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Hi Everyone,
This month, we've been having a great time celebrating our BlogiVERSEary by sharing audio and video clips of the TeachingAuthors reciting some of our favorite poems. If you missed any of them, here are the links one more time, in the order posted:
Our actual blogiversary is tomorrow,
April 22. Believe it or not, we've been posting for
FIVE years!
Our blogiversary giveaway runs through
Wednesday, April 23, so if you haven't entered yet, be sure to do so
on this blog post. And while our blogiversary celebration is coming to a close, the Poetry Month fun continues with JoAnn's weekly poetry-themed
Wednesday Writing Workouts. JoAnn is also giving away copies of her terrific book,
Write a Poem Step by Step on her blog.
Before publishing my last blog post, I double-checked with April regarding the formatting of her poem "How to Read a Poem Aloud," which I was sharing in my post. I was surprised to learn that she'd revised the poem since its first publication. Unfortunately, the news came after I'd already uploaded my recording of the original poem to
SoundCloud and I didn't have time to re-record it before the post went live. I realized later that today's post was a great opportunity to share that revised version with you. I uploaded a new recording (email subscribers can
listen to it here) and I copied the latest version of the poem below. If you want to compare the two, you can
go back to my last post.
I'm hoping April will share with us her revision process, because, to be honest, I loved the poem the way it was. Of course, I like this version, too.
J
How to Read a Poem Aloud (Revised Version) by April Halprin Wayland
To begin, tell the poet’s name and the title to your friend.
Savor every word— let each line shine. Then— read it one more time.
Now, take a breath— and sigh.
Then think about the poet, at her desk, late at night, picking up her pen to write—
and why. © April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved.
Happy writing!
Carmela
By:
Carmela Martino and 5 other authors,
on 4/7/2014
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A HUGE thank you to Mary Lee, who blogs at A Year of Reading, for coining the word "blogiVERSEary" when she commented on April's post announcing our celebration and giveaway.
BlogiVERSEary is the perfect word to describe our theme this year. (Wish I'd thought of it when I created our Fifth Blogiversary logo!) Since our blog's anniversary falls during National Poetry Month, we thought it would be fitting for each of us to share a favorite poem, à la this year's Chicago Poetry Foundation's edition of the Favorite Poem Project. Esther is the one who brought the Favorite Poem Project to our attention, so I'll let her talk more about it when she posts. Meanwhile, if you're a teacher or parent, you may want to go ahead and check out their poetry lesson plans and other resources (after you're finished reading here, of course!).
To make our
blogiVERSEary posts extra special, some (perhaps all) of the
TeachingAuthors will share their favorite poems not only in printed form, but also via an audio or video reading. It's an opportunity for those of you we've never met to at least hear our voices. Creating an online audio or video clip is new territory for me. Unfortunately, I don't have a video camera, so I'll be sharing an audio reading,
as April did.
I created a new account with
SoundCloud, just for that purpose, per
these instructions from the Poetry Foundation. After a couple of tense days when I couldn't get my account validated, I was finally able to upload the sound clip. If you are reading this post via email, you can go online to
listen to the clip here. If you missed hearing April's reading of her favorite,
give a listen to her Friday post. And while you're there, be sure to enter our blogiversary giveaway to win one of our
FIVE "blogiversary book bundles," if you haven't already done so.
It took me some time to decide on just which "favorite poem" I wanted to share. The first poems I thought of were classics by
Robert Frost and
Emily Dickinson. But I really wanted to share something a bit more child-friendly. So I went over to check out Greg Pincus's annual
30 Poets/30 Days project. Poking around on the site, I discovered the perfect poem for our
blogiVERSEary: "How to Read a Poem Aloud." It happens to be written by our very own April Halprin Wayland! Greg originally posted it in his
2009 edition of 30 Poets/30 Days, on April 28, 2009, just days after our
TeachingAuthors blog debuted. And now, with April's permission, I'm sharing it here, as one of my favorite poems. You can also hear me read it below.
How to Read a Poem Aloud by April Halprin Wayland
First, read the title of the poem and the poet’s name.
Be clear.
Now completely disappear.
Let each line shine.
Then read it one more time.
When the poem ends, sigh.
Think about the poet at her desk, late at night, picking up her pen to write--
and why. © April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved.
Now isn't that just the
perfect poem for our
blogiVERSEary?
Happy Poetry Month, and Happy Writing!
Carmela
Confession time: I'm the one who suggested we do a series about writing rituals. So I've read my fellow TeachingAuthors' posts with great interest. I didn't know that JoAnn likes to start her day writing in longhand before turning on her computer. Or that Jill tries to exercise first thing, even before breakfast. (Now that's what I call discipline!) Or that Laura, our newest TeachingAuthor, works best when she writes in short, intense bursts. But I was especially surprised to learn that none of them practice what they consider to be true writing rituals.
I'm surprised for two reasons:
1) I've read so many articles about the quirky rituals practiced by writers, such as those mentioned in Debra Eve's article that inspired this series, that I assumed nearly all writers had some sort of ritual.
2) I have several rituals of my own.
There. I've said it. I may turn out to be the only TeachingAuthor with regular writing rituals. If that's the case, so be it. Since I'm the one who suggested the topic, I feel obligated to be honest. Even if it means confessing that my ritual includes prayer, something I don't typically talk about on this blog.
I still remember the first time I heard an author admit that prayer was part of her daily routine/ritual. It was at one of our Vermont College residencies, and someone asked a highly-acclaimed visiting author about her writing routine. I was floored when she told the crowded room that she started every day with prayer. I'd been doing the same for years, but I'd never dreamed of admitting it in public, or hearing a fellow writer admit it. I guess I'd been raised to believe prayer a private matter. Even now, I feel a bit uncomfortable discussing hear. Oh well.
My writing ritual, which has evolved over the years, currently goes something like this:
- I light a candle and say several short prayers, including one that my work will be a blessing on the world.
- I pull up the music files on my computer and play some classical music to drown out other sounds/conversations going on in the house.
- I open my Daily Tracking Log file on my computer and record my start time.
- I set a timer for however long I want the current writing session to last.
- I write until the timer goes off.
I recently added another step to this opening ritual after starting a 100-day, one hundred words a day (OHWAD) writing challenge. I read about OHWAD on a friend's Facebook page. The challenge is to write at least 100 words every day for 100 straight days--I'm currently on Day 36. If you miss a day, you have to start back at Day 1. So I've added a step to my writing ritual that includes looking at my previous day's ending word count in my Project Log and calculating my goal for today's writing session. (While my minimum is 100 words, my goal is often for 200-300 words/day, or more.)
My closing ritual includes recording my ending word count in my Project Log, noting my end time in my Daily Tracking Log, and blowing out the candle, if I haven't already done so earlier. (Don't want my office to get smoky.)
Interestingly, I don't close with a prayer. However, I might add one now after reading about this closing ritual in Eve's article:
"J.D. Moyer jots down ideas for the next day’s session and says a prayer of thanks (even though he’s an atheist)."
If an atheist is willing to publicly admit that he prays as part of his writing ritual, I guess I have no reason to feel embarrassed.
JHappy Writing!
Carmela
I mentioned a few weeks ago that a new TeachingAuthor will be filling in for Mary Ann while she's gone. Today, I'm happy to welcome our newest TA (drumroll please!):
Although I've only met Laura virtually, through reading her blog posts, and via email and telephone, I can already tell she'll be a wonderful addition to our team. In case you don't know Laura or her work, here's a brief bio:
Laura Purdie Salas is the author of more than 120 books for kids and teens, including two recent books from Millbrook Press: Water Can Be ... and A Leaf Can Be ... (Bank Street Best Books, IRA Teachers' Choice, Minnesota Book Award Finalist, Riverby Award for Nature Books for Young Readers, and more), and Bookspeak! Poems About Books, published by Clarion (Minnesota Book Award, NCTE Notable, Bank Street Best Book, Eureka! Gold Medal, and more). She loves to introduce kids to poetry and help them find poems they can relate to, no matter what their age, mood, and personality, and she loves to get teachers excited about sharing poetry in their classrooms. She has also written numerous nonfiction books.
That's right, she's written over
120 books! Pretty amazing.
You can read more about Laura and her work
at her website. You can also
Like her on Facebook and/or
Follow her on Twitter @LauraPSalas or check out her writing coaching and critiquing services through
Mentors for Rent.
I hope you'll give Laura a hearty welcome when she posts here for the first time on Friday.
Also, be sure to join us again later this month when we celebrate the official release of her beautiful new book,
Water Can Be ... .
Happy Writing!
Carmela
By:
Carmela Martino and 5 other authors,
on 10/18/2013
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Howdy Campers and happy Poetry Friday!
Thanks to Cathy of
MerelyDayByDay for hosting today!
(My own poem's below.)
Neither did I, until
Carmela, who is always on top of things, pointed it out.
Teen Read Week is an initiative of
Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), which is part of the American Library Association.
Launched in 1998,
Teen Read Week is celebrated annually during the third full week in October. Aimed at teens, their parents, librarians, educators, booksellers and other concerned adults, the continuing message of the
Teen Read Week initiative is to encourage 12- to 18-year-olds to
"Read for the Fun of It." The 2013 sub-theme is
Seek the Unknown @ your library. Check out the FAQs here.
Help raise awareness about
Teen Read Week and library services for teens here.
Can I be totally honest here? Yes, I think I can. I'm out of steam this week, I have only air-popped popcorn for brains right now...
so the only thing I can think to say about Teen Read Week is that teens today are LUCKY, LUCKY, LUCKY that they have so much wonderful literature to read...and that it's FREE at their local library. (Never fear--my fellow bloggers will have lots to say about it in the next few days--stay tuned!)
Hooray for librarians in buses, bookmobiles and buildings small and tall, in towns and fields, malls and halls, for offering teens, 'tweens, kings and queens fine literature to have, to hold, to devour!
This is a medal for all librarians.
I was thinking about the theme Seek the Unknown @ your library. Here's a poem from my teen novel in poems, Girl Coming in for a Landing, illustrated (in collage!) by Elaine Clayton (Knopf) that sorta-kinda fits the theme:
IMPRINTING
by April Halprin Wayland
Today Mr. C told us
about this scientist who pushed a vacuum cleaner
past a brood of ducklings
just as they were hatching
and how after that,
those ducklings followed the vacuum cleaner
everywhere--
nearly glued to it.
Imprinting, he called it.
Which made me think
about last year
that first day of school
and how
I must have been
hatching
just as Carlo
walked past.
(c) April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved.
Posted by April Halprin Wayland who is grateful for the free photos of the popcorn and the medal from MorgueFile.com
Today, I was supposed to continue our series of posts in honor of National Bullying Prevention Month. Instead, I've decided to dedicate this blog post in memory of my friend and fellow writer, Laura Crawford, who died on September 30 at the much-too-young age of 46. And since today is also Poetry Friday, I've included a poem at the end of this post inspired by Laura.
