There are male-specific rights-of-passage for boys. The first fish. The first hunt. The first shave. I’ve been rather melancholy about the whole idea of losing my youngest son to manhood. Sure, he’s just on the tail end of nine, but I catch glimpses of the future in his evolving jaw line, his size 10 ½… Read more »
In my last post, I brought up the idea of inspired moments; those rare, unexpected factoids or details that grab us by the throat. Such experiences inevitably enrich our current works-in-progress or inspire brand-spanking-new ideas. Just that sort of event hit me recently while watching a PBS program. The briefest mention of this man sucked… Read more »
What inspires your stories? Our imaginations are constantly bombarded, yet it takes but one little fact to grab us, holding us hostage until we pay it’s artful ransom. When that nugget of inspiration strikes, we must listen. When truth pulses as a nucleus, our job is to take dictation, building a form around it as… Read more »
(why can’t I place images whereever I want? Honestly, no matter what I do, pictures always land at the head of the post. How frustrating!) I’m looking back at my week now and feeling pretty good about how I’ve spent my time. You see, I made a New-School-Year Resolution to utilize my days more wisely…. Read more »
There are wonderful books aimed at inspiring children to write and read. Now that school has started, I thought I’d share a bundle of titles that I’ve come across. Some of these books are useful during school visits. Others are wonderful classroom additions. All of them are visually appealing. This list of recommended reads is… Read more »
School visits can be a lucrative way for authors to supplement their incomes while increasing name recognition among their most loyal followers: students and teachers. But, what about pre-book-published authors? Will a school perceive “value” in a writer who doesn’t as yet have books published? I think the answer is an emphatic yes! Even more… Read more »
Thank you for visiting my blog. Please note that this post was published in 2010—long before my first published book, and long before I pursued an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts, where I dedicated half of my critical thesis to the murky nonfiction-fiction threshold and how the classification process adds to… Read more »
I love writing retreats. Scratch that…I need writing retreats. As a busy, involved mother married to a husband with a very big job, requiring long hours, home is riddled with responsibility for me. I write at the same desk I pay bills from. My deadlines rest on the same calendar with doctor’s appointments, PTA meetings,… Read more »
It was bound to happen. I spent three years, fifty rewrites, nine hundred miles to research, and countless dollars preparing, what I was certain, would be my book debut, the first kid-lit book on my chosen subject. Even the interested agent was anxious to finally see the end product, after suggesting I rewrite the original… Read more »
My last blog post pointed to the need for authors of picture books to omit physical descriptions as much as possible to allow the illustrator to paint that part of the story. One of the best ways to learn to write with that in mind, is to read existing picture books critically. That’s difficult to… Read more »
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