While the Sun Shines

If you’re anywhere near Sheboygan, Wisconsin, look for me this weekend at the Sheboygan Children’s Book Festival. The celebration, October 9-11, features free programming for children, teens, and adults with 16 authors and illustrators presenting at three venues.

I’ll be presenting a program for children on Saturday at 11:30 at Bookworm Gardens. I’ll read Flip, Float, Fly: Seeds on the Move, and we’ll do a milkweed seed activity and talk about monarch butterflies.  I can hardly wait!

On Sunday at 1:30 at the Mead Public Library, I’ll present a workshop for adults about writing lively nonfiction and share examples from exciting nonfiction books for kids. I found such wonderful resources!

The following weekend is our SCBWI-Wisconsin Fall Conference, where I’ll present a breakout session on Activating Passive Language. I’m also doing critiques. Here, I’m interviewed on the new SCBWI-Wisconsin Blog. You can read interviews with some of the other presenters here. 

Just in time for my conference planning, I finished revising a test passage for an educational publisher. Sometime before I take off for Sheboygan, I intend to send out a letter about a school visit. All this preparation can be a bit overwhelming, but it’s all fun stuff. After a pretty quiet summer, I’m happy to be busy! So when work is available, I always say "Yes!" if I can.

This week’s To-Do list demonstrates our current Teaching Authors topic: the variety of ways we try to make a living in addition to writing and marketing our books for children. Marti started us off with a post about her two articles in the 2016 Children’s Writer’s and Illustrator’s Market, including "Make a Living as a Writer." Last week Monday, Esther mentioned teaching, writing book reviews, and educational writing. On Wednesday, Laura Purdie Salas shared an exercise about writing on assignment. On Friday, April gave us three tips and a story. Mary Ann started this week with another story and her take on school visits and teaching. We all wear multiple hats!

When I’m busybusybusy, I have to remember to take breaks. Yesterday, I walked to the lake and saw this brief, tiny rainbow overhead.

Here’s a cloud-watching poem to go with the view:

Summer Job 

My favorite occupation
is to lie back and look at the sky.
If you find the right spot,
you can see quite a lot
in the shapes of the clouds rolling by. 

You can study the habits of insects.
You can see how they flutter and fly.
You’ll see birds on the wing.
You can hear how they sing
as they swoop and they soar through the sky. 

All in all, it’s a fabulous habit.
You really should give it a try.
There’s nothing to do
but consider the view.
As the day drifts away, so do I.

JoAnn Early Macken 

I hope to see some of you out and about! In the meantime, be sure to enter our book giveaway for a chance to win a copy of the 2016 Children’s Writer’s and Illustrator’s Market (courtesy of Writer’s Digest Books)! Saturday, October 10, is the last day to enter.

Laura Purdie Salas is hosting this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup at Writing the World for Kids. Enjoy!

JoAnn Early Macken

Facts + Poetry = Creative Nonfiction

In this series of Teaching Author posts, we’re discussing the areas of overlap between fiction and nonfiction. Today, I’m thinking about creative nonfiction.

What is Creative Nonfiction? According to Lee Gutkind (known as the “Father of Creative Nonfiction”), “The words ‘creative’ and ‘nonfiction’ describe the form. The word ‘creative’ refers to the use of literary craft, the techniques fiction writers, playwrights, and poets employ to present nonfiction—factually accurate prose about real people and events—in a compelling, vivid, dramatic manner. The goal is to make nonfiction stories read like fiction so that your readers are as enthralled by fact as they are by fantasy.”

One critical point about writing creative nonfiction is that creativity does not apply to the facts. Authors cannot invent dialog, combine characters, fiddle with time lines, or in any other way divert from the truth and still call it nonfiction. The creative part applies only to the way factual information is presented.

One way to present nonfiction in a compelling, vivid manner is to take advantage of the techniques of poetry. When I wrote the nonfiction picture book Flip, Float, Fly: Seeds on the Move (gorgeously illustrated by Pam Paparone), I made a conscious effort to use imagery, alliteration, repetition, and onomatopoeia while explaining how seeds get around. When she called with the good news, the editor called it a perfect blend of nonfiction and poetry. Yippee, right?

Fiona Bayrock’s “Eleven Tips for Writing Successful Nonfiction for Kids” lists more helpful and age-appropriate methods for grabbing kids’ attention, starting with “Tap into your Ew!, Phew!, and Cool!”

Marcie Flinchum Atkins has compiled a helpful list of ten Nonfiction Poetic Picture Books. She points out that these excellent books (including some by Teaching Authors friends April Pulley Sayre, Laura Purdie Salas, and Lola Schaefer) can be used in classrooms to teach good writing skills. We can all learn from such wonderful examples!

Heidi Mordhorst has this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup at My Juicy Little Universe. Enjoy!

JoAnn Early Macken

Out & About in Cleveland

Good news! My nonfiction picture book Flip, Float, Fly: Seeds on the Move received the Growing Good Kids - Excellence in Children’s Literature Award from the American Horticultural Society and the National Junior Master Gardener Program.

Two weeks ago, I traveled to Cleveland to receive the award at the 2009 National Children & Youth Garden Symposium in Cleveland, Ohio. During the award ceremony at Case Western Reserve University, I spoke briefly to an attentive and welcoming audience of teachers, Master Gardeners, university extension faculty, garden writers, and other youth garden enthusiasts.

After the ceremony, I signed books at the gorgeous Cleveland Botanical Garden. We strolled through the Hershey Children's Garden and the Eleanor Armstrong Smith Glasshouse with its indoor butterfly exhibit. What an exciting day! (Here I am with Randy Seagraves of the National Junior Master Gardener Program.)

Flip, Float, Fly: Seeds on the Move grew out of my desire to combine my love of poetry with what I knew about writing nonfiction. Holiday House editor Mary Cash and illustrator Pam Paparone deserve a sizeable portion of the credit for any successes of the book. Holiday House also helped make it possible for me to travel to Cleveland.

My husband Gene drove me all the way to Cleveland and back. On the way there, we stopped for dinner in South Bend, Indiana, with April Pulley Sayre, who also gave us a tour of the Notre Dame campus. Coffee in hand, we took a much-needed walk around a pond, past The Grotto, and into the Basilica of the Sacred Heart.

Our friend Susan welcomed us to Cleveland and showed us the town, including Lake View Cemetery, where we peeked into the Wade Memorial Chapel. The interior, designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany, includes wall-sized mosaics and an amazing leaded glass window.

As a writer, I spend much of my time alone, scribbling in a notebook or staring at a computer. An opportunity to travel, visit good friends, and meet new people provides a welcome break--plus it's fun to be the center of attention once in a while!

Of course, I never really work alone. Support from my family, my Vermont College classmates (a.k.a. The Hive), my brilliant writing group, five warm and generous blogmates, and other writer friends enables me to pursue my dream of writing for children. Any recognition for my work not only belongs to all of us but also reminds me how lucky I am!