My goal for this year is to receive as many as rejections as possible. I can be a little—okay, a lot—perfectionistic about where and when I send out submissions, so the intention of this goal was to push me to accomplish the part of publishing that I can control, submitting, and let go of the part I can’t control, selling.
For St. Patrick’s Day, my daughter had some fun writing limericks. Here is my favorite: Writing Write I will, forever still, you, me creativity is the key, Oh, write I will. Ah, a girl after my own heart. I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree in this case!
Sara is an agent with Harvey Klinger, Inc. in New York City. I was lucky enough to be able to hang out with Sara last January prior to the 11th Annual SCBWI International Winter Conference. Yes, she is every bit as cute and friendly as she appears in the photo below, so if you’re going to attend our conference this
I became a fan of Deborah Hopkinson in 2007, when I started Anastasia Suen’s Easy Readers and Chapter Books course. For the first assignment, we had to read five chapter books then choose one to analyze. I chose PIONEER SUMMER because it was my favorite. Years later, when I became co-regional advisor for SCBWI Western Washington, I knew I had
A few special shout-outs for a few special Cybils 2009 winners: Non-Fiction For Young Adults The Frog Scientist by Pamela S. Turner; illustrated by Andy Comins Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Nominated by: Laurie Thompson (YAY, that’s me!) Again, what a field. Each of the books in this category blew me away. It’s thrilling to see these exciting topics being covered in
The prompt over at Sunday Scribblings today is dare. My first instinct was to write a spontaneous short fiction vignette—that is what prompts are all about, right? But, while I consider writing fiction a useful practice to improve my skills as well as a rewarding creative endeavor in its own right, my real passion is nonfiction. So, today I’ll share
In the interests of pushing myself out of my comfort zone, I recently finished a class in magical realism. It was drastically different from anything I’ve done (or even read, really) before, and the results were, well, interesting. The final assignment was this: “For this assignment, take the notion of a garden (well tended or neglected, your choice) and play
The Siemens We Can Change the World Challenge gives students in grades K‑8 the opportunity, tools and inspiration to become agents of change. From their website: The Siemens Foundation, Discovery Education, and the National Science Teachers Association invite you to join the only Challenge of its kind that empowers students to create solutions to environmental problems in their own backyards,
I loved this recent post by Cheryl Harness over at I.N.K. (Interesting Nonfiction for Kids). My favorite part comes right at the end: As for me, here’s the “Boston Massacre,” March 5, 1770, in The Revolutionary John Adams: “Noisy men and boys were throwing snowballs and oyster shells at a British sentry …The scene exploded with more soldiers, an alarm bell,
The big topic in the writing world this time of year is NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, in which aspiring writers are encouraged to churn out 50,000 words of rough draft in 30 days. It’s easy to get caught up in the hype, but after weeks of consideration and days of agonizing, I’ve finally decided NOT to do it this