It took me all of a second to answer award-winning author Patricia Newman when she asked if I would like to contribute to her highly effective and well-read blog, LitLinks. (See the post below.) I selected a post date in November, the perfect time to talk about animal adaptations to cold and how my worry… Read more »
Hi friends. Since we’ve last connected here, we elected and installed a new president — despite unparalleled challenges to our democracy. Scientists created a vaccine with unprecedented efficacy to combat a deadly virus and deployment of that vaccine has begun. And sadly, my sweet father passed away due to an unrelated disease. Sometimes it seems we… Read more »
Democracy is on all of our minds. And well it should be; this is a pivotal year for our country and our people. Educator and author Donalyn Miller presents the case that because literacy is so important, it has been and is currently used as a weapon of discrimination and a strategy to maintain power. Creators,… Read more »
Yesterday, I posted this visual on my author Instagram feed. [Feel free to check it out but come right back!] It speaks to the need we all have to try to maintain a sense of control in difficult times. I imagine most of us have had to adjust our courses because our pre-pandemic methods and… Read more »
This Nerdy Book Club blog post, The Power of Listening, by staff development expert Clare Landrigan stopped me in my reading tracks. More accurately, the third to last line is what did it — “Our conversations with them [students] are what spark the love of reading and help them develop a reading identity.” Say what? A reading… Read more »
SCBWI-Iowa is hosting my presentation, Finding Your Agent Match, via webinar on February 10, 2020. This is a topic near and dear to me because I know that the right agent partner is invaluable. Yes, it took me many years and two tries before I found the right match for me. But I can help… Read more »
A quick look at the magazine rack at checkout counters reveals that January is the month to clean up and organize. I’m following suit inside my house but it dawned on me that I should peek into my digital home, too. Good thing I did because my online profiles looked like this…messy, cluttered, and disorganized. Cases… Read more »
Multi-published author, Lisa Amstutz, offers a helpful post for writers who are trying to traditionally publish their first book and experience long periods of time waiting for answers. [Let me interject that published authors wait, too. In fact, I double dare you to find a published author that doesn’t!] Remember Newton’s first law, “…a body in motion stays… Read more »
Recently, a client who is working through the stages of my Find Me an Agent Match, Please service shared that fear gets in her way of submitting. When we discussed it further, she and I were both surprised to learn she did not have a fear of failure; she had a fear of success. It took… Read more »
Janie Reinart over at GROG posted about creating our personal mission statement. This exercise seems like it could be a bit “woo-woo” but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Following our path starts from knowing where we want to go. Here is my mission statement: to write stories that help children understand the world and their place in… Read more »
Sharing insights on writing children’s books and the publishing industry, and offering trinkets for creators and educators because you rock.
