Congratulations to
Mary Ann, winner of our latest giveaway! She will soon receive a copy of the anthology
Ladybug, Ladybug and Other Favorite Poems, which features Cathy Cronin's poem "Firefly." Mary Ann shared that in honor of National Poetry Month, she is highlighting poetry books on her blog,
Reading, Writing, and Recipes, all month long. In fact, she even mentions
Ladybug, Ladybug in
one of her posts.
April is an especially busy month here at
TeachingAuthors.com: next Thursday we will celebrate our first
Blogiversary! As part of our celebration, we'll be offering a unique giveaway. I'm going to keep you in suspense until then. Meanwhile, keep celebrating
National Poetry Month and
National Library Week.
Happy Writing!
Carmela
I am again thrilled to feature one of my former students as a TeachingAuthors "Student Success Story"!
We hope that sharing the accomplishments of our writing students will help inspire other teachers and aspiring writers. Today I am honored to introduce you to Cathy Cronin.
Cathy was a student in a Continuing Education class I taught on Writing for Children and Young Adults at the College of DuPage in the summer of 2001. (One of her classmates, Laura Crawford, is another Student Success Story.) Cathy is a writer, poet, blogger, and a busy mother of three. Her poems have been published in a number of magazines for children. One of her poems also appears in the anthology, Ladybug, Ladybug and Other Favorite Poems (Cricket Books). Cathy is donating a copy of Ladybug, Ladybug for our giveaway today in honor of National Poetry Month. (If you haven't been following our own April Halprin Wayland's Poem-A-Day challenge, I encourage you to do so here.) Instructions for entering our drawing are at the end of this post.
Cathy, what inspired you to sign up for my class?
I have always loved writing and have done it since I was a child. But it wasn’t until after my second child was born that I started to consider writing for children. After reading so many books to them, I was reminded how much I loved children’s books and wanted to give it a try. I read several books on how to write for children and joined a critique group. When I heard about your class “Writing Fiction for Children and Young Adults” I knew it would be perfect. Your course covered all aspects of children’s writing and was taught by an experienced author. It was just the foundation I needed.
Do you recall any specific ways the class helped you?This class was a wonderful experience. It covered everything from elements of fiction, manuscript preparation, revision, submitting and more. The group critiques in class were so helpful. My favorite part was studying other picture books. Analyzing them helped me to identify “why” I liked certain stories and helped me to make my stories better. I also left the class with solid “next steps” for submitting and a new focus for my writing journey.
Since taking my class, you have had success getting your poetry published in a number of children’s magazines. Do you have any particular strategy for deciding where to submit your work and/or tips for other writers trying to break into magazines? The summer of your class (July 2001), I sold my first three poems to
By: Carmela Martino and 5 other authors,
on 4/15/2010
We hope that sharing the accomplishments of our writing students will help inspire other teachers and aspiring writers. Today I am honored to introduce you to Cathy Cronin.
Carmela, I'm so excited to have won Ladybug, Ladybug, and Other Favorite Poems. Thank you, too, for linking to my blog, Reading, Writing, and Recipes. I think getting kids to read is fundamental. I want them to think, too. In addition to featuring books on Reading Mondays, my blog activities include Recipe Wednesdays and Writing Fridays, all connected to a weekly theme. This week it's all about pajamas. Coming up next is a week devoted to Earth Day.
I love how you connect reading, writing, and food on your blog, Mary Ann. We did a series of posts here on TeachingAuthors on "food in fiction." You can read them here:
http://www.teachingauthors.com/search/label/Food%20into%20Fiction
Happy Reading, Writing, AND Eating!