How I Became a Teaching Author

 Children tell stories. It’s what they do. It’s how they make sense of their world. If you lean in closely and really listen to a young child and drop your adult expectations, you will hear it. Between the um, um, um and the repeating phrases, even toddlers are fantastic storytellers. 

This is where I live when I am teaching kindergarten six hours a day. Inside children’s stories, I am allowed to travel deep down into their interior lives. This is where the fountain of youth lies, untouched by adults left cynical, distrusting, and judgmental. When a child lets you in, it is truly magical. I am given that privilege every day. I have a hard time imagining losing that privilege.

Every once in a while, I fantasize about retiring from teaching kindergarten in a public school in Los Angeles. The fantasy doesn’t last long.  The fuzzy image of a future filled with days doing something other than immersing myself in a 5-year-old’s world leaves me depleted and devoid of happiness. 

I teach because I can’t imagine doing anything that lacks the joy of play.  The kind of play which is a means without an end. A process without an expected outcome. Creativity in its rawest form, untouched by adult expectations. Even the thought of spending my days writing, photographing, painting, or filmmaking doesn’t hold the magic of hanging out with a group of young people who keep me grounded and tethered to my own childlike wonder of the world. Maybe, it’s the fear of losing touch with that unfettered way of moving through life. Maybe, it’s the fear of losing that point of reference and losing that ever-intoxicating sense of curiosity. Maybe, it’s the fear of growing old.

I didn’t seek out a career in education as a young adult. Teaching found me. 

Oh, serendipity. 

I had set out to become a broadcast journalist in the early 80’s. I landed an entry level job at CBS in New York City. It was the number one station in the number one market. I was beyond thrilled. Just before leaving my college town for New York, I came to Los Angeles on a whim. Only for the weekend with a fellow recent graduate. Just to say goodbye to the west coast in style.  A last farewell. But my fate was sealed. The sun enticed me and there was no turning back. Hollywood and its promise of filmmaking intrigued me and eclipsed my former goals. Broadcast journalism was in my rearview mirror. 

I transitioned by getting a job as a cocktail waitress. My father was disappointed. Adrift for the moment, I felt like I needed to meet my father’s need to use my newly acquired degree that he had paid for. And so, I crossed the street to the local elementary school to ask how I might become a substitute teacher in the meantime, while I figured things out. Eventually, substitute teaching gave way to full time teaching. The gravitational pull too strong to escape. I emerged as a progressive educator committed to a philosophy of listening to children.

As a lifelong storyteller, I have facilitated story as a journalist, theater director, writer, photographer and visual/multi-media artist. As I developed as an artist and educator simultaneously, I kept the two trajectories separate. Although, I suspect they bled into one another. Later in life than most,  I had a child by myself.  My parenting was informed by my teaching. As my only child approached her early teen years, full time, child-centered, single parenting gave way to small bits of time that could be redirected to my innate attraction to storytelling. As she got older, it found its way back into my life. My child-directed pedagogy as a kindergarten teacher found an intersection with storytelling. I naturally found my way into the kid lit world. 

   

Telling stories in the form of picture books is the culmination of years of listening to children, both my students and my own daughter. Writing picture books and teaching kindergarten are two separate careers. One is not dependent on the other, but I cannot deny that one informs the other and vice versa. It is my role in both professions to build the conditions for discourse between children and adults to emerge.  Children tell stories to make sense of their world.  They are natural storytellers. They have so much to say about our world. It is my hope that my work as a kindergarten teacher and as an author, creates an environment in which children expect to be heard. 

And we, as adults,

have the capacity to hear them.

Posted by Zeena M. Pliska

Above illustrations from:

Hello, Little One: A Monarch Butterfly Story   by Zeena M. Pliska

Illustrated by Fiona Halliday

Published by Page Street Kids

Caterpillar crawls from leaf to leaf, eating and waiting, all alone in a big, green world. Then Orange appears--Orange floats, and flits, and flies, graceful and beautiful. In this sweet, moving story of intergenerational friendship, a small caterpillar is befriended by a glorious monarch butterfly, and together they learn to see the world through each other's eyes.