Those of you who've been following this blog for awhile may recognize Laura's name--she was our very first "Student Success Story" interview, posted back in 2009. At that time, I had no idea Laura had been diagnosed with chronic lymphatic leukemia (CLL) the year before. As she wrote on her CaringBridge page, her disease was managed effectively with chemo and treatment until this past May, when it became more aggressive. That's when Laura chose to finally share the information about her illness with her many friends in the children's writing community. We were all shocked at the news. Laura was such a vibrant, energetic, optimistic person. You can get a sense of her vitality in the photo below, which is how I always picture her--bright-eyed and smiling. It was hard to imagine that she'd been dealing with cancer for five years.
 |
| Photo courtesy of Jennifer DuBose |
But after the shock wore off, we still had hope, mainly because Laura herself sounded so hopeful. She was preparing for a bone marrow transplant. On September 22, she posted the following on her Facebook page:
"had a FANTASTIC weekend! I feel normal...and that is saying a lot. Thanks for all the visitors, laughs, treats, jello, ice cream and support of the new 'hairdo.' I'm so very blessed."
Like so many of Laura's friends, I was heartbroken when she passed away eight days later. It didn't seem possible. Even now, nearly two weeks later, my eyes fill with tears at the thought that I'll never see her smiling face again, at least not in this life.
We have a custom on our
SCBWI-Illinois listserv to share "good news" about our writing and illustrating projects at the beginning of each month. Given the timing of Laura's death, Lisa Bierman, the Illinois chapter's co-regional advisor, invited members to share a short memory of Laura instead. Laura was a long-time
SCBWI Network Representative for the Geneva, IL Network and a regular volunteer at the annual
SCBWI-IL Prairie Writer's Day, so she was well-known throughout our writing community. The email tributes poured in. It was amazing, and uplifting, to read about how Laura had touched so many lives.
In my email to the listserv, I talked about how I first met Laura as my student, when she took my College of DuPage class in Writing for Children back in the summer of 2001. As I mentioned above, she was also our first
"Student Success Story Interview" here on TeachingAuthors. After her death, I reread that blog entry and heard again Laura's exuberant voice. I also recalled how she almost hadn't made it into my class because it was filled before she registered. She'd called the college and asked if there was any way she could still register for the class, and my supervisor contacted me. I normally don’t make exceptions regarding maximum enrollments because I want to allow enough time for manuscript critiques, and I returned Laura's call planning to tell her so. I remember sitting in my home office talking with Laura. I could hear the enthusiasm in her voice. She told me how much she wanted to take the class, and that, being a teacher, she didn't have time to do so during the school year. When she asked me to please let her join the class, I couldn’t say no.
J
I’m so grateful I made the exception to include Laura in the class. It was the beginning of a long, rewarding friendship. As it turned out,
Cathy Cronin was also in that class. She, too, became a "
Student Success Story" and a friend to both Laura and me. On Wednesday, October 2, Cathy and I drove together to attend Laura's wake and say a final good-bye. We learned from Laura's sisters that she'd kept writing and editing up until the end--she was optimistic that after her bone marrow transplant she'd be well again.
That evening, I decided I wanted to dedicate this blog post in Laura's memory, and to write a poem in her honor. I'd saved all the tributes posted on the SCBWI-Illinois listserv with the idea that I might write a "found poem" from what people had shared. Member after member wrote of Laura's warm smile, infectious laugh, generous spirit, amazing optimism, welcoming nature, and fun sense of humor. I soon realized I didn't want to write a "sappy" poem--Laura wouldn't have wanted that.
Then I thought of what Laura said in her Student Success Story interview about being a "math and science person." That gave me the idea to write my poem in the form of a “Fib,” a 5-line, 20-syllable poem with the number of syllables per line based on the Fibonacci sequence: 1/1/2/3/5/8. I thought this form would be especially appropriate because the Fibonacci sequence is often found in nature, and Laura loved nature. Plus, "Fibs" tend to be rather playful. [To read more about Fibs, see
this blog post by Greg Pincus, author of the recently released middle-grade novel,
The 14 Fibs of Gregory K (Arthur A. Levine Books).]
The Fib that follows was inspired by all the comments to the listserv, but especially by what Cathy Cronin wrote:
"I will always treasure her friendship. Her bright spirit will live on in all the hearts that she's touched and in all of her wonderful books. I am keeping a picture of her by my laptop as a reminder to 'Live like Laura.' She knew what was important to her and spent her time well. "
I agree with Cathy. Laura lives on in the hearts of all who knew her, not only the members of the children's writing community, but also the students she taught in her 20 years at Sleepy Hollow Elementary School. You can read more about how she touched their lives
in this article.
Finally, here's my Fib poem in memory of Laura.
To Live Like Laura
by Carmela Martino
Smile
wide.
Embrace
everyone.
Laugh with gusto.
Leave us grateful to have known you.
poem © 2013 Carmela Martino. All rights reserved.
Happy Poetry Friday, all! The poem I'm sharing today isn't my best, but it's near and dear to my heart. See the end of this post for a link to today's Poetry Friday round-up.
In case you missed it, in her last post, April tagged me in the brand new Children's Poetry Blog Hop (CPBH). I'm writing this post in advance because of other commitments, so I haven't yet seen Janet Wong's CPBH post, also scheduled for today. I hope you'll hop on over to the PoetryFridayAnthology.blogspot.com and/or PoetryForChildren.blogspot.com to read it when you're done here.
In April's Sept. 6 post, she introduced Mortimer as the CPBH meme:
And she also explained how to participate in the CPBH:
1) Make up three questions you've always wanted to be asked in an interview about children's poetry and then answer them on your own blog;
2) Invite one, two or three other bloggers who write poetry (preferably children's poetry, but we're broad-minded) to answer any three questions that they make up on their own blogs (they can copy someone else's questions if they'd like)
3) In your post, let us know who your invitees are and when they're are going to be posting their own Poetry Blog Hop questions and answers...if you know the dates.
4) You do not have to use Mortimer, the CPBH meme.
Pretty simple.
I've tagged two fellow children's poets to participate in the
Children's Poetry Blog Hop:
Laura Shovan, a children's author and poet-in-the-schools who blogs at
Author Amok, and
Tabatha Yeats, author of nonfiction children's books as well as poetry, who blogs at
The Opposite of Indifference. (As you'll see below, Tabatha is hosting today's Poetry Friday round-up.) Be sure to hop on over to read their CBHP posts next week. Laura will share hers at
Author Amok on
Tuesday, Sept. 24, and you'll be able to read Tabatha's at
The Opposite of Indifference on
Friday, Sept. 27.
Now for my three (actually four) CPBH questions:
1) When was your first poem published? Would you share it with us?
2) Who was your first poetry teacher?
3) What poetry forms do you like best?
And here are the answers:
1) When was your first poem published? Would you share it with us?
I began writing poetry when I was in sixth or seventh grade, and my first poem was published when I was in high school (I won't tell you what year!), in
Crystals in the Dark: An Anthology of Creative Writing from the Chicago Public Schools. I was immensely proud to have my writing in this collection (which you might guess, since I still have my copy of the book.
J)
However, I had to resist the urge to edit the poem as I typed it up. Here it is, in original form:
My Sanctuary
If I could find a place far away from the world and its sounds,
Distant from the din and clatter of civilization;
Far away from pollution, politics, and people,
Away from worry, death, sorrow, and pain;
The only place that I could think of where I would be
undisturbed, tranquil, and at peace,
is within myself.
© Carmela A Martino. All Rights Reserved.
I went on to have several of my poems published in our high school yearbook,. After that, though, I pretty much gave up on writing poetry until many years later, when I began writing for children. Which leads into my second question:
2) Who was your first poetry teacher?
In high school and college, I studied poetry only as a reader, not a writer. While I did participate in some workshops on using poetry techniques in fiction at
Vermont College, I didn't take my first poetry-writing class until 2002. That's when I attended a four-week workshop by poet and author
Heidi Bee Roemer, "The ABC's of Children's Poetry.
" I learned so much from Heidi in that short time. The weekly assignments challenged us to write poetry in a variety of forms. And that leads into my third question:
3) What poetry forms do you like best?
The poems I wrote in junior high and high school were usually either free verse or rhyming couplets. It wasn't until I was in Heidi's class that I dared experiment with other forms, including triplets, quatrains, limericks, terse verse, and shape poems. Thanks to the confidence I gained in Heidi's class, I went on to have a terse verse poem published in
Pocket's magazine, and a poem in two voices published in
Chicken Soup for the Soup: Teens Talk High School. Since then, I've tried my hand at list poems, found poems, diamante poems, sonnets, and just about any form that strikes my fancy. Heidi's class, along with poetry-related posts by my fellow
TeachingAuthors, and inspiring posts by members of the Poetry Friday community, have opened me to new poetry worlds.
That's it for today. Now hop on over to the
Poetry Friday round-up at
The Opposite of Indifference .
Happy Writing!
Carmela
As Mary Ann mentioned on Monday, we're saying "farewell" to Jeanne Marie by linking back to one of our favorites of her 101 TeachingAuthor posts. And since today is Wednesday, I had the added task of choosing a favorite post that also lends itself to a Writing Workout. Turns out, that wasn't very hard. Last July, Jeanne Marie blogged about a picture book writing course she was taking. One of her assignments was to discuss the contents of her Writer's Toolbox. She shared an excerpt from her response to the assignment (which I encourage you to go back and read) and talked of the value of reflecting on one's own Writer's Toolbox.
For today's
Wednesday Writing Workout, I'd like to focus on the first tool/challenge Jeanne Marie mentioned:
"I think that one of the most challenging aspects of creating a rootable character is finding a way to make him/her likeable and flawed at the same time."
When I first read this, the term "rootable character" was new to me. I know now that it's simply a character the reader will want to root for. But creating one is not a simple task. In fact, it's something I'm struggling with in my current work-in-progress. Part of my challenge is that my story is set in 18th-century Milan, Italy, a time and place quite removed from my readers. How can I depict my character in a way that modern readers will understand her world well enough to empathize with and understand her feelings and choices?
One way is to find connections between me and my character that I can draw from.
In a presentation to the Federation of Children's Book Groups last March, Elizabeth Wein talked about how she found such connections while writing her award-winning historical novel
Code Name Verity (Disney-Hyperion) by looking for "modern parallels." But even if you're writing a contemporary story, whether fiction or nonfiction, it's not always easy to make your protagonist "rootable." Before trying the following workout, you may want to read these two articles on the topic: a post by Emilia Plater called "
Radical Empathy: Creating a Compelling Flawed Character" on the
YA Highway blog, and one by Alex Epstein for the
2012 Script Frenzy site called "
We Like Characters Because of Their Flaws, Not Their Virtues."
Writing Workout: Creating a Rootable Character
If you have a work-in-progress, consider your main character. Is he or she too perfect? If so, can you give the character a flaw that readers could relate to and understand? Or, on the flip side, have you created a character readers will dislike? If so, can you show why this character is this way?
Happy Writing!
Carmela
By:
Carmela Martino and 5 other authors,
on 9/6/2013
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Howdy, Campers! You have just a few more hours to enter our latest book giveaway (details below)! AND today we celebrate not one, not two, but three things! Rosh Hashanah, the new Children's Poetry Blog Hop, and Poetry Friday (hosted today by Laura Shovan at Author Amok)!
My PF poem is below.
.JPG)
Thanks, Laura!
* * *
1) Let's start with Rosh Hashanah. Happy New Year (both the Jewish New Year and the New School Year) to all! After I put the finishing touches on this post, I going to walk to the end of our pier and toss bits of bread to seagulls and fish as part of a Jewish New Year ritual called
tashlich.
