All of Your Messages Have Been Erased. Miss Fox’s Class Earns a Field Trip. Incomparable treasure, gifts from beloved friends, these books on my desktop inspire me to write. And intimidate me to silence: peering down at the covers hovering on the ledge above my keyboard, words seem inadequate.
Vivian Shipley arrives for dinner with her [...]

Often the best souvenirs writers bring back from Trips To Away are fresh new books to write - or a whole new committment to our art.  When we leave our homes, computers, and regular schedules, we become untethered. All the assumptions and paradigms that restrict us as writers suddenly come into question. Wide open, we float [...]

The Tassy Walden New Voices in Children’s Literature Awards ceremony is a stellar event. I mean it, this hard-earned recognition for a writer is a moment when the clouds clear and the stars shine and shimmer not on everyone, or that one, but on you.
I was a finalist, and after a friend suggested I try [...]

Waiting for the print-publishing world to settle down and start buying again a a real downer. You can start to spend way too much time trying to read the minds of editors and publishers. You wonder if you should change your style. Switch subjects? Do a complete rewrite of the [...]

I love to write poetry with children. At a super fun after-school workshop with K-5th graders at Tabor Community Center, I chose spiders as a topic. I took the children on a spider walk (hunt) outside.  We came inside and did a group warm up by building a yarn/string spider web between us. As each [...]

Apologia

In this spot
My post is not.

But stay tuned, friends –
Writer’s block
Always ends.

So take a look
Another time.
You’ll find I’ve blogged –
And not in rhyme.