Trailer created by Kyle Ragsdale    kyleragsdalevfx.com

"Lyrically told and handsomely illustrated... Share this lovely picture book to launch a science unit, or to introduce evergreen themes including growing up, dealing with loss, and the power of transformation." –School Library Journal, starred review

 "[Hello, Little One] is an accessible and thoroughly engaging introduction to monarchs, told through a parable of friendship."  -- Booklist, starred review  

   

 For more about my books and teaching, see my website HERE

How I Became A Teaching Author

I was a shy kid who grew up in an Air Force family. My shyness made it hard to make new friends. When you move during the middle of the school year, friendships are already established. Breaking in was torture for me. Thank goodness, I have a sister who is one year older than me. We spent hours in libraries. We loved books and still do along with a younger sister and brother.

A year ago, we decided to form a reading club. As quickly as that idea popped up, it fizzled. We have such divergent taste, we couldn’t decide on a book to start our first meeting. Luckily, I have my kid lit friends and critique buddies.

Before I began writing books for young readers, I taught middle school mathematics. I thought I’d always teach math. Two of my mother’s sisters were teachers. It was tradition.

But . . . I happened to see a flyer in my local library about a class for those who wanted to write magazine articles. It sounded intriguing, so I signed up and began a new career. I sold a few articles. Then I saw a newspaper article inviting people to a Society of Children’s Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) meeting. I found my true calling and longtime friendships—writing books for young readers.

I’ve published over 20 books. It was a long and winding path, but I’m where I belong. I write both fiction and nonfiction. BLOCK PARTY is a Junior Library Guild Selection.


One of my passions is picture book biographies. I love reading them and writing them. I especially love learning about people with an “I didn’t know that” factor. That definitely was the case with TINY STITCHES – THE LIFE OF MEDICAL PIONEER VIVIEN THOMAS (Lee & Low Books). A friend saw the movie Something the Lord Made (the story of Vivian Thomas) and told me to watch it. She encouraged me to write about him. It took a few years, but I did it. It won a NAACP Award. Accepting my award was one of the proudest moments of my writing career.

This fall, Capstone will publish my second picture book biography, ONA JUDGE OUTWITS THE WASHINGTONS – AN ENSLAVED WOMAN FIGHTS FOR FREEDOM. I don’t have a release date for my third one, PLANTING PEACE – THE STORY OF WANGARI MAATHAI (Wayland-Hachette Children’s Group).

I love visiting schools and sharing my writing life and writing tips with students. Recently, I presented workshops at Oklahoma State University and Rochester University in Rochester, Michigan. On behalf of the Arts Council of Oklahoma City, I teach an ongoing writing class at the YMCA Lincoln Park Senior Center in my hometown of Oklahoma City. The ladies are so prolific with so many life stories to tell that we published a book, TREASURES (Doodle and Peck).

During visits to upper elementary and middle school students, I often share my nonfiction science book MAKERS AND TAKERS—FOOD WEBS IN THE OCEANS (Rourke). I lead them in understanding, my book is not all that different from their essays.

I will continue to read all sorts of books and write as I begin working with the amazing TeachingAuthors and I hope to hear from readers too.

Posted by Gwendolyn Hooks

Letting Go of Fear (in Our 10th Year!)

.
Howdy, Campers! Happy Poetry Friday! (poem and the link to PF is below)

Before we begin, there's good news for those of you who want to win a terrific book: We’ve extended the deadline to enter our latest book giveaway of a signed copy of The Magic Words: Writing Great Books for Children and Young Adults by editor and author Cheryl B. Klein. You’ll find giveaway instructions in Carmela’sMarch 29 post. The new deadline is now Tuesday, May 7, in part to honor the 100th anniversary of Children’s Book Week. Click here to find out how to enter.

