It's a good thing we have a holiday dedicated to thankfulness. Otherwise I would rarely give my blessings a thought. I am one of those "the glass is half empty" people. So here is what fills my glass this year.
Sorry, Carmela, but I have to begin with one you already mentioned, our terrific Vermont College MFA group, The Hive. Outside of my family, they are my longest sustained relationship. Most of us met on the airport bus going to campus on a July evening in 1998. Rarely a day goes by that at I am not in contact with at least one of them. Collectively, they are a never-ending source of energy, enthusiasm and advice. I truly do not know how I survived as a writer without them. Thank you, lovely Bees!
Next up on the gratitude list is my own local critique group, WINGS (Writers in North Georgia). Every month (with occasional sabbaticals) since October 2001, I have driven the hundred miles, round trip, to meet with this group of five in Conyers, Georgia. Driving that far in Atlanta traffic is no small matter, but the reward is worth every nerve-wracking mile. Connie, Nancy, T.K. and Stephanie as well as our Fearless Leader Susan (plus member-in-absentia, Maureen) are the best writers and critiquers one could ever hope to find. Almost everything I have published is the result of their sharp eyes and spot-on suggestions. I could not fly without my WINGS.
Lastly, I am grateful for SCBWI, The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (we writers do like our acronyms!) I learned about SCBWI from a Hive member while I was at Vermont College and wasted no time joining. SCBWI is more than just an organization of like minded people.
It is an endless supply of all a writer needs: the latest publishing information, editorial contacts, writing conferences, and most of all Opportunity (with a capital O). The conferences alone provide the opportunity to meet editors and agents, to submit manuscripts to houses that would otherwise be closed to unagented authors (like me), to have work critiqued by industry professionals. SCBWI, you are worth every penny in membership dues and conference fees.
To enter our latest giveaway, a copy of Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market, check Carmela's Friday post. (http://www.teachingauthors.com/2014/11/thanks-giving-CWIM-giveaway.html). Good luck and Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.
Posted by Mary Ann Rodman
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Today is the last day of our Ten Days of Thanks-Giving. The event was inspired by Esther's post about a poetry form called the THANKU, a thank-you note in haiku form. We TeachingAuthors decided to sponsor the Ten Days of Thanks-Giving as an opportunity for our readers, students, and everyone in the Kidlitosphere to share their own thank-yous. We hope to make this an annual event taking place every November 20-30.
Today, I'll share some of the thank you notes we received, and a roundup of links to sites where fellow bloggers posted their thank-yous. But first, I want to share my own THANKU.
On Monday, Mary Ann wrote about being thankful for the Hive, a group of Vermont College alumni that we're both blessed to be part of. My thank you today is an appropriate follow-up to that post because it's to the woman responsible for my attending Vermont College: my teacher, mentor, and friend, Sharon Darrow. I've known Sharon for so long now that I can't even recall how we first met. However, I do remember the fateful day when we had lunch together and I mentioned my desire to take some advanced writing classes. Sharon encouraged me to apply to the Vermont College MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults instead. The idea terrified me. Who was I to try to get an MFA in writing? My undergraduate degree was in Math and Computer Science! But Sharon had such faith in me that I decided to take the plunge and apply. Little did I know then all the wonderful things my acceptance to VC would lead to.
Now, to share some of the thank you notes and comments we received during our Ten Days of Thanks-Giving. As it happens, just this morning Bobby Miller, a terrific writer I met when we were both students at Vermont College, posted a Vermont College-related thank-you comment on Mary Ann's post of yesterday:
I share my big Thank You to the MFA/Writing for Children program. It changed my life, personally and professionally. It brought my life's goal into focus, gave it purpose. And I walked away with treasured friendships.
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Conventional wisdom says that the friends you make in college are the ones you make for life, whether you are twenty, or firmly in middle-age. I never expected to make twelve new BFF's in my forties, but I did. My ThankU goes out to my Vermont College MFA in Writing for Children classmates, Summer '00, aka "The Hive." These incredible writers have become a part of my life, both personally and professionally. Who would have thought when we met in the luggage claim at the Burlington Airport, July 1998, that we still be the close-knit group we are today?
I belong to a terrific critique group here in Georgia, all. I am a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, and through that organization I have writing friends all over the country. (If there is one thing we need in this solitary life we've chosen, it's friends who also write!) Yet none of these wonderful people have become part of my family, and I, theirs. Within the Hive, we know the status of each other's manuscripts. We share our collective knowledge of editors, agents, publishers, and other writers. We have seen each other through the death of spouses and parents, pregnancy and illness. Together we have shepherded our children from "the terrible twos" to the troublesome teens to college and marriage and another generation.
