Sorry for the long absence! The last few months have seen a few major transitions in my life - I got a job at Red Room.com, and I moved from Brooklyn to San Francisco! I’ve been spending the last month settling in, learning the ropes at my new job, and doing my best to answer the emails I’ve been receiving from all of you! First, I’d like to tell you a little bit about where I work…

Red Room is the online home of the world’s greatest writers, and I’m honored to be listed in the same company as Ishmael Reed, Salman Rushdie, Maya Angelou, and over a thousand others. My official title at Red Room is Community Coordinator, which basically means that I work within the Community Department coordinating all aspects of maintaining the non-technical aspects of the site, as well as working to expand our community and communicate with our authors and members. We’re aiming to become the Facebook for the literary world, with a free and elegant place for avid readers, writers, agents, and publishers to communicate, connect, and promote their work. In the future, I’ll be blogging far more frequently at Red Room, and you can read my blog by clicking here.

Moving and my new job haven’t taken up all of my time, however. I was interviewed by author Carolyn Ellis for her award winning podcast, Divorce 101. It was a terrific two part interview, and you check it out here and here. Thanks Carolyn!

I also had the opportunity to read the book School Days and the Divorce Maze, by Dr Renae Lapin. Using a career’s worth of experience, Dr. Lapin makes sure to ask all the questions parents might forget to ask when it comes to dealing with the logistics that come with raising a child under split custody. I also communicated with Kara Bishop, who runs an innovative campaign called Postcards from Splitsville, where kids can send their parents postcards explaining how they feel. Make sure to check out her website here.

In other news, I’m finally starting work on my next book, one that will help parents avoid making the worst and most common mistakes that come with raising a child after divorce. If you can think of anything that you or your parents did that you wish they hadn’t don’t hesitate to share your story with me by emailing me. That’s all for now, and remember to check out my blog at Red Room, as I’ll be posting there a lot more often. Thanks for reading.

This has been a very exciting week – out of the wild blue internet, I received an email here from Sarah Hampson, a columnist for Canada’s Globe And Mail. We had  a great conversation on Tuesday, and today she published a really nice article about divorce from a kid’s perspective, and had some really nice words to add about my story and my book. Thanks Sarah!

For all of you who are just finding me, Welcome! I’m excited you’re here, and even more excited to hear from you and share your stories. Divorce is always a unique experience, and the only thing they have in common is that they’re never easy. And really, as a kid, growing up is complicated enough – divorce should be the least of your problems. I wrote this book to be a real practical guide, to help you realize that you still have control over your life, no matter how distracting your parents’ situation may be.

So please, have a look around, check out some more interviews and some of my fun links, and if you have a minute, drop me a line at askmax@survivingyourparentsdivorce.com. Thanks for reading.

Wow! (Is it March already?)

It’s been a really busy couple of months, and exciting ones too. First, let me say thanks to all the people who’ve written in with questions and comments. I can’t tell you how much it means to connect with kids and parents. I feel like this has been my little project for so long that it’s almost unreal to see it actually touching people in the real world, and nothing makes me happier.

It’s also been a bit surreal to go straight from college to the world of PR and book promotion. It’s definitely been a learning experience, and I’ve been meeting some terrific people across the country along the way. Most recently, I was interviewed by Mike Walter from CBS affiliate Channel 9 in Washington D.C, and he wrote a really nice post about it on his blog, which you can check out here. Thanks Mike! I’ve also been featured in a number of new publications in print and online, and you can check those out in the Press and Podcasts section.

Like I said, the best part of this whole process so far has been actually connecting with kids and parents and hearing their stories. In November I went back to my old Middle School, Del Mar School in Tiburon, CA, and met with kids and parents about finding the bright side of their situations. It was a great experience to sit down with my old school counselor who helped me out so much along with a whole new generation of kids who are struggling to make the most of the cards they’ve been dealt. To Gordon and his mother, Heidi - you guys are on the right track. Thanks so much for sharing your stories.

I’ve also had the privilege this month of responding to DJ, a student at Glenwood Elementary School on San Rafael who wrote me asking about what it’s like to be an author. Here’s his questions, and my responses:

1) What’s hard about being an author?
I’ve only been an author for a little while, but so far, the hardest part is forcing myself to write every day. It can be very easy to get distracted by other things like friends, family and work, but I can’t call myself an author unless I’m writing.

It’s also difficult to be just an author unless your book is very successful, and it can be difficult as you write, to convince yourself that it’s worth the time. But in the end, You have to have confidence in what you have to say, and what you want to share.

2) What’s your favorite book you’ve written?
Well so far I’ve only written one book, so it’s my favorite by default. In the future, if I ever get some of my poems published, then that would become my favorite.

3) Where do you get your ideas?
For the books I’m writing now about divorce, a lot comes from my own experience. I realized I felt differently about divorce than a lot of people, and I wanted to get those ideas out into the world. A lot of times though, especially for writing poetry or fiction, the best thing can be to just start writing. It doesn’t matter if you think it’s boring, or not interesting, because after fifteen minutes, you’ll probably find yourself writing about something you never would have thought of in the first place.

I also received an email from a firefighter in Texas who’s worried that after his recent and relatively painless divorce with his wife, his kids aren’t telling him the whole truth about how they feel. I told him that the best thing to do is to let his kids know that he’s ready to talk to them when they are, but not to try and force them to “confess” their feelings of unhappiness. At the same time, if the kids have a real issue with their father, the sooner they address it, the happier they’ll all be as a family, instead of keeping it buried under the surface.

Thanks again to everyone who’s been sending in questions stories, and comments. I won’t be able to get to all of them on the blog, and of course if you want to keep your email private, just say so. I look forward to hearing from you!

Hello and welcome to the home of The Bright Side, Your Guide to Surviving Your Parents’ Divorce. As a kid growing up and dealing with my parents’ divorce, I wished there was a book that dealt with practical situations, like how to travel by myself, manage living in two houses, or get my parents to listen to me. After never being able to find the right book, I decided to write it.

It’s been an exciting couple of weeks – I appeared on my first national show, The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet on FOX. I was really nervous, but I think it went fine. You can check it out soon on my Press & Podcasts page. In November I’ll be spending a couple of weeks back home in The San Francisco Bay Area, where I’ll be doing a book signing at Book Passage in Corte Madera on Friday, November 23.

I’m excited to get to know you and hear your stories, as well as help you out with some useful advice. Take a look around the site to learn more about me and the book if you don’t already have it, as well as a page of some fun, interesting, or useful links. If you’re interested in getting a copy of The Bright Side, there are links to Amazon and Barnes & Noble at the bottom of every page. Thanks for visiting, and I look forward to hearing from you!

From now on, this space will be where I answer your questions about anything, and I’ll do my best to answer 3-5 each week, or more if I can. Eventually I hope this site becomes a real resource for kids who need some help in dealing with divorce. It’s rarely easy, but in the end, I hope I can help you make the best of it. Even if you don’t have a question, please feel free to email me about stories, suggestions, or anything else. If you have a question, but you don’t want me to post the answer, let me know in your email, and I’ll do my best to get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks for visiting.