And now...happy 10th blogiversary, fellow Teaching Authors! In particular, happy blogiversary to our founder and fearless leader, Carmela Martino, who has steered the TA ship across the years. I cannot begin to thank you for hauling me on deck just before we set sail. My world is so much richer for it!

pretty amazing

In honor of this memorable milestone, all current and several former Teaching Authors are sharing our favorite posts.  I've decided to go all the way back to 2009. Here's my post on our first topic, "How I Became a Teaching Author."  At the end of that post I conclude that teaching is generosity.

I've become more and more comfortable being honest with our readers. Today I know that being honest is a form of generosity.  (And to be honest, I was scared straight out of my jimmy-jammies writing that post.)

In this safe space, we've often shared fears about writing or teaching (find some of those posts here); I felt like an imposter as a writer and as a teacher for so long, fear was a second skin.

But this year something's changed. 

I must be like the Cowardly Lion at the end of the movie, The Wizard of Oz. As he is awarded a medal for courage, he becomes brave. After I was given an outstanding instructor award by the UCLA Extension Writers' Program, I believed that I actually was a good instructor, rather than pretending to be one.

Here is a not-yet-good-enough draft of a poem about how I so often felt:

TEACH
by April Halprin Wayland

I cannot do this today.

I sit on the stool in this empty classroom.

How dare I believe I can teach.

Am I a teacher?

Do other teachers feel this way--

slightly flu-ish, wanting to puke, even?

They should bring in someone else,

someone with a sword, maybe.

I wonder if my second grade teacher felt this way.

I wonder if all my teachers felt this way.

I almost fall off my stool 

imagining that.

But as I began teaching the first quarter of this year, here's what I wrote:
.

AGAIN
by April Halprin Wayland
.
Again she drives in early

unloads books

hooks up her laptop to the screen

puts one sheet of lavender paper

on each desk

puts the perfectly blooming hyacinth

just so on the edge of her desk

tapes her favorite quote on the front door

and two more inside her classroom.
.

Again she takes off running shoes

puts on high heels

brushes her hair

fills her water bottle

settles in.

She breathes for a moment,

closing her eyes.

Then she looks at the clock,

opens the door

and...
begins.

poems (c) 2019 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved. (Even on that crummy draft.)

One sign on my classroom door

As we celebrate 10 years of this blog, I celebrated 20 years as an instructor in the UCLA Extension Writers' Program.

I am no longer afraid to walk through that door. (And, though the fear has diminished, I still sweat writing this blog!  Perhaps that fear will disappear by our 20th blogiversary.)

my wonderful first class of 2019 holding some of their favorite picture books
both photos taken by our guest speaker, author Alexis O'Neill

Thank you for teaching me so much, readers. 

Happy Ramadan, Passover and/or Easter to all!

 And thank you, Amy at The Poem Farm for hosting!

Posted by April Halprin Wayland with help from Eli, the licky, lanky dog with the operatic bark.

Eli consulting Bear

2 Poems, 2 Lessons Learned From Teaching

.
Howdy, Campers and Happy Poetry Friday!  The link to PF is below.

Our topic, this orbit around Planet TeachingAuthors, is: Something I learned from teaching or from my students. 

Carmela started us off with Two Things My Students Have Taught Me; Esther followed with My Storied Treasures Treasured Stories! Now it's my turn; what I'm about to share echoes my first post on this blog in 2009. (For info on my up-coming UCLA Extension Writers' Program Picture Book Class, see below)

Two Lessons I've Learned From Teaching:

1) I am a snowflake.

pixabay.com creative commons

I've been teaching in the UCLA Extension Writers' Program since 1999. When I was planning my first class, I was petrified. My mantra was: I am a snowflake. When they are in my class, they will learn my snowflakeness. When they take another class, they will learn that teacher's snowflakeness.

It helped.

FIRST DAY TEACHING
by April Halprin Wayland

You take your seats

looking up

with puppy eyes

wanting me to be

the exact snowflake

you hoped for.