2) And now on to the Children's Poetry Blog Hop. Having heard of other blog hops, poet Janet Wong and other
kidlitosphere poets have decided to start a Children's Poetry Blog Hop (CPBH) for...who else? Children's poets.
I nominate Mortimer as CPBH's meme:
To participate in the Poetry Blog Hop, simply:
1) Make up three questions you've always wanted to be asked in an interview about children's poetry and then answer them on your own blog;
2) Invite one, two or three other bloggers who write poetry (preferably children's poetry, but we're broad-minded) to answer any three questions that
they make up on their own blogs (they can copy someone else's questions if they'd like)
3) In your post, let us know who your invitees are and when they're are going to be posting their own Poetry Blog Hop questions and answers...if you know the dates.
4) You do not have to use Mortimer, the CPBH meme.
That's it!
I've invited author, poet, and web mistress extraordinaire
Carmela Martino to the Children's Poetry Blog Hop (it sounds like a sock hop, doesn't it?) Carmela will be posting
right here at
TeachingAuthors.com on September 20th.
On the
same day, the marvelously creative author, poet and poetry supporter
Janet Wong promises a surprise twist on the blog hop theme. Find her guest post at
PoetryFridayAnthology.blogspot.com and
PoetryForChildren.blogspot.com on September 20th!
Okay...here are my three questions:
1) What children's poem do you wish you had written? Include the poem or link to it.
2) What's your process? How do you begin writing a poem?
3) Please share one of your poems with us.
And here are my answers:
1) What children's poem do you wish you had written? Include the poem or link to it.
There are so many! The first that pops into my mind is Deborah Chandra's "Cotton Candy" from her book, Rich Lizard and Other Poems (FSG)
I met Deborah years ago in Myra Cohn Livingston's master class in writing poetry for children. Deborah's a stunning craftswoman and looks at the world in madly original ways. And, as you're about to read, her metaphors are spectacular.
COTTON CANDY
by Deborah Chandra
Swirling
like a sweet
tornado,
it spins itself
stiff.
A storm
caught on a paper cone.
I hold it up,
the air grows
thick and
sticky
with the smell of it.
A pink wind
made of sugar
and smoke,
cotton,
earth crust,
delicious dust!
poem © Deborah Chandra. All rights reserved
2) What's your process? How do you begin writing a poem?
Sometimes
my process is to start with a word and I spin out from there. Sometimes I find a poem I admire and imitate its rhythm, meter and form. Sometimes it's a feeling. I ask myself,
what are you feeling today? What is true? What is authentic? And sometimes it's just,
you have ten minutes. Write the damn poem. (I don't actually use the word damn because, as I'm sure you know, children's authors and poets don't swear.)
3) Please share one of your poems with us.
Here's a
Rosh Hashanah/tashlich poem
first published in Jeanette Larson's book,
El dia de los ninos/El dia de los libros: Building a Culture of Literacy in Your Community
SAYS THE SEAGULL
by April Halprin Wayland
Shalom to slowly sinking sun
I sing in salty seagull tongue.
But who're these people on my pier?
I sail, I swoop and then fly near.
They're singing, marching up the pier
I think they did the same last year.
A father gives his girl some bread
she scans the waves then tosses crumbs.
I dive, I catch, I taste
and...yum!
I like this ritual at the pier.
I think I'll meet them every year.
I screech my thanks, and then I hear
"L’shanah Tovah! Good New Year!"
note: Shalom can mean hello, good-bye and peace.Copyright © 2013 April Halprin Wayland
Walking up the pier for tashlich in my hometown.
photo by Rachel Gilman
Thanks for stopping by TeachingAuthors today
--but wait! Before you head off,
be sure to enter for a chance to win a copy of Lisa Morlock's terrific rhyming picture book, Track that Scat! (Sleeping Bear Press).
posted by April Halprin Wayland 
It's the start of a new school year here in the United States. Many students have been back to school for several weeks already, and almost all will have returned by the end of this week. Below, I share about a writing challenge some of you, our readers, may be interested in. But first, I want to announce our own new beginning here on the TeachingAuthors' blog. Jeanne Marie posted a few weeks ago that she's stepping away from blogging with us for awhile. We will miss her unique perspective as a working writer and teacher who is also the mother of young children. We hope that she'll be able to rejoin us again in the not-to-distant future. Meanwhile, we're happy to welcome back JoAnn Early Macken!
If you're a new reader here, you may not know that JoAnn was one of the founding
TeachingAuthors. She is the author of the nonfiction book,
Write a Poem Step by Step (Earlybird Press). Her most recent picture books are
Baby Says, “Moo!” (Disney-Hyperion),
Waiting Out the Storm (Candlewick Press), and
Flip, Float, Fly: Seeds on the Move (Holiday House). JoAnn's poems have appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies, and she has also written more than 125 nonfiction books for young readers. If you'd like to know more about how JoAnn became a
TeachingAuthor,
check out this blog post. You can also read more about JoAnn
on her website.
With JoAnn's return, we're modifying the posting schedule a bit. JoAnn will return to her former Friday posting spot, which will allow her to participate in Poetry Friday. And Jill will take over Jeanne Marie's Monday spot. We hope you enjoy our new rotation!
Now, for a "new beginning" opportunity for you, our readers: Today I discovered that award-winning author
Laurie Halse Anderson has shifted her annual
Write Fifteen Minutes a Day (WFMAD) challenge from August to September. If you've slacked off in your writing over the summer, or you've been in a slump and you'd like some help getting back into a writing routine, I recommend you join the challenge. You can work on a project of your choosing, or write responses to one of two prompts Anderson provides each day. She also provides bits of inspiration each day. In today's post,
Your Abundance of Time, she shares a link to an interesting article about why we allow the Internet to absorb so much of our valuable time.
But wait! Before you head off to write your fifteen minutes for today,
be sure to enter for a chance to win a copy of Lisa Morlock's terrific rhyming picture book, Track that Scat! (Sleeping Bear Press).
Happy Writing!
Carmela
Last week, when Esther introduced her brand new baby board book, Txtng Mama Txtng Baby (which you can still enter our drawing to win!), she explained how the book was inspired by her yet-to-be born grandson. As a follow-up, the other TeachingAuthors are sharing our own examples of how real life has inspired our stories. On Monday, Mary Ann talked about how the ideas for several of her books came from things that happened to her, her daughter, or family friends.
I've blogged before about how my novel, Rosa, Sola, was based on personal experiences, experiences I'd never considered writing about until I was working on my MFA at Vermont College. I don't want to bore our long-time readers by repeating that story. (If don't know it, you can read this blog post from 2010.) Instead, I'd like to share a bit about the inspiration for the first children's short story I ever had published, which appeared in the August 1999 issue of Pockets magazine.
I've talked before
about why I think Pockets is a great market.
One of the reasons is that
their theme list is posted online, along with submission deadlines. That theme list inspired me to write a story specifically for them.
The theme I chose to address was
discrimination. On reading that word, the first ideas that came to mind had to do with discrimination based on race or some other physical trait. But the magazine's theme description encouraged writers to think beyond the obvious forms of discrimination. That's when I turned to real life for inspiration.
At that time, my husband helped out with a ministry at our church that picked up surplus items from a local Hostess Foods thrift store to share with the needy. My husband's assignment was to bring the extra bread, fruit pies, and Twinkies to a nearby youth home/correctional facility. One day, the box of surplus food he picked up consisted almost entirely of Twinkies. When he carried the Twinkies into the youth home, one of the kids said, "Hey, look. It's the Twinkie Man!" That soon became my husband's nickname at the facility.
The children there began to look forward to my husband's visits. One day, as he dropped off another box of goodies, one of the boys in the home asked my husband to pray for him. When my husband came home and told me that, my heart went out to the boy. Before that request, I hadn't thought much about what it was like for the children in the facility. Part of me assumed that the kids sent there had to be "bad kids." For the first time, I realized that they were simply kids that had made bad choices. They were no different from my own son, who was around 10 years old at the time.
My son occasionally went with my husband to the Hostess thrift store to help him load up the food. Because of the correctional facility's rules, my son wasn't allowed to go into the facility with my husband. But I began to wonder: What if he
was allowed inside? What if he looked down on (in other words, discriminated against) the kids there and thought he was "better than they were." And what if a boy incarcerated there had surprised my son by asking
him for prayers?
The answers to those questions became the inspiration for my short story, which I called "The Twinkie Man." It's about a boy who helps his father make deliveries to a youth home and learns that the kids there are really no different than he is. I was happy and honored to have
Pockets magazine accept the story for publication. However, I was a bit disappointed when they changed the title to "The Cupcake Man." That just doesn't have the same ring to it.
J
The first paragraph of the published story reads:
They call my dad the Cupcake Man. It's not because he likes cupcakes. I've never even seen him eat one. He got the name because of his volunteer work.
(See what I mean about the title change--the third sentence would be more believable--and entertaining--if it was referring to Twinkies and not cupcakes!)
I want to emphasize that, even though I based this story on real-life events, I never would have written it at all if not for the theme idea and deadline set by
Pockets magazine. So I'm as grateful to the magazine editors as I am to my husband, the original "Twinkie Man," for inspiring my story. And, like Mary Ann, I continue to take note of interesting and unusual dialogue, characters, and settings I encounter that may help shape and inspire my fiction.
Don't forget--time is running out to enter our giveaway for a chance to win one of
two copies of Esther's terrific new board book,
Txtng Mama Txtng Baby. See
her blog post for details.
Happy writing!
Carmela
Today we have an extra-special Wednesday Writing Workout, provided by the terrific teacher and amazing author, Kathi Appelt!
In case you're not familiar with Kathi's work, she is the author of the Newbery-honor winner and National Book Award Finalist The Underneath, as well as the highly acclaimed novel Keeper, and many picture books. She is a member of the faculty at Vermont College’s Master of Fine Arts program and occasionally teaches creative writing at Texas A&M University. Kathi has two grown children and lives in Texas with her husband.
We invited Kathi to be our guest today to celebrate last week's release of her new middle-grade novel, The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp. (What a gorgeous cover!) The book has already garnered starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, PublishersWeekly, and School Library Journal. That's right--FOUR starred reviews! Several reviewers have referred to this novel, set in a Texas swamp and filled with a great cast of characters (including humans and critters), as a "rollicking tale." Here's a brief description:
Twelve-year-old Chap Brayburn, ancient Sugar Man, and his raccoon-brother Swamp Scouts Bingo and J'miah try to save Bayou Tourterelle from feral pigs Clydine and Buzzie, greedy Sunny Boy Beaucoup, and world-class alligator wrestler and would-be land developer Jaeger Stitch.
I can't wait to read it!
If you'd like to know more about Kathi and her work, check out
her website. And be sure to read through to the end of this post, where I ask Kathi about the connections between today's
Writing Workout and
The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp.
Kathi Appelt's Wednesday Writing Workout:
Whirled P’s
I’m often asked where I get my ideas, and one day while
doodling at my desk, it occurred to me that most of my stories start with
something I’ve found in the letter P, particularly People, Places and
Pets. Those three are the most Popular
when it comes to digging into my idea file.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the
letter P, which looks rather like a half-eaten Popsicle on the Page, is chock
full of idea generators.