At first meeting, we were as diverse a group as you could find, aged twenty-something to seventy-something, with most of us somewhere smack in the middle. We came from all over the country, and just for something completely different, Thailand (that was me). In fact, had I not had my fellow "Bees" as close as my computer screen, I never would have survived my year and a half on the other side of the world. I remember the Thanksgiving my husband was on assignment in China, and the Bees kept emailing me to keep me from being too homesick, alone in my Bangkok high rise with a four-year-old.
When we came to Vermont College, differences in age, geography and previous publishing experience were forgotten. What mattered is that we had the same desire…to become the best possible writer we could. So intense were we, hanging on our instructors' every word, that our class loomed large on the faculty radar. We believe it was one of those instructors, Brock Cole, who inadvertently dubbed as "bees" because we fairly buzzed with questions and enthusiasm. So, if individually we were Bees, together we were "The Hive."
Not everyone in our class wished to maintain contact after graduation. Some members of the considerably smaller Winter '00 class wanted to be part of the Hive. We were honored that someone wanted to cast their lot with our busy bunch. It is hard to remember now when those two members were one of our number.
When I tell other writers about The Hive, they always ask how often we hear from each other. They are amazed that the answer is "couple of times a day." On the rare occasions that The Hive falls silent, someone (usually JoAnn) will send out an email on the order of "Where is everybody?" If one of us doesn't log in for a period of time, someone is sure to email (or even call) to make sure all is well.
Because we are scattered across the country, we have never physically all been together in the same place, not even at graduation. (The two "Bee adoptees" graduated before us.) We have managed to get a good number of them together in one place for various reunions, but never all of us. Still, we see each other more than most families do. If one of us is speaking in a Bee's hometown, you can be sure that any Bee within a fifty mile radius will be there too.
So...for all the manuscripts you've critiqued, rejection letters you've suffered through
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The latest installment of our Ypulse Youth Website Profile series is a review of the recently launched music site Noisey, which has been called what MTV would have made if it cared about music. What it is… A music discovery site. Noisey tips off... Read the rest of this post
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I am thankful for:
family and friends,
cats, dogs,
fish, frogs,
people and places,
dungeons and maces,
Wait not thankful for that...
...it just rhymes.
Thank you for doing, Carmela. It's been great to read all along, & wonderful to see all the words today. I've really enjoyed this blog & all that you all are trying to do.
Hurray, Tyler! Love the humor in your poem. Thanks for participating.
And Linda, thanks for the lovely comment.
I'm pretty late, but want to share my Thanku to my granddaughter Lindsay for terrific help in revising a poem recently.
you oiled mired wheels
pushed my poem from its rut
your words, my words - WOW
Grateful to the 10 Days (catching it at the tail end. was in a cave of thesis-writing.)
Grateful to be able to try to learn to say Thank You in
many languages.
This includes some of the 560 ways of Thank You in First Languages of Peoples here before arrival of the Spanish, French & other beautiful languages that came from over the big water.
Often, thanks were so extensively prayed that it was a challenge to isolate one or two words to represent the concept.
If you like to post this, the safe site is
http://users.elite.net/runner/jennifers/thankyou.htm
And so I thank all of you, but especially the brave young creative writing students mentioned.
If that link doesn't work about Thank You in many languages please try
ttp://users.elite.net/runner/jennifers/thankyou.htm#M
I think the #M may have disappeared from a previous post.
THANK YOU!
I'm thinking our Ten Days of Thanksgiving offering proved the Kent State University social scientists I referenced in my original October 20 Thanku post right: people who compose short letters of gratitude do indeed experience a significant increase in their overall happiness!
I followed every link, I read each and every Thanku, I can't wait to share with my Young Writers the 465 ways to say Thanks that Jan shared this morning.
ThankU, TeachingAuthors readers. for taking and making the time to put some Good back in our World.
Carmella, thank YOU! I remember when we first met; I knew you were a writer from that first meeting. I'm so happy you have followed your dreams and achieved so much. You've encouraged me along the way, too, you know. I still have the quote you gave me about having the courage to take the first step and unseen forces will rise to your aid. That has kept me going through many difficult days.
Joyce, no matter that you were a last-minute participant. I love the image of pushing the poem from its rut. Beautiful!
Jan--what an amazing site! Thanks so much for sharing it with us.
Sharon, it does my heart good to know that I encouraged you, too. Take good care, my friend.