I explain how I drift,

I explain my six sides,

I explain my melting point.

If I am not what you wanted,

not what you expected,

not what you'd hoped for,

there's different snowflake

down the hall

named Bruce.

poem © 2017 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved

 * * *
2) Wheels are good.

https://morguefile.com/creative/DuBoix

ON STARTING MY ELEVENTH YEAR OF TEACHING
by April Halprin Wayland

 Years ago I learned to pack

 everything I need for the first day of class

 into a suitcase

 rather than that big plastic box I used to schlep.

 Wheels are so much easier.

 So last night I packed

 the roster,

 my updated syllabus,

 red, blue, green and black dry erase markers,

 clear mailing tape to stick quotations on the walls,

 the book I’ve read aloud in the first class for eleven years,

 and 25 copies of the “tell me about yourself” handout on lavender paper.

 My body is buzzing.

 I am slightly nauseous.

 This happens every year.

 There are no vaccination shots for it

 as I roll this suitcase into a new country
...

 again.

poem © 2017 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved

My next class, Writing The Children's Picture Book begins October 3rd. (and if you can't take my on-site class, consider taking UCLA Extension Writers' Program online Picture Book class from author Terry Pierce.)

Thank you, Michelle, for your own poetry and for hosting Poetry Friday at
Today's Little Ditty,

and for promoting the U.N.'s International Day of Peace Day (September 21st)

https://michellehbarnes.blogspot.com/

posted by April Halprin Wayland (with help from Eli, who is also a snowflake)

Describing the Indescribable in Six Words

OK, I admit it.  I’m an over thinker.  I can’t help it.  It is how I arrived way back when.

 

So to distill my life into a six word memoir is harder than I thought it would be.  There are so many different directions it could go.  And the thought of casting my six-word memoir out into cyberspace—where words never disappear—became more and more daunting the longer I thought about it.   Yes, that is the “over thinking” thing popping up again.

I tried to come up with a memoir that was lighthearted and meaningful that I could connect to something in my life.  Hmmmm . . . what could it be?  But memories are an unruly thing.  Lighthearted is not where my memory train stopped.   Instead my mind turned to another moment in my life when I had to decide on just a few words to describe the indescribable. 

 

Corey Andrew McClafferty

9-16-87 — 11-24-88

Corey, my fourteen-month-old son, had just died from a head injury after falling off the swing in the back yard.  I picked out a tombstone.  I didn’t want a tombstone, and I sure didn’t want one with my son’s name on it.   They asked if we wanted to add anything besides his name, birth and death dates.  How could a few words possibly capture what my son meant to me?  Finally I mumbled “Our beloved son.”  Three words that can never scratch the surface of the love I still have for my son, and the devastation of his loss.

How does this melancholy memory connect to writing this blog?  I began writing only after Corey died.  If he had not died, I would never have written a single word.  After his death I knew I was supposed to write a book about my experience.  My first book titled Forgiving God is a Christian inspirational book about the Spiritual battle I faced after Corey’s death and how God brought me through it and back to Him.   After that, I began writing nonfiction books for young readers.

Cover for my first book, Forgiving God

Corey’s death has taught me many things about my God, my work, and my life.  One of those things has been that life is short, sometimes very short.  Every day costs me one day of my life and I don’t know how many days there will be.  So I have a very simple six-word memoir:

Life’s a gift, treasure each day.

Carla Killough McClafferty 

How I Became a Teaching Author

My path to becoming an author is . . . unusual.  Like most writers, I’ve loved books all my life.  Some of my earliest memories are of being bribed by the promise of a Golden Book if I would go to sleep in my own bed rather than my parent’s bed (I took the bribe).  However, as I grew up, a wide variety of books were not readily available to me.  Our small town didn’t have a library and neither did my elementary school.  What passed as our “library” was a small collection of books sitting on the bookshelf below the wide windows that ran the whole length of the classroom. 



