Writers in our Backyard

Before the book tours and the shiny stickers on the cover, there was a kitchen table. A pot of coffee, a stack of bills, a notebook pushed between crumbs and school forms. In Rhode Island, some of the world’s most beloved stories began exactly like this—scribbled after bedtime, drafted on lunch breaks, whispered into the glow of a quiet lamp.

Writers in Our Backyard is Khiton’s intimate conversations with these local voices: the authors who went from neighborhood walks to New York Times bestseller lists, from sketching picture-book ideas to Caldecott dreams realized. Here we trace their roots, honor their ordinary beginnings, and invite you to meet them not as distant literary stars, but as neighbors-

people who started exactly where you are, with a blank page and a stubborn hope.

This series begins in our very first issue of Khiton.