Here are a few besides the three I mentioned above:
Problems
Personalities
Parents
Peers
Puddles
Paradigms
Politics
Pleasures
Pandemonium
Peculiarities
Pains
Possibilities
Presents
Props
Psyches
Phantasies
Persuasions
Pickles
Predicaments
Plops
Well, the list goes on and on, but you get my drift. As an exercise, then, choose one of the “Big
Three” (People, Places, Pets), and then write a story using at least one of the
other P’s on the list.
Example: People and
Present might lead to a story about the time my step-mother gave my sister a
pair of boots that had the stars and stripes on them. They were uglier than ugly and my sister was
heartbroken. But she also didn’t want to
hurt my step-mother’s feelings, so she wore them anyways. It was a true predicament.
Another example:
Place and Props might lead to a poem about my kitchen window and the
hummingbird feeder that I keep in the tree just outside it.
Final example: Pets
and Puddle could be the perfect setting for a story about a kitten who tries to
leap a big puddle OR a puppy who leaves a puddle on the kitchen floor.
There aren’t any hard and fast rules here.
So, take those P’s and stir them up, whirl them (as my
friend
Liz Garton Scanlon suggests). And
see what happens. I’ll bet something
Phantastic shows up.
_____
Definitely place comes to mind. When I was in college, I lived in deep, swampy East Texas where I encountered all sorts of wildlife, including the poisonous sort. And of course PIES! Pies are central to the story. Then there are the pricker vines, the pine trees, and the paisanos.
So, lots of P's.
Well, Readers, I hope you're inspired to whirl a few P's of your own. If so, please let us know what you
Produce.
Happy Writing!
Carmela
I have the pleasure of wrapping up this series of posts about writing contests. Unlike Mary Ann, I've never won any money in a writing contest, but several of my entries, including the first two I submitted way back in high school, did lead to publication. The poem April shared in her post perfectly captures the sense of elation those publications gave me. In fact, it was that feeling that inspired me to want to become a writer.
As Esther mentioned in her post, I've updated our Links page to include a section on writing contests. I've added a few more since Esther's post, including the Shabo Award for Picture Book Writers. Entry deadline for that one is August 10 this year, so if you're interested, don't delay. And if you know of any contests I missed, please share the information as a comment below.
There's one contest I'd like to discuss here that I couldn't provide a permanent link to because it changes every year, and that's the fiction contest associated with the annual SCBWI Midsouth Fall Conference. Last year, I entered the YA category and was fortunate to receive an Honorable Mention. While that hasn't led to publication (yet), I believe that mentioning the honor has brought more attention to my queries--at least I'm getting personalized rejections. :-) I also know that one of the agents attending the conference went up to a contest winner and asked if she was seeking representation. When the winner said "yes," the agent asked to read her winning manuscript.
Unfortunately, the 2013 SCBWI Midsouth Fiction Contest is already sold out, though there are still openings to attend the conference. But there are plenty of other SCBWI contest and grant opportunities. For example, last year, SCBWI-Illinois offered a contest as part of the annual Prairie Writer's Day. I don't know if that contest will be offered again this year, but you can watch for details on the Illinois regional events page at SCBWI. And there are all sorts of awards and grants available through SCBWI, which you can read about on the official website.
As my fellow TeachingAuthors have already mentioned, one of the benefits of entering a contest is that it provides a deadline as motivation to finish a project. I have also entered contests where, even if you don't win a prize, you receive a critique of your submission. This is true of many of the contests offered by individual chapters of the Romance Writers Association. Author Stephie Smith regularly updates an online list of such contests, including those for young adult literature. Two other contests I've entered that offer critiques and that are open to YA and/or children's literature are the Pacific Northwest Writer's Association Literary Contest and The Sandy.
If we haven't given you enough reasons for researching and entering writing contests, read this blog post at writers-editors.com. And for tips from former contest judges, see this contest tip sheet, also from writers-editors.com.
Do keep us posted if you enter any of the contests we've mentioned in this series, whether or not your entry wins. And good luck!
Happy writing!
Carmela 
Today's
Wednesday Writing Workout is from our guest
TeachingAuthor, Melanie Crowder. If you haven't read my interview with Melanie, please go do so now, and enter for a chance to win an autographed copy of her debut novel,
Parched (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). The details are all in
last Friday's blog post.
Okay, now that you're back, here's a simple, yet powerful, Writing Workout from Melanie.
Find an audio clip that relates to your story. Maybe it’s the sound of a train, or crickets, or rain falling on a sidewalk (
YouTube is a good resource for this). Play the clip for about one minute before you begin writing. What rhythms do you hear? What metaphors can you pull out of the sound? What kind of atmosphere does the sound create? Wistful? Frustrating? Intense?
… and GO! Play the clip on repeat for 5 minutes while you write.
* * *
Thanks, Melanie. If any of you try her workout, please let us know how it works for you.
Happy writing!
Carmela
Today we're taking a break from our series of posts featuring our favorite online resources to bring you a guest TeachingAuthor interview with debut novelist Melanie Crowder. At the end of the interview, you'll be able to enter for a chance to win an autographed copy of Melanie's recently released middle-grade novel, Parched (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). A Junior Library Guild selection, Parched is a haunting, lyrical story told from three perspectives. Here's a little about it:
Sarel has just witnessed the death of her parents. But she is not completely alone on the drought-ridden land; Nandi is the leader of a pack of dogs who looks out for her pups and for skinny Sarel-girl. Nandi knows they are all in trouble, and she knows, too, that a boy is coming—an escaped prisoner with the water song inside him.
The
Wall Street Journal called
Parched, "an absorbing and strangely beautiful story of valor and survival that is all the more impressive for its restraint." And
Booklist said, "The direct powerful prose in this first novel dramatizes the exciting contemporary survival story. . . . Fans of Gary Paulsen's
Hatchet (1987) will want this."
Pretty impressive for a debut novel! If you don't know Melanie, allow me to introduce her: Melanie Crowder graduated in 2011 with an MFA in Writing from
Vermont College of Fine Arts. She lives in Colorado, where she teaches English Language Acquisition at her local elementary school. When she's not writing, Melanie is most likely found outdoors—in her garden, in the mountains, or looking for the perfect swimming hole. Visit her online via
Facebook, Twitter,
Goodreads, and her
website.
And now for the interview:
Melanie, would you please tell us how you became a TeachingAuthor?
First, let me say: Thank you so much for having me!
To answer your question, I have been teaching since 2001—all sorts of subjects (art, music, history, ESL)—but I have only been writing since 2005. I was in the middle of a particularly difficult school year, and I needed something outside of work to put my heart into. I decided I would write a book—it couldn't be that difficult, right?
J
Well, eight years, several manuscripts and an MFA in Writing later, I finally have a book published. As it turns out, writing well is really difficult! But along the way, I learned to love the journey and delight in the challenge.
Does your experience as a classroom teacher affect your writing, and if so, how?
My students are amazing. They deal with challenges on a daily basis that would cripple most adults. Above anything else, my students remind me how resilient and brave and joyful children are. I take that as a challenge: if I am going to write for and about this age group, I had better honor those characteristics in my stories.
Tell us a bit about what inspired you to write Parched and your path to publication.
Parched began with a single image that appeared in my mind one day. It was an aerial shot, as if I were in a plane flying low over the savanna. On the ground below, a skinny girl and her pack of dogs walked along a narrow game track. I wanted to know who she was, and how she had come to be all alone in such a harsh place.
I wrote my way into the story when I was supposed to be working on other things. It was the third semester of my MFA in Writing program at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Little by little, in between drafts of my critical thesis, the story began to take shape. By the end of the semester, I had 20 pages ready. I crossed my fingers and sent it in to be considered for the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt prize for Middle Grade Literature. When it won, I received a request for the full manuscript and gleefully sent it in. I consider myself incredibly fortunate that I found an editor with the vision and experience to embrace the sparse quality of
Parched, while at the same time patiently working with me to draw out the emotional depth and expository breadth that readers would need. Like so many things in life, turning this academic project into the beautiful novel it is today was all about balance, and trusting that if you assemble the right players, a team can produce so much more than any individual.
You mentioned that Parched started with an image. Do all your stories begin that way? Are they images that come to mind on their own, or do you actively look for images to inspire you, and if so, where do you find them?
My stories do often begin with an image, but it’s not something I go looking for. I think I have my subconscious to thank here; they are often images I wake up with. And because they fill my mind in that hazy space between dreaming and waking, the images are endowed with emotion and sensation—the best story starter I could ever ask for!
Do you have any suggestions for teachers on how they might use your novel in the classroom?
Absolutely! I think
Parched would make a great book study, either for a small group or the whole class with all of its cross-content potential. It is a slim volume, and an adventure story, so it will appeal to some of your reluctant readers, too!
Here is a link to the discussion guide for Parched; it’s a really comprehensive resource for teachers.
And
check my website in the fall when school starts up again—I am putting together a field guide for
Parched, where students can track and research the flora and fauna found in the book as they read.
Oh, I love the idea of a "field guide" for a novel with such a distinctive setting as yours. I hope the teachers in our audience will check it out. So tell us, what's next on the horizon for you?
My next project is a YA verse novel about labor activist Clara Lemlich. She was an amazing woman who was instrumental in reforming working conditions for women in the early 1900s. This book is completely different from my debut--and a great challenge! My editor for this project will be Liza Kaplan at Philomel, and we are working towards an early 2015 release date.
Congratulations, Melanie! We're looking forward to seeing that. Finally, would you share about a moment when you knew you were a writer?
Well, I’ll show you a picture of a time when I had all the confidence in the world about my own writing. (I must have had a good teacher!) This is a book I wrote and illustrated in 4th grade. A sequel to
Julie of the Wolves:
Don’t you think the white-out dress is a nice touch?
Very clever, Melanie. J Thanks so much for stopping by.
Readers, you can enter below for a chance to win an autographed copy of
Parched,
If you enter via a comment to this blog post, please tell us what you'll do with the book should you win: save it for yourself of give it away? The giveaway
ends on June 26. After you've entered, feel free to check out the other stops on Melanie's blog tour, which you'll find listed
on her website.
And don't forget--today is also
Poetry Friday. This week's round up is at
Carol's Corner.
Good luck and happy writing!
Carmela
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difference between signing in with Facebook vs. with an email address. Email subscribers: if you received this post via email, you can click on the Rafflecopter link at the end of this message to access the entry form.
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Howdy, Campers and Happy Poetry Friday!
I stress when I have a blog post to write on a favorite online writing resource and no time to write it. Can you relate? In that case, it's nice to have a caring blog-buddy name Carmela who has extra resources in her big floppy bag and tosses me one as I frantically run by.
In the spirit of generous blogging, Carmela has handed me
20 Inspirational Apps and Online Resources for Writers. How cool is that for a hot summer writing resource?
Yep, there are lots of great resources on that link. However, may I express a nagging uneasiness about certain apps? Based on several friends' recommendations, I downloaded
Evernote, which is included in this list. I was looking for a useful To Do List app and this apparently fits the bill.
What creeps me out was that in order to access this marvelous and free app, you have to allow it to access all of your contacts.