Peter Rabbit was my favorite book, and was
also one my Mama bought to bribe me.  

Somewhere around the third grade I got a pink diary.  I’d like to say my diary entries were long narratives about my hopes and dreams that show a budding writer’s flair for the dramatic.  That is not the case.  In reality my diary entries are so sparse that the entire text of my five year diary could fit on a napkin, a cocktail napkin.   But when I look at that diary now, I do see the beginnings of an author—a nonfiction author.  Each diary entry contains the facts and does not include any extraneous information or fluff.  For example on one especially important day in history, July 20, 1969, I simply stated: “Dear Diary, the astronauts landed & are walking on the moon.”  It is simple, to the point, and has the sense of immediacy—not a bad start for a future nonfiction author.

My childhood diary shows an early glimpse into my future as a nonfiction author.  My straightforward recording of the moon landing came just one day after my confession that I dreaded facing my piano teacher (I hadn't been practicing.) 

As an adult, my first career is as a Registered Radiologic Technologist.  Next I became a wife and busy mother of three children.  I read voraciously, but still had no thoughts of becoming a writer.  In fact, I would never have become an author if tragedy had not entered my life.  My youngest son, fourteen-month-old Corey, fell off of the backyard swing and died from a head injury.  Life as I knew it ceased to exist.  I was devastated, to say the least.  Ultimately I wrote an inspirational book about the Spiritual battle I faced after Corey’s death and how God brought me through it and back to Him titled Forgiving God.  It was the first book I’d ever written.



My first book, an adult inspirational book that deals with the death of my son, Corey.

After my first book was published, I began writing nonfiction books for young readers.  No classes.  No journalism degree.  No mentor.  I just started researching and writing.  Along the way I joined SCBWI, went to writer’s conferences, and learned all I could about children’s publishing.   I listened to the old writer’s adage that says “write what you know” when I chose X-rays as the topic for my first book in this genre.  That book, titled The Head Bone’s Connected to the Neck Bone: The Weird, Wacky and Wonderful X-ray, was awarded the SCBWI work-in-progress grant and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG).  When that book was finished, I wondered if I could do it again.  I could.  The next two books, Something Out of Nothing: Marie Curie and Radium and In Defiance of Hitler: The Secret Mission of Varian Fry were also published by FSG.   Then came The Many Faces of George Washington: Remaking a Presidential Icon published by Carolrhoda, Tech Titans by Scholastic, and my newest book Fourth Down and Inches: Concussion and Football’s Make-or-Break Moment also with Carolrhoda.  

 

 

 

My nonfiction books for young readers. 

Since libraries fill me with awe and appreciation, I’m thrilled to know that my books are in library collections all over the world.  In some ways I’ve come full circle.  I began as a child with no library access and I became a nonfiction author who has done research in some of the finest libraries in America including Columbia University, Harvard University, and the Boston Athenaeum.   

Doing research at the library at Harvard.

I didn’t plan to become a writer or a public speaker.  But the twists and turns of life have turned me into both, and they are a good fit for me.  I love the challenge of researching a topic I know nothing about.  I love to write about ordinary people who have done extraordinary things.   I love to capture the imagination of a live audience and take them on a journey as I share with them the amazing things I’ve learned about the subjects of my books.   And as an added bonus, researching my books has given me incredible life experiences that I will always treasure.  I’ve visited Marie Curie’s office at the Radium Institute in Paris and sat in her chair, behind her desk.  I’ve stayed on the grounds of George Washington’s home at Mount Vernon and watched the sunrise over the Potomac River while standing on the piazza.   I’ve looked into the faces of men and women who were saved from the Nazis by Varian Fry and listened to their personal experiences.  I’ve wept with the parents of teens who lost their lives as a result of concussions.  I’ve presented programs in a wide variety of venues including C Span 2 Book TV, Colonial Williamsburg, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the U.S. Consulate in Marseilles, France, teacher conferences, workshops, and at many schools.
 
