For Teachers & Parents

For both writers, and teachers of writers, on the subject of “what do we write about and why”… I have a wonderful coaching client, who has recently finished her first novel (a fantastic and emotionally moving story, beautifully told, about a middle school girl recovering from grief). We were talking about what she would write… Read more »

Just a short post-Thanksgiving post… I spent a part of Small Business Saturday at a charming indie bookstore – Wheatgrass Books – in Livingston, Montana (fictional setting for Carry Me Home), where kids doing community service work were busy making origami paper cranes. They were part of a donation event to send Blessing Bags with… Read more »

Saturday November 13th was “World Kindness Day”. It seems awfully narrow (to me, anyway) to confine kindness to a single day. I would love it if we’d at least acknowledge the season of Thanksgiving as the season of giving kindness and joy. And heaven knows we could use a lot of both in our lives…. Read more »

Yes, I know – Halloween is over. But it does feel like this Halloween was even more of a needed treat than usual, doesn’t it? As a member of the Spooky Middle Grade authors group, I believe that kids love spooky books for good reason: learning how to be scared of things when you can… Read more »

I really love YouTube self-help videos. I’ve fixed the door latch on a microwave, figured out what was wrong with my dishwasher so I could tell the appliance guy what part to order, and decided which computer would be my next purchase. I also love Canva. I love design, and color – for me, playing… Read more »

This post is for both educators and writers. I hope it will be useful! Text Sets I had never heard of Text Sets until my friend Deb Gonzales directed me to Barb Rosenstock’s website. Barb has made Text Sets for her books, and they are an awesome teaching tool. Text Sets provide, in two pages,… Read more »

Teachers and librarians! I have a bunch of ARCs (advance reader copies) of Carry Me Home, so I’m hosting an initial ARC give away on Twitter this week! Here’s the link to the Twitter post. (This give away is being hosted solely on Twitter, but watch this space for more give aways throughout the spring.)… Read more »

It’s tough to be an author and even tougher to be a teacher in these “remote learning” times. How can we visit schools, when schools might not even be in session? My Spooky Middle Grade clan of authors, led by the wonderful Kim Ventrella, is putting together a series of virtual author visits that you… Read more »

Teachers, librarians, and parents of homeschooled kids – I’ve revised my “Speaking” page to reflect the fact that I won’t be traveling for a while. I hope you’ll check out my offerings to breathe a little “authorly” depth into your school program. It seems that life has changed for us all, and isn’t going to… Read more »

Wolves. Humans have a complicated relationship with wolves. They may be ancestrally related to man’s best friend, the dog, but… Wolves are variously described as scary, beautiful, intelligent, cagey, dangerous, and fascinating. The gray wolf is the top predator in the Yellowstone ecosystem, and has been the bane of ranchers and farmers since Europeans first… Read more »