ALL OF MY CONTACTS? Evernote wants the phone number of my vet? Of my dead podiatrist who I loved so much I cannot bring myself to delete from my phone? Of Uncle Davie?
Uncle Davie and Eli.
Evernote wants/GETS all these precious people?
I couldn't do it. I couldn't surrender my peeps for a free app.
PRIVATE
by April Halprin Wayland
I'm not openin'
my phone book
to apps.
And I'm hopin'
your phone book
is snapped.
poem © 2013 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved
Now I'm off to my critique group. Wish me luck! And if you find that one of these resources is particularly wonderful, please let us know...
and remember to enter our contest to win a copy of our very own
Jill Esbaum's newest book! Click for all the dino details:
Angry Birds Playground: Dinosaurs. You still have time--the contest ends June 18th!
Dive into your summer writing!
drawing © 2013 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved
April Halprin Wayland
Last week, Jeanne Marie kicked off Children's Book Week by introducing our series of posts about beloved children's books we've lost and miss. Before I share my own lost-book story, I want to congratulate the winners of the Sixth Annual Children's Choice Book Awards. According to this press release, over 1,000,000 votes were cast! How cool is that? You can see the list of finalists and winners here.
Now my lost-book story is nowhere near as intriguing as April's. (If you haven't read her post yet, go do so now. I'll wait.) My story starts some years back, when I created a new one-day workshop for College of DuPage called "Writing for Children and Young Adults: From Goodnight Moon to Harry Potter," designed to introduce students to the field of writing for children and teens. As part of the class, I planned to give an overview of the "ages and stages" of children's literature, sharing examples of a variety of genres and formats, classics and contemporary works.
Margaret Wise Brown's Goodnight Moon was one of my son's favorite picture books as a child, especially at bedtime. We read the marvelously lyrical, calming text so many times that I memorized it. But when I went to prepare for the class, I couldn't find our copy anywhere. It wasn't in my son's bookcase (he was away at college); it wasn't in his closet; it wasn't in my office. I finally gave up and borrowed a copy from the public library to use in my class.
I taught the class multiple times, and each time I looked for our copy of Goodnight Moon. No luck. Finally, my husband reminded me that I had packed away some of my son's books and baby things in a box that sits in the attic of our garage. Not wanting to ask my husband to drag out the box, I bought a used, paperback copy of Goodnight Moon for class. If my son eventually has children of his own, we'll get that box down from the attic. When we do, I'm hoping to find that it contains not only Goodnight Moon, but also another Margaret Wise Brown/Clement Hurd classic I've been missing for many years--The Runaway Bunny, the story of "a bunny's imaginary game of hide-and-seek and the lovingly steadfast mother who finds him every time." As a first-time mom, reading that book to my son was my way of saying that I would always be there for him. But even now I'm not sure who found the book more comforting, my son or me.
By the way, in case any of you who live in the Chicago area are interested, I'll be teaching my workshop "
Writing for Children and Young Adults: From Goodnight Moon to Harry Potter" at College of DuPage again this summer. See
my website for details. And I'm thinking it may be time to update the class name, perhaps to "
Writing for Children and Young Adults: From Goodnight Moon to Hunger Games." Or if you have any other suggestions, let me know. :-)
And don't forget to enter our current giveaway for a chance to win an autographed copy of Nancy Cavanaugh's debut novel for middle-graders,
This Journal Belongs to Ratchet (Sourcebooks/Jabberwocky). See Esther's
Student Success Story interview with Nancy for details.
When you're done, head on over to
Jama's Alphabet Soup for
today's Poetry Friday round-up.
Happy writing!
Carmela
By:
Carmela Martino and 5 other authors,
on 5/3/2013
Blog:
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This will be a short post because I'm busy preparing to attend the SCBWI
Wild, Wild Midwest Conference. In fact, I've written this post in advance and scheduled it to publish right about the time I'll be hitting the road. :-)
For those of you unfamiliar with
SCBWI, it stands for the
Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, the premier organization for those interested in writing and/or illustrating for children. SCBWI holds
two national conventions every year., The summer conference, held in Los Angeles, will be
Aug. 2-5 this year, and the winter conference, held in New York, will be Feb. 21-23, 2014. (
Click here to see photos from last year's winter conference.) I've never been able to attend either of these events, except virtually, via the
official SCBWI conference blog, so I'm especially excited to participate in this weekend's Midwest conference. I'm hoping it will be the first of many.
Speaking of SCBWI, congratulations to all the winners of the SCBWI Crystal Kite Member Choice awards, which were announced this week. If you're not familiar with this award, you can see the list of winners
on the SCBWI website and read about how they were chosen. And for more children's publishing news, be sure to check out
the official SCBWI blog.
In other good news, I've found a new home for the
Girls Write! summer camps I taught at the Hinsdale Center for the Arts for nine years. (Sadly,
HCA closed last year due to lack of funding.) The camps will now be held at the
Mayslake Peabody Estate in Oak Brook, Illinois. If you know any budding girl writers who live in the area, please help spread the word. The camp for girls entering grades 4-5 will meet June 24-June 28, 9:30 am–noon and for those entering grades 6-8 will meet July 15-July 19, 9:30 am–noon. For details, see the right sidebar
on this page of my website.
Finally, don't forget: there's still time to enter our blogiversary giveaway for a chance to win one of four $25 gift cards to Anderson's Bookshops.
See this post for details.
After you've entered, hop on over to
Elizabeth Steinglass's blog for this week's Poetry Friday round-up.
Happy writing!
Carmela
By:
Carmela Martino and 5 other authors,
on 4/18/2013
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Today, I'm thrilled to announce an extra-special giveaway in honor of our FOURTH BLOGIVERSARY. To show our appreciation to our blog readers AND to one of our favorite independent booksellers, we'll be giving away FOUR $25 gift certificates to Anderson's Bookshops! And, as a bonus, Anderson's is generously offering our winners a 20% discount, which will help defray the shipping costs if you're unable to redeem your gift certificate in person.
In case you're not familiar with this family-owned company, in 2010, Anderson's celebrated their 135th year in business, with six generations of the family now working in their stores. Among their
many accolades, in 2011, Anderson's was named
Publisher's Weekly Bookstore of the Year. Anderson's has a long history of supporting teachers by providing educator resources like
mock Newbery contests, arranging author visits, and sponsoring special events such as their upcoming
Teacher Open House, where educators can learn about the best new releases for classroom use. And educators always receive a 20% discount off the
list price of books to be used in the classroom or library.
Anderson's also has a reputation for hosting wonderful (and numerous!) author signings, and for championing local authors. After many years of attending Anderson's marvelous author events, I was honored to have my first signing at the Naperville store when my novel,
Rosa, Sola, came out. That day, the Anderson's staff made me feel like a real star! I couldn't help getting a little teary-eyed as I addressed the crowd of family, friends, and fellow writers, telling them what a thrill it was to have my signing in the bookstore that felt like my second home.
If you're ever in the Chicago area, I encourage you to visit one of Anderson's stores. But even if a physical trip isn't possible, you can visit them virtually
via their website, where you can order print and
ebooks online. As you'll see below, the winners of our giveaway will have the option of using their gift certificates that way.
The
TeachingAuthors are fans not only of Anderson's, but of independent bookstores everywhere. For the next few weeks, we'll be sharing stories of our appreciation for independent booksellers. Meanwhile, I was pleasantly surprised by the encouraging news the
Salon article "Books Aren't Dead" had about both print books and independent bookstores:
". . . the Christian Science Monitor recently reported [you can read that article here], there are now many indications that a once-beleaguered portion of the bookselling landscape, independent bookstores, are enjoying a “quiet resurgence.” Sales are up this year; established stores, such as Brooklyn’s WORD, are doing well enough to expand and new stores are opening. Indies have been helped by the closure of the Borders chain and a campaign to remind their customers that if they want local bookstores to survive, they have to patronize them, even if that means paying a dollar or two more than they would on Amazon."
I confess, I'm one of those book buyers willing to pay "a dollar or two more" to support my local independent. I want to help ensure they'll still be around when I finally have another book signing. :-)
In addition to celebrating independent booksellers, we decided our blogiversary was a good time for a little spring
cleaning here on the
TeachingAuthors website. I've created two new pages,
which you can find links to under our logo at the top of the page:
Links and
Writing Workouts. The
Links page now contains all the
links that used to be in the sidebar, grouped under the following
headings:
- Websites of Note
- Children's/YA Lit Reading Lists
- Graduate
Programs in Writing for Children and Young Adults
- General Children's/YA
Lit Blogs
- Agent Blogs
- Author/Illustrator Blogs.
The
Writing Workouts page explains the history and evolution of our Writing
Workouts, and allows you to access all of them from one place. I've also
shortened the names of our resources pages to simply "
For Teachers,"
"
For Young Writers," and "
Visits." And I've updated our bios on the
About Us page. I hope you'll take time to explore
these revised pages and give us feedback on what you think of the
changes.
You may also notice a new button in the sidebar labeled "Follow this blog with bloglovin'." I recently learned that
Google will be retiring Google Reader on July 1, 2013, and I wanted to provide other options for those who currently read our posts via Reader.
Bloglovin' allows you to easily import all the blogs you currently follow with Google Reader. I've also seen positive reviews of the RSS service
Feedly (see, for example, this
recommendation in Jane Friedman's newsletter, Electric Speed), so I've included a Feedly link in the sidebar, too. You can read
a quick comparison of Bloglovin' vs. Feedly here.
If you don't already follow our blog, I'll hope you'll sign up to do so today via email, Bloglovin', Feedly, or one of the other options in our sidebar. (Hint--our blog subscribers automatically qualify for
FOUR entries in our blogiversary giveaway. See below for details.)
Before I explain how to enter the giveaway, I want to share a poem the AMAZING April Halprin Wayland wrote in honor of our blogiversary, which actually falls on Monday, Earth Day.
A Blooming Blogiversary
Sheaves of paper, leaves of prose
Typing wobbly rocky rows
Planting tender inkling seeds
Sowing words on glowing screens
Underground the spark is struck
Growing with some care and luck
First a shoot, then a sprout
Weeding all the adverbs out
Seedlings reaching toward the sun
Readers, writers we are one
Blooming in the blogisphere
Post by post, year by year
poem © 2013 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved
A special "thank you" to all the readers who have stuck with us here at
TeachingAuthors "post by post, year by year."
Now, for our Blogiversary Giveaway details:
As I said at the beginning of this post, in honor of our
Fourth Blogiversary, and to celebrate independent booksellers, we're giving away
FOUR $25 gift certificates to
Anderson's Bookshops!
Note: if you're unable to redeem your prize in person at one of Anderson's stores, you will be able to do so online. AND, you'll receive a 20% discount on your purchase!
Please bear with us as we try something new for this giveaway--we're using
Rafflecopter for the first time. If you've never entered a Rafflecopter giveaway, you may want to read their info on
how to enter a Rafflecopter giveaway and/or the
difference between signing in with Facebook vs. with an email address.
Once you've logged into Rafflecopter below (via either Facebook or an email address) you'll see that we've provided
four different options for entering the giveaway--you can pick one or up to all four. The more options you choose, the greater your chances of winning. While we haven't made it a requirement, we hope that everyone will choose to subscribe to the
TeachingAuthors blog. If you're already a subscriber, to enter, you need only click on that option and then tell us how you follow our blog.