Now I’m honored to join this amazing group of women known as TeachingAuthors.  It will be a whole new adventure and I’m looking forward to it.

Carla Killough McClafferty
www.carlamcclafferty.com

 

My No. 1 Tip: Writing by Hand!

Long, long time ago and in a galaxy far, far away, it was the time before computers. Even typewriters were not a common household item. At least, not in my childhood home on the front range of Colorado. Colorado Springs was small then, full of open spaces. The public library was way, way on the other side of town. There were no bookstores. The only library available to me was my school library. I checked out every book I could read. By fourth grade, my favorite authors were already Mark Twain, Jack London, Charles Dickens, James Fennimore Cooper, Tolkien’s The Hobbit, and many more. And if I wanted to have my very own copy of a book, so I didn’t have to return it, I copied the book.

By hand.

So is it a wonder that I became a writer when I grew up?

Even now, after all these decades, with the onslaught of computers, iPads and fancy programs that write text for you, I still write everything by hand. Even this article was first written by hand.

It turns out to be a good thing, to write by hand. Scientists now know that cursive writing is an important tool for cognitive development. It teaches the brain to be efficient, helps to develop critical thinking skills and refines motor control. In fact, children who learn cursive tend to learn how to read faster, generate more ideas and retain more information.

When I was copying my books in the fourth grade, I paid more attention to the details of the story. I experienced the characters on a deeper level because the very act of writing them out engaged all my senses. I had to pay attention to the words, how they were ordered, and how they were used. And, of course, I experienced the linear logic of the plot.


When I grew up, I began writing stories that featured the landscape and characters that were larger than life. A student of American history and folklore, my first books were picturebooks. If you want to know more about my picturebooks, check out JoAnn’s interview with me here!

 I continued exploring the American landscape, blending folklore and history in my first middle grade novel, Big River’s Daughter (Holiday House, 2013). The book comes recommended by the International Reading Association, and was nominated for the Amelia Bloomer Project (American Library Association, 2013). The book is listed on A Mighty Girl’s Top 2013 Mighty Girl Books for Tweens and Teens. My second middle grade historical fiction is Girls of Gettysburg (Holiday House 2014) and takes on the daunting challenge of researching the Battle of Gettysburg. For this story, I walked the battlefields four times, experiencing the very landscape where my characters lived and breathed, and died. If you are interesting in my research process for this book, you might enjoy this interview by Laurie J. Edwards, here.  The book comes recommended by Booklist as “a unique, exciting work.” School Library Journal calls the book a “riveting historical fiction.” The book is listed as a Hot Pick on Children’s Book Council for September 2014.


Of course, writers have to pay the bills. While I never planned to be a teacher, it seemed a natural fit. I teach college freshman and older students. Of course, now all the students use computers to read texts and compose their essays. And iPads, and even their phones. Most of them are proud to proclaim they have never used a pen or pencil. I make them print out the research and drafts, and have them write out their annotations and corrections on the paper. I make them experience the words and the organization in order to determine how everything fits together. They don’t always appreciate the experience. But their essays are usually better for it.

As Julia Cameron once said, “When we write by hand, we connect to ourselves. We may get speed and distance when we type, but we get a truer connection – to ourselves and our deepest thoughts – when we actually put pen to page.”

You might be interested to see more:

“Why Writing by Hand Could Make You Smarter”, by William Klemm. Psychology Today. March 14, 2013.

Julia Cameron Live, "Morning Pages: why by hand?. The Artist’s Way." October 4, 2012

Bobbi Miller

Image from Morguefile

How I Became a Teaching Author (+ Giveaway)

When I was a kid, I had no thought of being an author OR a teacher! As the youngest of four girls, I was always one of the students when we played school. As I think of my sisters, Miss Trunchbull comes to mind—ha! I never ever got to be the teacher! (On the plus side, this helped me become an early and voracious reader). And while I loved to read, it never occurred to me that real people wrote all those books I devoured.


