!
Sign up for my Newsletter and receive 3 short stories. You can sign up by clicking the cover below. Write an online review for Lobo Coronado and send your review link/snapshot to manuel@manuelruiz3.com and receive 2 more short stories!
February 5, 2017 – NaNoWriMo
Back in December 2016, I was contacted about contributing to a NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) blog in Jan/Feb for their “Now What?” months. I subbed my entry, it was accepted and was published today. NaNoWriMo is an annual event where writers attempt to write 50,000 words in the month of November (and it’s free!). I participated for the first time and finished 52K words in 14 days. I encourage prospective writers to try this, esp students and educators through their Young Writers Program.
Here is a link to the post.
February 2, 2017
Lobo Coronado and the Legacy of the Wolf is available for Kindle Pre-order at Amazon.com! Release Date is ONE week away on February 9, 2017. Click the cover image or “Buy Lobo” button on the left to purchase!
January 26, 2017
Got to be a Science Fair judge at Double File Trail Elementary. Some great projects out there!
December 14, 2016
Took part in Indie Author night at Half-Price Books in Austin, Texas!
August 20, 2016
Participated in the first annual Robstown Art Blitz, representing the art of writing. It was an excellent community event and enjoyed the artists/artisans that participated – some great work out there!
English Teachers Rule!
June 28, 2016
The Dead Club received an excellent review on “Bethanie’s Books.” I feel like I just saw the original Star Wars for the first time when I was 8 years old…
https://bethaniesbooks.wordpress.com/2016/06/28/the-dead-club-by-manuel-ruiz-review-by-bethanie/
May 16, 2016
Class visit at West Oso Junior High in Corpus Christi, Texas where I met with the 6th-8th grade Language Arts students.They were fully engaged and we had a fun time talking about characters, movies, school activities, video games and writing. Thanks for letting me share some time with your awesome kids!
March 24, 2016
The Dead Club tour takes me to my HS Alma Mater – got to speak at Robstown High School in the same auditorium where I performed with band, jazz band, theater, mariachi and even my college rock band back in the 80’s. The school has been rebuilt over the years, but the auditorium is still the same. Some great memories as I spoke to each class and they represented true Picker pride.
Signed my first guitar!
February 29, 2016
A visit to one of my alma maters, Seale Junior High, on the first day of Read Across America week. I was able to speak to all 3 grades and the students were a blast. Special thanks to the librarian, Jessica McComb, for setting this up and to my student volunteers who performed on stage. Go Weevils!
February 20, 2016
Participated in the 2nd annual Teen Bookfest by the Bay on February 20, 2016 at Tuloso-Midway High School in Corpus Christi. There were roughly 20 authors/illustrators in total and this was my first time as a panelist. Great experience and had a wonderful time meeting students/teachers/librarians from the Rio Grande Valley, Houston, Corpus, and Robstown, to name a few. An incredible weekend overall and special thanks to all the librarians, educators and volunteers that put this together. It’s a great way to get students to meet authors and something I wish would have been around when I was still in school.
Here are a few pics with the authors, students and panel discussions. The 4 authors in my “The New (Para)Normal” panel were: David Bowles, Marcia Mickelson & CC Hunter, mediated by Amanda VanZandt. (@TBFBay)
February 1, 2016
Invited to participate in Career Day at St. Anthony’s Catholic School in Robstown, Texas. Spoke to 6th, 7th and 8th graders and students were a great audience. Here’s a pic with the 7th Graders holding their Dead Club bookmarks.
December 14, 2015
School visit to Farley Middle School in Hutto, Texas. I FINALLY got some pictures, so here they are (in May)! Enjoyed speaking to the students – some great kids at Farley!
November 12, 2015
Spoke to the Anne Frank Inspire Academy reading students in San Antonio. The teacher turned my visit into a project where students were only shown the book cover about 2 weeks before (tying it to their Dia de los Muertos lesson) and asked to do something creative with what they thought the book might be about. Got some great entries and was supposed to pick 3 winners, but I had a difficult time deciding and had to go with 4. Here are a few of the entries and some shots with the winners and my volunteer actors. Had a blast!
October 30, 2015
This awesome kid Dagan decided to dress up as his favorite character from “The Dead Club” for Literacy Parade at his school. Rock those shades, Grimmy!
October 10-11, 2015
Had my first official book signing (and “Book Talk”) at the Nueces County Keach Family Library in Robstown, Texas, and then spent the next 2 days at the local Cottonfest celebration. It was a memorable experience where I was interviewed on the radio as well as on the regional TV program “Domingo Live,” plus I got to meet some great people from all around Texas. Couldn’t have asked for a better weekend.
September 15, 2015
I made my first school visit today as a part of “International DOT Day,” which is dedicated to creativity and based on the children’s picture book “The Dot” by Peter Reynolds. I had never read this until this week and am so glad that I did. It’s short, simple and brilliant, all in just a few powerful pages. I spoke to 2 classes and incorporated my initial ideas for the Dead Club as my first “Dot.”
Thanks to CD Fulkes Middle School and their incredible library staff for having me. It was their first time celebrating this event and I was so glad to be a part of it. I shamelessly used candy (“Dots” of course) to keep them happy and had a great time meeting these awesome students!
August 22, 2015
BookPeople in Austin (largest independent bookstore in Texas) has The Dead Club on its shelves. Went into the store to see it for the first time and got a HUGE surprise on its placement. Harry is my neighbor! (See my Journal for more details.)
August 10, 2015
The paperback version of The Dead Club is live!
July 29, 2015
Second round of proofs for paperback version of The Dead Club arrive for review.
July 28, 2015
Death by Blog! goes live, giving the Dead Club members a connection to the living.
July 10, 2015
In the midst of a 5 day free promotion, “The Dead Club” hits #11 on Amazon under the “Children’s eBooks > Paranormal & Urban” category and #13 under “Children’s eBooks > Action & Adventure.”
July 5, 2015
“The Dead Club” E-book goes live on Amazon.