During my 28 years at the Ohio Department of Education, I spent a great deal of time at State Board of Education meetings. One of the Board’s primary responsibilities was (and still is) to revoke the licenses of educators who, because of criminal or otherwise inappropriate behavior, were deemed unfit to work in a school environment. The crime could be something relatively minor, such as shoplifting, but often it was far more serious — domestic violence, menacing, or sexual abuse of some kind. The sexual abuse crimes usually involved a male educator having an illicit relationship with a female student. The guilty educators were always facing a lengthy jail sentence in addition to the revocation of their licenses. And their female victims? Their fate was usually not revealed at the State Board meetings, but it’s safe to say, that a long and difficult recovery was ahead of them.

As a man with two daughters (and now three granddaughters and a stepdaughter), I grieved for the girls who suffered at the hands of these selfish, lecherous individuals. But their plight did impact me in one positive way — it inspired me to write my third YA novel. I started writing Diary of a Girl in Trouble almost five years ago; it is now nearing completion. It still needs some fine tuning. It would also probably benefit from being reviewed by one or two more beta readers. Just the same, I should be ready to send a completed draft to publishers before the end of summer.

I don’t want to say too much more about Diary of a Girl in Trouble and spoil it for potential readers. The following blurb provides some idea of the plot.

It has to be a joke. That’s what high school senior Collin Morris thinks when a brown felt-covered diary falls out of his backpack along with his textbooks one evening.  But after reading only half the diary, Collin realizes it’s no joke. It’s the narrative of a female classmate desperately seeking to escape an abusive boyfriend who holds some grip on her because she “cheated.”  But who is the “girl in trouble” who wrote the diary? How did it get into his backpack? And who is the abusive boyfriend the girl refers to only as “Red Lion?” With help from his brainy, allergy-afflicted friend Herbie Kessler, Collin sets off to answer these questions and rescue the girl, but in the end, he may be the one who needs to be rescued.

Since writing is a serious hobby for me — and not a source of livelihood, — I plan to give a good share of the royalties this book generates to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network. RAINN is America’s largest anti-sexual violence organization. Besides working to prevent sexual violence, RAINN may offer the best hope for those who have already become victims.

Look for another post on Diary of a Girl in Trouble when it’s ready to hit the market.