About half the published authors I know use outlines when they write. The other half don’t. As for me, I have yet to start writing a novel with one, but I do find them useful when I revise. I usually begin with one or more characters whom I want to get to know, and the [...]

I once heard an editor explain that for every thousand manuscripts her house received, only 2 or 3 were published in one year. Of course, that number is a bit deceiving. She also said that of the 1,000, about 900 manuscripts were rejected outright without reading more than a line because the writing was so [...]

Years ago, I met Jerry Spinelli at a conference. He was warm and helpful. In between workshops one afternoon, while sitting on the steps in the sun, he told me about a manuscript he had spent a long time writing and that he thought had terrific promise. He had sent it to his editor, sure [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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