Thoughts
Picturebook Dreams
Although I know my heart's topics typically lend themselves to the upper MG and YA genres, I have always loved and dreamed of writing picturebooks. Often motivated by writing contests or calls for children's magazines, I love the challenge of word counts and the...
My YES is stronger than any NO
About a month ago, I read a tweet so quickly I didn't even take the time to retweet it or "like" it; however, the words inherent in that powerful tweet are now a part of my writer's heart: Your yes has to be stronger than all those no's. I've been echoing that yes...
Playing Through the Writer’s Journey
A recent Sunday morning, I sprung out of bed and knew my next book’s storyline. Rather than enjoy coffee with conversation as my husband and I usually do in the morning, I sipped on coffee as my story outline spilled across the page. As I wrote, Dave said, “Do you...
Messy Memories
My sister-in-law loves making messes. Last summer, as she played with her children and mine in a bubble mixture that seriously makes the coolest bubbles, she said, “I love bubbles. They’re therapeutic.” I shook my head as I eyed my three-year-old son who chose not to...
My Book Birthday Wish
Today, as a newly published book author, my book birthday wish is to know more stories. Inherent power exists in everyone’s story. Stories provide simple steps we can all take toward understanding—understanding we need to teach and understanding we need to learn. My...
Back to Blogging: Book Birthday Approaching!
My fingers have not tapped these keys to craft a blog post since June 10, 2019; yet, these fingers have been busy typing! I signed a book contract with Routledge July 19, 2019 for my book titled Engaging teachers, students, and families in K-6 writing instruction:...
Take Notice Along Your Writing Journey
I had the pleasure to write for the #TeachWrite Chat Blog on May 16, 2019. Such a busy semester delayed this posting to Writing Connections: https://teachwritechat.blogspot.com/2019/05/take-notice-along-your-writing-journey.html
Thank you, Writing Group
My writing group is an instrumental component of my writing process. They inspire me through their own dedication to their writing, hold me accountable for consistent writing, and provide feedback that blends compliment and critique. Our group met at a writing retreat...
Writing Contest for Third-, Fourth-, and Fifth-Grade Students
Many authors have started their publishing careers in children’s literature after participating in or winning writing contests: Sharon Draper, Tim Wynne-Jones, Grace Lin, and Cynthia Leitich Smith, just to name a few. Writing contests provide an authentic writing...
Reset
As I prayed this morning, going through my daily devotional, our family basset hound made a crazy amount of noise, pulling out something from behind a shelf. I scrambled to quiet him and to discover what in the world he had gotten himself into again at 4:30 a.m. and...
Making Connections Across Our Journeys
To live is to connect with others. Making connections across our journeys with one another provides us opportunities to teach and to learn, to inspire and to soar, to bless and to be blessed. A couple weeks ago, I read Andy Andrews’ The Traveler’s Gift, recommended to...
Find Your Flow
Once again, I had the pleasure of writing for the #TeachWrite Chat Blog, a blog created by a great organization: Teach Write, LLC. I invite you to read my post highlighting Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s (1990) book titled Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience,...
Choosing to See Rejection as a Pass
I truly believed with all of my heart that I had found an agent to help me navigate the children’s book publishing market. I awaited a phone call believing thoroughly that my breakthrough was a breath away. That breath came through an email and exhaled, “NO!” I...
Somersaulting Through the Writing Process
When I think of somersaulting, the first image that pops into my mind is my two-year-old son, Drew, who shocked his dad. You see, I witnessed how Drew learned to do a somersault all by himself through his Baby Ninja Gymnastics Class. Drew and I followed Coach Josh’s...
Honoring a Vietnam War Veteran
One book I read every year with my children’s literature course is Eve Bunting’s The Wall. But I have never experienced the book the way I did last week during an Authors Specialist Knowledge (ASK) Program with Gordy Bourland who fulfilled a specialist role to answer...
Authors Specialists Knowledge Program
Have you ever wanted to interview a published children’s book author? Would you like to connect your own students to such interview experiences? Are you looking for ways to help your students connect with the content they read at deeper levels to acquire layers of...
Writing with Enemies and Friends
I had the pleasure of writing for the #TeachWrite Chat Blog, a blog created by a great organization: Teach Write, LLC. I invite you to read my post about the enemies and friends that join me throughout my writing process.
The Power of a Teacher-Writer’s Voice
Yesterday morning, I received the kind of email every writing teacher loves to read. A former student of mine, Jowan Nabha, let me know the piece she planned to NOT publish just had to be submitted! I love it when a teacher-writer discovers the power of her voice. The...
Journaling With My Daughters
One highlight of my daughter’s sixth birthday is her new family dialogue journal. She picked out her composition notebook covered in rainbow hearts on Saturday morning’s shopping trip. I planned to wrap it, but she snuck it out of the bag and beat me to the first...
Teacher-Writers Revise
Writers don’t write. They rewrite. As a teacher-writer, I welcome the inherent challenges of rewriting. Even this short blog post took more rewrites than I anticipated! Yet, isn’t that always the case with writing? Teaching others to embrace the myriad opportunities...