As it says in the "Terms and Conditions," this giveaway is open to U.S. residents only. You must be 18 or older to enter. And please note: email addresses will
only be used to contact winners. The giveaway will run from now through the end of
Children's Book Week, on May 19. Winners will be notified May 20, 2013.
I hope that covers everything. But if you have any questions about the giveaway, feel free to email us at teachingauthors [at] gmail [dot] com.
Good luck to everyone! And don't forget--it's
Poetry Friday. When you're done entering our giveaway, check out the Poetry Friday round-up over at
Live Your Poem.
Happy writing!
Carmela
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Happy Poetry Friday, all!
Today, the TeachingAuthors are celebrating Poetry Friday in a special way with a sneak peek at a poem from the soon-to-be-released Gone Fishing: A Novel in Verse by Tamera Will Wissinger, illustrated by Matthew Cordell (Houghton Mifflin). And one lucky TeachingAuthors follower will win an autographed copy of the book. See the end of this post for complete details.
We're also thrilled to feature a Student Success Story interview with Tamera, a former student of mine. As Tamera shares in her interview, she's also taken classes with two of my fellow TeachingAuthors. That's half the TeachingAuthors' team! I can tell you, we're all smiling like proud mammas today. :-)
But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, let me introduce you to Tamera by sharing her official bio:
Tamera Will Wissinger writes stories and poetry for children. She was inspired to write
Gone Fishing: A Novel in Verse after writing “Night Crawlers,” a poem that stemmed from her fun childhood memories of night crawler hunting with her parents before fishing trips. A graduate of
Hamline University’s MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults, Tamera shares her time between Chicago and Florida.
Here's an excerpt from Tamera's
website describing her middle-grade novel,
Gone Fishing: A Novel in Verse:
"Using a wide variety of poetic forms – quatrains, ballads, iambic meter,
rhyming lists, concrete poetry, tercets and free verse – this debut
author tells the story of a nine-year-old boy’s day of fishing. Sibling
rivalry, the bond between father and son, the excitement – and
difficulty – of fishing all add up to a day of adventure any child would
want to experience."
You can connect with Tamera online via
Goodreads,
Twitter, or
Facebook. For more of her lovely poetry, visit her online journal,
The Writer's Whimsy, where you'll find links in the sidebar to several group blogs she participates in.
And now, for the interview.
1. Tamera, it's hard to believe that it’s been 10 years since we met “virtually” when you took my online class in writing for children. Do you recall what inspired you to sign up for that class?
I just came across notes from that workshop; that can’t have been ten years ago! That class was Fundamentals of Writing for Children, the first children’s writing workshop that I had ever taken. At that time I was writing stories and quite a bit of poetry, but I wasn’t focused on a specific age reader. It was my husband who suggested that I might want to try writing for children. That sounded like an interesting idea, so I found the
Writer’s Online Workshop that you were instructing, and I signed up.
2. Do you recall any specific ways the class helped you?
I remember being really nervous and also glad for this new online way of learning and for the opportunity to explore writing for children. The class itself was wonderful and you put me at ease right away by your genuine interest in the students, the focus on our stories and our writing habits, and the study of writing for children. You learned during that class that your novel,
Rosa, Sola, was going to be published. When you shared that news I remember being so thrilled for you and your achievement and excited for me to be learning from someone with so much experience and success.
That class gave me an excellent foundation for understanding the range and limitations of children’s literature, but there was so much more to it. I remember feeling really welcomed and cared for, as though I had found a place in the writing world where I belonged. And I can trace a direct path between that first class with you and my first novel. Here’s how:
- During the workshop with you I learned about SCBWI,
- Shortly thereafter I met you in person at an SCBWI event,
- At that event you introduced me to several other students from your online workshops,
- We formed a critique group,
- Some in the group were planning to attend the Vermont College MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults,
- I was intrigued, but not quite ready to commit,
- In the mean time, Hamline University announced their MFAC program and
- When Hamline began receiving applications in 2006 I was ready,
- I applied, was accepted, and
- What I learned there helped prepare me to write Gone Fishing.
I don’t know if I ever told you that story, Carmela, so I’m really glad for this opportunity to tell you now! When I look at this chain reaction, I’d say that first class has helped me immensely.
3. Wow, Tamera, reading about this chain of events gives me goose bumps! I do remember how wonderful it was to finally meet you and some of your classmates face-to-face after only knowing you through your online classwork. And I recall how pleased I was to learn later that you'd received your MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Hamline University. What made you decide to enroll in the program? And would you share a bit about your experience there?
After several years of attending writing workshops and conferences and participating in critique groups, I started to believe my writing was good and I began to submit stories to editors. Eventually I began to receive positive and specific feedback, but aside from stand-alone poems, I hadn't received any offers to publish. I recognized that there were still things about writing for children that I needed to know and since I was committed to finding a way for my stories to reach children, I felt that connecting with experts in the field of children's writing was the best way to try and reach my goals.
I feel so lucky to have had that opportunity. Each residency I got to hear lectures by the talented faculty and a variety of visiting children's authors. I also got to interact with classmates who were as committed as I was to learning about writing for children. Each semester I was paired with a faculty advisor. The two of us would work together to develop a personalized study plan that included the creative writing I hoped to develop, as well as aspects of craft that I intended to study. I learned to love essay writing; thinking critically about a specific story aspect or technique is one of the keys to becoming a better writer, and that's something that I've carried with me beyond the program.
One other wonderful outgrowth of the program has been the sustained connection that I have with the Hamline MFAC writing community. I'm in touch with fellow graduates, current students, faculty, and staff, and I feel a close bond with everyone because of those common experiences and interests.
4. Your experience sounds a lot like mine at Vermont College! Now can you tell us more about what inspired you to write Gone Fishing? Why did you choose to write it as a novel-in-verse? Did that format present any special challenges?
My inspiration for the story came from my good childhood memories of going fishing with my family. The first poem in the book was initially a stand alone poem. It’s called "Night Crawlers" and is based on the excitement I remember feeling when I got to stay up after dark in the summer and hunt for worms to take fishing the next day. After that first poem, others followed until I had a collection of father and son fishing poetry. Later, poems that included a younger sister began to emerge and that’s when the sibling rivalry story line started to take shape.
I didn’t originally set out to write a novel in verse. Even with the inclusion of the sibling rivalry, the story that I first submitted included around twenty poems – enough for a picture book. My editor had the wonderful idea to expand the story and the number of poems. That idea intrigued me and I continued to work on it. The final story ended up at around forty poems, which gave it enough text to be a novel in verse.
Writing using this format did present special challenges. In any novel, the story is the most important aspect of the writing. In a verse novel, the poetry has to enhance the storytelling, or it won’t work. What helped me keep focus on the storytelling was to pay careful attention to conflict, crisis and resolution. If a poem didn’t advance the story or aid in some element of storytelling, then it didn’t belong. Add to that the different poetic forms, and that was another layer of complexity.
5. Expanding a picture book into a novel sounds like it would require some major revisions. Would you share a bit about that process?
As I mentioned above, the story initially had twenty poems. We expanded it to about forty, so, yes; the book had some pretty significant revisions. I was lucky that my editor had a good sense of direction. She provided me with enthusiastic encouragement, asked many insightful questions, and gave intriguing suggestions that I was eager to explore. By the end of the first revision, more specific scenes and interactions were filling in and the story was taking shape. It was challenging and fun to see what might emerge and whether or not I would be able to produce more poems that had substance. The miracle of it was that one new poem often led to another and another, each exposing more depth and breadth to the story.
6. Gone Fishing includes a “Poet’s Tackle Box” in its back matter. What does the box contain? How might classroom teachers use its contents to extend their poetry lessons?
Developing this section was another of my editor’s smart ideas that stemmed from one of my dearest critique partners suggesting that I label the poetic forms I had used in my original manuscript. The Poet’s Tackle Box contains poetry writing tips and definitions, including information on rhyme and rhythm, poetry techniques, and poetic forms. I hope that this section can be a good reference for classroom teachers who are helping students learn the joy of reading poetry and writing their own poems.
Before I go, Carmela, there are two more things that I’d like to mention, first, I want to say hello to two of your fellow
TeachingAuthors :
Hello, Esther Hershenhorn! Esther taught a picture book writing workshop that I attended at
Ragdale on a chilly Chicago day. Inside, though, it was a wonderful, cozy, enriching day of reading, critiquing, and talking about picture books. Esther was so enthusiastic and encouraging and shared all kinds of good and important information on picture books and the publishing industry!
Hello, Jill Esbaum! Jill led a weekend rhyming picture book workshop that I attended at
The University of Iowa Summer Writing Festival. It was a sunny Iowa summer weekend and Jill was so welcoming and even came with the students to an alfresco lunch and talked informally about children’s writing. Jill was such a champion of rhyming text and finding fresh story ideas; she gave me hope that there was a market for rhyming picture book manuscripts!
And finally, in celebration of
Gone Fishing’s release this coming Tuesday, here is the opening poem in the book – "Night Crawlers" – the one that started it all:
Sam
NIGHT CRAWLERS
Tercet Variation
Dark night.
Flashlight.
Dad and I hunt worms tonight.
Grass slick.
Worms thick.
Tiptoe near and grab them quick.
Hold firm.
They squirm.
Tug-o-war with earth and worm.
Ninety-four.
Worms galore.
Set our bucket near the door.
Next day.
No delay.
Look out, fish — we’re on our way!
poem © Tamera Will Wissinger. All rights reserved.
Thank you for hosting me today on
TeachingAuthors, Carmela! I had a great time.
Thank YOU for joining us, Tamera. We especially appreciate your sharing your wonderful poem with us today.
Readers, for more of Tamera's lovely poetry, visit her online journal,
The Writer's Whimsy. There, you'll find links in the sidebar to several group blogs she participates in. You can also connect with Tamera via
Goodreads,
Twitter, or
Facebook.
And now, as promised, here's your chance to win an autographed copy of
Gone Fishing: A Novel in Verse written by Tamera Will Wissinger and illustrated by Matthew Cordell (Houghton Mifflin).
You must follow our TeachingAuthors blog
to enter our drawing. If you're not already a follower, you can sign
up now in the sidebar to subscribe to our posts via email, Google Friend
Connect, or Facebook Network blogs.
There are two ways to enter:
1) by a comment posted below
OR
2) by sending an email to teachingauthors [at] gmail [dot] com with "Book Giveaway" in the subject line.
Either way, to qualify, you must:
a) give us your first and last name AND
b) tell us how you follow us AND
c) tell us if you'll keep the book for yourself or give it to someone special.
If you enter via a comment, you
MUST include a valid email address
(formatted this way: youremail [at] gmail [dot] com).
Contest open only to residents of the United States. Incomplete entries
will be discarded.
Entry deadline is 11 pm (CST) Wednesday, March 13, 2013. Winners will be announced Friday, March 15. Good luck to all!
And after you've entered, don't forget to visit the Poetry Friday round-up at Julie Larios' blog,
The Drift Record.
Happy Writing!
Carmela
Happy Poetry Friday, all!
