"Listen to the mustn'ts, child, listen to the don'ts.
Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts.
Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me.
Anything can happen, child, anything can be."
~Shel Silverstein
GET CAUGHT READING!
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I
always carry a book or magazine wherever I go. People who catch me reading are as likely to find me thumbing through a children's picture book as anything else. Though my four
kids are well above picture book age, I still can't get enough of this fun, quirky genre.
I quiver with
excitement when my sub teaching assignments take me into English and ELL classrooms - I'm a big supporter of literacy for children and adults, and encourage everyone to read, read, read. I've never subscribed to cable TV,
so you'll find my teenagers curled up in our big reclining chairs with books almost as often as they text message, play
video games, or watch movies.
THE NATIONAL MALL - my first book - a middle grade nonfiction
library market volume - was released by Enslow
Publishing's MyReportLinks imprint in 2005.
A second project, LEWIS AND CLARK, is in editorial
production and slated for October 2009 publication.
A PIG OF ILL REPUTE hit cyberspace
on StoryBox Library in October 2006 - my first published children's story! Many thanks to Kevin Scott Collier, editor, illustrator, and author extraordinaire, for the illustration and publishing opportunity.
A PIG OF ILL REPUTE and two more stories - GREAT SPIRIT'S BUTTERFLIES and COOL CRITTERS - were
contracted in 2007 for use as test assessment passages by NEW LEADERS for NEW SCHOOLS, a NYC nonprofit dedicated to improving urban public schools.
My library market nonfiction books aren't my only projects for kids. My very first
children's story was conceived as a 300-word toddler's boardbook manuscript. After ten years of creative muscle,
it's now a 5,000-word early chapter book manuscript, BREATH OF ALL THAT IS.
Another major production is my retold tale, LAMA CUCKOO, a popular Tibetan Buddhist story based on Edward Conze's translation of BUDDHA'S LAW AMONG THE BIRDS.
I also have a handful of polished retold folktales and picture book stories: Great
Spirit's Rattlesnake, I Couldn't Sleep, Let's Look for Shufie, L'il Bit, and Twice As Nice
. . . I'm looking for "homes" for these and other manuscripts - a place to give birth in print.
A tweak here, a tuck there, and ideas morph from raw words into polished prose, ready to burst into
life! And so it goes with all writing projects. After the conception of a project, we writers gear up and revise, then send
our creations into the world. When they don't land back at home, there's nothing like doin' the
publication dance!
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| Pig of Ill Repute - Illustration by Kevin Scott Collier |
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