With my big sisters, Janet (left), Gail (center),
and Patty (right). I'm the peanut in front.

When I started college, I planned to be a veterinarian. My first creative writing class killed that plan, and I knew I would do something with books, reading, and writing. That something turned out to be LOTS of things.

First, I became a magazine editor. When the publication was sold, I decided to try teaching (I was certified for Secondary English). I taught 8th-grade English for two years, and it was exhilarating, exhausting, and life-changing. I knew I did not have the stamina to stay in it for the long haul and try to be an amazing teacher while dealing with administration, assessment (even back then!), politics, and parents. But I loved my 8th graders and their wild creativity—and the books we were constantly reading.



Our two daughters, ca. 1998

A seed was planted. I wonder what it would be like to write kids’ books?

Then my husband and I moved to Minnesota. While doing freelance writing for grown-ups, I held part-time jobs over the years as a copyeditor, a personal care assistant for young adults with disabilities, a teacher in our school-age latchkey program, etc. When we had kids, the thousands of books we read with them nourished that seed and helped it grow: I want to write books for kids.

So, of course, I joined SCBWI and set to work learning how to do that. In October of 1999, I went to a local SCBWI conference, where two editors from educational publishers spoke. Because I was conference volunteer, I got to be one editor’s helper and I got a manuscript critique with the other. I ended up writing books for both companies.


BookSpeak! Poems About Books
(Clarion, 2011)

I had been submitting (bad) picture book manuscripts and magazine stories for a couple of years. I had a few children’s credits, but I really wanted to write a book. So when Jill Braithwaite (who was an editor at Lerner at that time) asked if I would be interested in writing an upper-elementary biography, I said, “Sure!”

Even though that was by far NOT my first choice.

And thus began my history of writing children’s books. To date, I have written about 110 nonfiction books for the educational market, 12 poetry collections, and two rhyming nonfiction books.  In fact, my newest book, Water Can Be..., comes out on April Fool's Day, and we're doing a giveaway of it here on TeachingAuthors.com! You can enter using the Rafflecopter widget at the end of the post. Enter through April 1, 2014, the pub date of Water Can Be...!



Water Can Be... comes out on April 1!

One of my biggest surprises has been how much I get to still teach. I teach adult writers through conferences like SCBWI’s, the 21st-Century Children’s Nonfiction Conference, and the Loft Literary Center’s Children’s and Young Adult Literary Festival. I have taught in-person and online classes on writing for children, finding publishers to submit your work to, and more. A colleague, Lisa Bullard, and I also mentor children’s writers through Mentors for Rent, an hourly-based critique and coaching service for children’s writers.


At a school visit in 2013

I also get to present to educators and librarians, which I love! I’m usually spreading poetry joy—in fact, in a couple of weeks, I’m going to present at the UNLV conference. I can’t wait. Presenting through IRA, ALA, and NCTE have been highlights for me.

And I get to connect to kids, too, through elementary author visits and young authors conferences. I have a blast getting kids excited about reading, writing, and poetry. And I don’t have to assess them or do any of the other ongoing tasks teachers have to keep up with.




A Leaf Can Be... (Millbrook, 2012)

Don’t get me wrong, teaching is still hard work! But it’s immensely satisfying, too. I look at how much public speaking I do now and think, Wow. Not bad for someone who was so terrified of public speaking I put it off until I was a senior in college! (Though I was not quite as bad as my best friend, who had to calm her nerves with a glass of wine before our 8 a.m. speech class on presentation days.)

My work as a teacher and an author are entwined in my mind. I can’t imagine one part of my career without the other. If I weren’t a writer, I obviously wouldn’t be invited to speak to teachers and writers and students. But if I didn’t do the teaching, I do think my writing would suffer. Getting out there and being in schools, with kids, helps me stay in touch with kids’ real lives today, especially now that my own two are officially adults—gulp.

And…that’s probably more than you ever wanted to know about my writing journey!

--Laura Purdie Salas

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