Esther kicked off our current topic, recommendations for your writer's bookshelf, by sharing a favorite of hers I'd never heard of: M. B. Goffstein's A Writer.
I have so many cherished books on my writer's bookshelf that it's hard to pick just one, so I'm going to share three. And, in honor of Poetry Friday, they're all poetry-related.
First up, I'd like to recommend my favorite book on writing poetry, Mary Oliver's
A Poetry Handbook: A Prose Guide to Understanding and Writing Poetry (Mariner Books). One of the book's most enlightening chapters for me is the one titled "Sound." Its opening paragraph reads like a poem:
"To make a poem, we must make sounds. Not random sounds, but chosen sounds."
Oliver goes on to explain that "A 'rock' is not a 'stone'" when it comes to sound. And she offers advice on how to choose words with sounds that best fit a poem's meaning and mood. While aimed at poets, this book contains valuable advice for picture book authors and novelists, too.
The second book I'd like to recommend is
Seeing the Blue Between: Advice and Inspiration for Young Poets (Candlewick), compiled by Paul B. Janeczko. Here's an excerpt from the book's description:
". . . in this unprecedented volume, thirty-two internationally renowned poets provide words of wisdom and inspiring examples of their own work for new poets everywhere. . . . This rich volume - an ideal resource for classroom teachers and a beautiful gift for budding writers of all ages - offers the perfect opportunity to do just that."
Since today is Poetry Friday, I'll share the first stanza of one of my favorite poems in this collection:
Poets Go Wishing
by Lilian Moore
Poets go fishing
with buckets
of words,
fishing
and wishing. . . .
(You can see the entire poem reproduced in this blog post at Blue Sky, Big Dreams.)
I love the image of poets "fishing with buckets of words." My third and final recommended title today is a journal to help all poets on their fishing expeditions:
The Poet's Notebook: Inspiration, Techniques, and Advice on Craft (Running Press), created by David Stanford Burr. As the description says,
"Part blank journal, part helpful workbook and reference, its pages are highlighted with insights from famous poets, an exercise to summon the muse, and definitions of classic poetic techniques. . . . This ingenious and useful writing tool also includes a six-page appendix with rules of form, meter, and rhythm to help readers compose their own sonnets, haiku, and other poems."
It's a slim, lightweight journal that's easy to carry along on your next "fishing" expedition.
If you have any recommendations for poetry-related books from your writer's bookshelf, I hope you'll share them in the comments. And don't forget to check out the Poetry Friday round up today at
A Teaching Life.
And, in case you missed it, be sure to read the poem
, "Pencil Speaks to Writer" by our Mystery Guest TeachingAuthor
in our latest Wednesday Writing Workout.
Happy writing!
Carmela
Happy New Year, Everyone!
I hope you're all rested and refreshed and ready to plunge ahead into 2013.
While on our winter blogging break, we TeachingAuthors were busy working behind-the-scenes, planning a new weekly feature. If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know we often include Writing Workouts with our posts. As it says in our sidebar: "We invite classroom teachers to use these writing exercises with their students, and adult writers to try them on their own." Many of you have told us that you especially appreciate and look forward to our Writing Workouts. So we've decided to pull them out of our regular posts and create a separate feature: the Wednesday Writing Workout!
As you can see, we've added some text but kept our former
Writing Workout image--a set of barbells and a ribbon with a medal. The logo represents how
everyone who works out with us is a winner!
While continuing with our regular posts on Mondays and Fridays, we'll devote Wednesdays to
Wednesday Writing Workouts. Each
WWW will be written by one of the
TeachingAuthors or, as is the case today, by a
Mystery Guest TeachingAuthor.
To introduce the new feature and celebrate a new year,
we're also having a Book Giveaway! Every writer and writing teacher will want a copy of our giveaway book on his/her reference/inspiration shelf:
Keep Calm and Query On: Notes on Writing (and Living) with Hope (Divertir Publishing). And the book happens to be written by today's
Mystery Guest TeachingAuthor.
I'll share our
Mystery Guest TeachingAuthor's bio before giving you his
Writing Workout. See if you can guess the author's identity before I reveal it below. (No fair looking up the
MGTA's books online before that!)
Today's
MGTA has the kind of resume our readers love: A former teacher of grades 7 through 12 and a writer of children’s fiction, he’s the editor of the forthcoming book for teens and tweens
, Break These Rules (Chicago Press). He co-edited
Burned In: Fueling the Fire to Teach (Teachers College Press) and
Dedicated to the People of Darfur: Writings on Fear, Risk, and Hope (Rutgers University Press). Teachers College Press also published his latest book for teachers,
A Call to Creativity: Writing, Reading, and Inspiring Students in an Age of Standardization.
Does this bio sound familiar? That's because Esther
reviewed Keep Calm and Query On back in October. She gave the book a big
Thumbs Up!
Before I reveal the identity of our
Mystery Guest TeachingAuthor, here's his TERRIFIC
Wednesday Writing Workout:
Give Logic a Lollipop:
I am one of those people who believes that we’re all still children, really. Whether we’re 32 or 64 or 96, there’s something innate in us that stubbornly refuses to grow up no matter how much coffee we drink (in my case, a lot), how much we worry about paying bills, or how professional we look in our formal attire. The kid-like parts of us are often covered by layer after layer of logic. While the growth of logic is hugely beneficial to things like paying our bills, walking out of the house with matching socks and a straight tie or proper dress, and generally being responsible, an area that is bleached of vitality by our intense focus on forcing everything to make sense is our writing life.
This
Wednesday Writing Workout, then, asks us to momentarily allow logic to sit by himself on the far bench, way over on the other side of the room. Give Logic a lollipop and the latest Time magazine, and then sneak off to your writing desk and try something illogical to fuel those writing muscles.
1. Visualize your favorite film actor or actress.
2. Close your eyes, and continue visualizing that person, and then reach out—literally!—your hand and shake their hand, up and down. Then smile knowingly (eyes still closed) like you and your favorite film star are sharing some inside joke even though you haven’t spoken any words yet. You’re that tight.
3. Open your mouth (literally!) and speak the very first words that come to mind.
4. Now open your eyes, pick up your pen or open up a Word document on your computer and write your name, then a colon, then the words you’ve just said.
5. Then write the actor’s / actress’s name, a colon, and his / her response.
6. Continue writing your ‘scene’ with dialogue that emerges organically and no matter how seemingly ridiculous it is, just follow the exercise through.
7. Every once in a while, try to insert a small note on the setting—the weather outside, what you’re eating (lollipops?), what noises occur in the background, and anything else that creates the mood of your conversation.
8. Try to continue this scene for at least two pages. This is a perfect opportunity to work our writing muscles by putting ourselves into a situation that allows the kid-like part of us to trump the adult part of us.
So often, as writers, we can think in terms of productivity and progress. And these are both great things in the life of a writer. Hey, who doesn’t want to add a few more pages to that novel, or bang out a few more notes for that picture book? But sometimes, persistent focus on productivity and progress have the side effect of hiding us from the kid-like parts of our writer selves, that are concerned—almost entirely—with joy, engagement, emotion, quirks, and creativity.
My seven-year-old nephew loves writing stories. When I talk with him about what he’s writing, he doesn’t give me the latest page count or the stats on which publishers have checked out his work yet. Even while I sometimes focus too much on those things, I try to shake my head and heart to return to what matters: the creation itself. The sheer beauty, hilarity, pain, joy, and love of it. And this process must, by definition, involve flights of fancy and the decision to leave logic a little lonely at times.
Today, for your
Wednesday Writing Workout, craft this scene and let the kid in you lead the way. I promise you’ll discover pearls that—if nothing else—will make you laugh, and possibly even provide a kernel for a louder pop later.
* * *
What a wonderful
Wednesday Writing Workout to inaugurate our new feature! And now, finally, it's time for the big reveal. Today's Mystery Guest TeachingAuthor is (drum roll please):
 |
| Luke Reynolds! |
Special thanks to Luke for helping to launch our new feature! Readers, if you'd like to know more about Luke, see
his website. I also encourage you to check out his blog
, Intersections: One Writer's Journey Through Parenting, Living Abroad, Faith, Publishing, and Social Justice.
As I mentioned above, Luke is the author of
Keep Calm and Query On: Notes on Writing (and Living) with Hope (Divertir Publishing). If you read Esther's
review, you're going to want to enter our drawing for a chance to win your very own copy.
To enter our drawing, you must follow the
TeachingAuthors blog. (If you’re not already a follower, you can sign up now in
our sidebar to subscribe to our posts via email, Google Friend Connect, or Facebook Network blogs.)
You may enter the contest one of two ways:
1) by posting a comment below OR
2) by sending an email to teachingauthors [at] gmail [dot] com with "Book Giveaway" in the subject line.
Whichever way you enter, you
MUST:
1) Just for fun, tell us whether you guessed Luke's identity before the big reveal. We'd also love your feedback on his
Writing Workout and/or what you think of our new
Wednesday Writing Workout feature.
2) give us your first and last name,
AND
3) tell us how you follow us (via email, Google Friend Connect, or Facebook Network blogs) .
4) If you enter via a comment, you
MUST include a valid email address (formatted this way: youremail [at] gmail [dot] com) in your comment.
This contest is open only to followers who can provide a mailing address in the United States. Incomplete entries will be discarded. The
entry deadline is 11 p.m. (CST) next Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2013. We'll announce the winner on Friday, Jan. 11. Good luck!
Happy writing, and happy 2013!
Carmela
Most of the adults who sign up for my writing classes have the same goal: to get a book published by a traditional publisher. They're usually shocked to learn what a long, slow process book publication typically is, whether they're working on a picture book or a novel. To help cope with the wait, I recommend they work on building a portfolio of writing credits they can mention in their cover/query letters. On Monday, Esther shared links to information on how to get published in Highlights magazine. Highlights is a well-respected magazine that's been around for years, and an impressive credit to include in your writing portfolio. Unfortunately, that means they receive a huge volume of submissions, making them a tough market to break into. I like to remind my students that there are other children's magazines, many of them more open to material than Highlights or the Cricket Magazine Group, which publishes high-quality magazines for toddlers to teens.
One of my favorite lesser-known children's magazines is
Pockets, published by
The Upper Room, for 6 to 12-year-olds. Like
Highlights,
Pockets runs
an annual fiction contest. They also accept a variety of material, including fiction, nonfiction, poetry, puzzles, and activities. Although
Pockets is a Christian magazine, not all content is explicitly religious. I recall studying a sample issue years ago that happened to include a story that had won their fiction contest. It was a wonderful story about a girl learning to accept her new stepfather. I don't believe it mentioned God at all.
As it says
on the Pockets website:
"Each issue is built around a specific theme with material that can be used by children in a variety of ways. Submissions should support the purpose of the magazine to help children grow in their faith, though all submissions do not need to be overtly religious."
The magazine's
monthly themes are listed on their website, along with a submission deadline for each issue. To paraphrase something I heard Richard Peck say years ago, "A deadline is a writer's friend." When I first learned of
Pockets and their theme/deadline list, I submitted some theme-related puzzles. To my delight, they were accepted! That success led me to try my hand at writing a short story specifically for an issue focusing on "prejudice." They accepted that piece, and "The Cupcake Man" became my first published children's story.
Pockets also published my first children's poem. (Is it any wonder why I'm so fond of this magazine?)
Of course, the key to success when writing for
Pockets or any other magazine is to study several issues so that you can draft a submission that fits with the magazine's overall feel. You should be able to check out copies of well-known magazines like
Highlights and
Cricket at your public library. For smaller magazines like
Pockets, you can usually request a sample copy from the publisher. Instructions for doing so are often listed in the "Magazines" section of the annual
Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Market (Writer's Digest Books). You may be surprised by the number and range of magazines you'll find listed there. If you're a member of SCBWI, you can also download the latest
SCBWI Magazine Market Guide, which also includes general tips on writing for magazines.
Besides magazines, another good market for building your writing portfolio is the
Chicken Soup for the Soul series of books. Their upcoming titles are listed
on their website along with their submission deadlines. (Remember: Deadlines are our friends!) When Chicken Soup put out a call for the book
Teens Talk High School: 101 Stories of Life, Love, and Learning for Older Teens, I submitted a poem in two voices called "Questions," which they accepted. My Writing Buddy, Leanne Pankuch, recently had her
second Chicken Soup story published in Hooked on Hockey. Again, to place a story in a Chicken Soup book, it's important to study past issues, and also to carefully
read their guidelines. While Chicken Soup stories are nonfiction, they must read like well-crafted fiction--with a beginning, middle, and end; action; dialogue; conflict, a theme, etc.
By the way, all the markets I've discussed today pay for your writing. While it's not exactly a "
pot of gold," receiving payment for our work is affirming. And it has given many of my former students the confidence to say "I am a published author," even as they wait for their first book contract.
Don't forget: there's less than a week left to enter for a chance to win an autographed copy of JoAnn Early Macken's,
Write a Poem Step by Step. See
JoAnn's guest post for details.
Happy writing!
Carmela
A big "thank you" to all who entered our latest giveaway. We enjoyed learning about your favorite chocolate treats. :-) The winner of the
2013 Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market is:
Sandy Brehl
Sandy blogs at
Unpacking the POWER of Picture Books. Congratulations, Sandy! And thanks again to
Mary Kole for her guest interview.
And now to wrap-up our current
TeachingAuthors' topic: critique groups, and critiquing in general. Last Friday,
Jill opened the discussion with some excellent tips for when you're critiquing a manuscript in a group setting. Mary Ann focused on
advice for one-on-one critiquing. Jeanne Marie
emphasized the importance of looking at first drafts at the "global level," instead of nitpicking them. And both Mary Ann and Jeanne Marie talked about the value of asking a writer: What made you decide to write this particular story?/Why did you choose to write about this topic? Today I'd like to share a bit about what to do when you receive conflicting feedback.
In the facilitated critique workshops that I teach, we follow the critiquing model I learned at Vermont College. The format is described in this
guest post by Lyn Miller-Lachmann. There are two unique aspects to this format that are specifically designed to help keep the writer from getting defensive:
1) The author remains silent while others discuss his or her work. When you think about it, this makes sense. When you submit a manuscript to an editor or agent, you're not there to explain the choices you made. The manuscript must succeed on its own. Also, an author who remains silent is more likely to really
hear the feedback because he or she isn't sitting there thinking about how to respond to what's being said.
2) After a round of sharing positive feedback regarding what's working well, instead of telling an author what's "wrong" with the piece or what needs "fixing," critiquers share questions about the manuscript. I've found it takes some practice for my students to learn how to express their comments in question form, but here are a few examples:
“Is the narrator a boy or a girl?”
“What time of day is it? What season?”
“What happened to the dog?”
“How did the narrator feel when that happened?”
“Why did the mother react so strongly to such a minor accident?”
“Why didn’t the mother react more strongly?
I do allow my students to preface their questions with an “I” statement to indicate points in the story where they were confused or found something unclear. For example:
I was confused here. I thought the narrator was a boy. Is the narrator a boy or a girl?
I couldn’t picture this scene. Is the main character sitting or standing here?
I didn’t understand exactly what this sentence means. Could you clarify?
However, not all questions are appropriate. I discourage critiquers from trying to tell the author how to "fix" the story via their questions. As critiquers, we may not see or understand the author's goals. Therefore, I believe questions like "Why don't you get rid of the mother character?" aren't as helpful as "What purpose does the mother character serve?" The first question puts the author on the defensive. The second question leads the author to think more deeply about the story. It may be that the mother
is important, but the author hasn't shown why clearly enough yet.
When I facilitate critique workshops, I remind students that all feedback is subjective, including mine. Just because I'm the "teacher," that doesn't necessarily mean my comments are "better" or more valuable than anyone else's. I also encourage students to share their opinions even if they disagree with me and/or with their fellow students--it's important for a writer to know different readers may react differently to the manuscript.
So, when you're the author, how should you handle contradictory feedback? My advice is to latch on to the feedback that feels "right" or "true" first. For example, let's say that while drafting your piece you wonder if a section of dialogue sounds too mature for the character's age, but you leave it as is. Then, when you bring the piece to critique group someone asks: "How old is this character? I think his dialogue sounds old for a 9-year-old." Even if another critiquer responds, "I disagree. His dialogue sounds just right to me," I'd go back and revise the dialogue.
On the other hand, if you're not sure which feedback feels "right," you can go one of several ways. You may decide to go with "majority rules"--what do most critiquers agree on? OR, if there's someone in the group whose opinion you particularly respect or tend to agree with, then you might go with that one individual's response, even it it's the minority opinion. In the above example, if the person saying the dialogue sounds "just right" is a third-grade teacher who works with 9-year-olds on a daily basis, I wouldn't revise. OR, you may decide that the contradictory feedback is a symptom of a deeper problem that requires you to go back and revise something earlier in the story. Perhaps your character is precocious, and mature dialogue is part of his personality. In that case, you may want to go back and check whether his dialogue has been mature for his age from the very beginning. If his precociousness is important to the story, you might want to include other signs of it, besides his dialogue.
Keep in mind that the more critiquers you have, the more likely you are to get contradictory feedback. Sometimes, that's a good thing, but not always. I've seen writers revise over and over again thinking they will eventually satisfy all their critiquers. The problem is:
You can't please all your readers all the time. If you don't believe me, go to
Goodreads and look at the reviews for
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Alongside this bestseller's many 4- and 5-star ratings, you'll see reviews with only 1-3 stars.
As I said earlier, reading is subjective. While critique feedback can be invaluable, in the end it's
your story, and yours alone.
Happy writing, and Happy Poetry Friday! Today's Poetry Friday round-up is at hosted by
Ed DeCaria at ThinkKidThink.
Carmela
Our thoughts and prayers go out to all in the path of Hurricane Sandy, including our own Jeanne Marie. As a last-minute sub for her, I'm posting a quick preview of a special event we'll be sponsoring in November. We've decided to expand last year's Ten Days of Thanks-Giving into a full Two Weeks of Thanks-Giving, and we're hoping many of you will again join in the celebration, especially if you're a teacher or fellow blogger. This post includes an invitation to teachers who'd like to incorporate the event into their November lesson plans.
Before I explain how to participate, let me share some background: In October, 2011 Esther blogged about a poetry form called a Thanku--a thank you note written in the from of a haiku. Her post inspired the TeachingAuthors team to sponsor our first ever Ten Days of Thanks-Giving last November. During those ten days, all our posts included thank you notes to someone special. In my post, I shared the following Thanku addressed to my teacher and mentor, Sharon Darrow:
Your encouragement
yielded a harvest beyond
my expectations.
We also invited readers and fellow bloggers to share their own thank yous via comments, emails, or blog posts. At the end of the ten days, we posted some of those thank you notes on our blog, along with a round up of links to other blogs that had participated in the event.
We plan to do the same this year, with some minor modifications. As I mentioned, we're expanding the event so that it will run for two full weeks. This year's
Two Weeks of Thanks-Giving will take place
November 16-November 30. We will again invite our readers and fellow bloggers to participate by writing a
thank you note of no more than 25 words via prose or a poetry form of your choice. (We'd love to see more Thankus!) But this year,
we ask that your thank yous be writing-related,
expressing your gratitude to a writing teacher who helped you or to a writer you admire. You may consider following Sherman Alexie's #1 bit of advice in his
Top 10 Pieces of Writing Advice:
[1] When you read a piece of writing that you admire, send a note of thanks to the author. Be effusive with your praise. Writing is a lonely business. Do your best to make it a little less lonely.
Now, to all the classroom teachers out there: We invite you to give your students the same assignment-- to compose a thank you note to an author of their choosing. Please limit the assignment to 25 words of prose or poetry. (If you're planning to have them write their notes as Thankus,
see Esther's original post for inspiration.) We'd love for you to share some of your students' notes with us, either via a comment, email, or your own blog posts. We'll then include some of their work (or a link to your blog post) in our final round-up on November 30. The kick-off post on November 16 will include complete details on how to submit to us.
For all our readers: We hope you'll also participate in our
Two Weeks of Thanks-Giving. Again, watch for our November 16 kick-off post for complete details. And if you know any teachers who may be interested in participating, please share this information with them as soon as possible.
Finally, for those participating in
National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) or
Picture Book Idea Month (PiBoIdMo), good luck!
Happy writing!
Carmela
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Beautiful poem, April. Is there anything better than going to the library with no particular book in mind and exploring the stacks for something to read? What treasures there are to find.
April,
Thank you for sharing information about Teen Read Week. I am always a little envious of all of the amazing literature available to teens today.
I enjoyed your poem. I guess possibly imprinting can have many meanings. Definitions are in the eye of the "definer." Your poem instantly made me feel as if I were sitting in a classroom as late middle or early high school student.
Thanks for sharing,
Cathy
The ending of your poem is such a kick in the gut, and what a reminder of teenage years!
Thanks for sharing the poem and making me smile with the duckling video.
I was fascinated by the concept of "imprinting" when I learned about it in college (I think). And I think there are a few times in human lives - as your poem indicates - that we also have imprinting going on. Thanks for sharing the video. Too cute! Hope he finds his mom though! That was one of the dangers of imprinting - finding the wrong thing!
Hi, April--
A poem that good doesn't have to "fit" any theme. Beautifully done and reminds me to get your book into the hands of my daughter.
Thanks for a great post!
Oh, that duckling! What a perfect accompaniment to the poem!
Dear Laura, Cathy, Tricia, Donna, Heidi and Ruth, THANK YOU for your comments! I'm happy this poem gets its time in the sun. :-)
Hello there April, your poem made me smile. :) Love the subtle effects of imprinting, and how it IS indeed deeply connected to adolescence and first loves! :) Thank you for letting us know about Teen Read Week! :)
April, I like the turn in this poem. Thank you.
I loved your book when I first read it, & now you remind me that I need to lend it to some students again! It is Teen Read Week & I've given a few book talks just for that purpose, new and old-lots of wonderful books are available. Thanks April!
April-- the air-popped popcorn for brains image is perfect, and one I can relate to!
And I love your poem. It says so much in so few words! Those poor ducklings, though, imprinting on a vacuum cleaner. Maybe you could turn the story into a humorous picture book?
Dear Myra, Joy and Linda,
<3 <3 <3!
Imprinting has always fascinated me.
Carmela--maybe you're right about the PB idea. Hmmmm...I've put it in my "hot idea" file.