Mystery Guest Wednesday Writing Workout: Exercising Your Imagination!

 Today’s Wednesday Writing Workout comes to you courtesy of a TeachingAuthor I so admire and respect, an award-winning picture book author, poet and UCLA instructor whose hands-on text Writing Picture Books (Hint! Hint!) I recommend at least once a week to writers and students.  She could truly be M.B. Goffstein’s “writer,” seated on her living room couch, cutting, pruning, shaping and planning the words she wishes to set upon paper.  Her picture books include Word Builder (Simon & Schuster) and Tortuga in Trouble (Holiday House).

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 The Wednesday Writing Workout: Exercising Your Imagination!

 One of the challenges of a writer is to create something new—a story, poem, an essay—that hasn’t been done before. That sounds like a tall order, but it’s not as difficult as it sounds. Putting yourself into an inanimate object is a fun and easy way to write uniquely.

Have you ever wondered how a book feels if you close it before the end?

Have you ever pondered how a tree endures a thunderstorm?
Can you guess what a snowman’s last words might be?

This exercise will give you an opportunity to answer those questions.

To show you how, let’s take a pencil. Imagine that you are the pencil. What might you say to the person holding it? Then write without stopping or revising.

For example, here’s what I wrote:

“You think you have complete control of me. It’s true you do and I hate it. I have to write what you insist, but if I could write my own story, if I could swirl my words across the paper, here’s what I’d say. Inside me lurk words more beautiful than you could ever express. I long to spill my soul, to stand up and shout gray silver words. Then you would know that I too, have thoughts. And I am sure, then, that you would never chew on me. . . how I hate the way you bite down my eraser and your saliva slivers down my yellow. You wouldn’t like it if I did that to you. How I hate the way you fling me into box with other pencils, not knowing, not caring how special I am.”

Okay, a rambling paragraph of unedited raw spillage, but rereading, I was surprised by several things here. The phrases “shout gray silver words” and “how I hate the way you bite down on my eraser” and “your saliva slivers down my yellow,” they gave me a niggle that I took as a sign to explore them further. I thought and thought about those phrases and after much revising came up with this poem in the form of a cinquain.

PENCIL SPEAKS TO WRITER

Don’t bite
My eraser. Don’t
Gnaw my stub. Treat me right
Or I will refuse to record
Your words.

So here’s your writing workout for this week: Go up to those questions I asked earlier. Then be a book, a tree or a snowman, or all three if you’re feeling ambitious, and let your words flow.

I guarantee you’ll surprise yourself.
You may not get a story, a poem or an essay out of it, but you’ll be exercising your imagination, something all writers need to do regularly.

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So, did you guess our Mystery Guest Author, Ann Whitford Paul?

You might recall the Thumbs Up review I gave Writing Picture Books when our TeachingAuthors blog began.

For more Writer Tips from Ann, click here.

Ann Whitford Paul gets - and loves - the picture book.
Even better,
Ann Whitford Paul gets - and loves – writers and writing.

Thanks, Ann, for keeping my writing muscles, and those of our TeachingAuthors readers, burning.

Esther Hershenhorn

New Feature for the New Year: Wednesday Writing Workout, plus a Book Giveaway!

Happy New Year, Everyone!

I hope you're all rested and refreshed and ready to plunge ahead into 2013.

While on our winter blogging break, we TeachingAuthors were busy working behind-the-scenes, planning a new weekly feature. If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know we often include Writing Workouts with our posts. As it says in our sidebar: "We invite classroom teachers to use these writing exercises with their students, and adult writers to try them on their own." Many of you have told us that you especially appreciate and look forward to our Writing Workouts. So we've decided to pull them out of our regular posts and create a separate feature: the Wednesday Writing Workout (or WWW)!

As you can see, we've added some text but kept our former Writing Workout image--a set of barbells and a ribbon with a medal. The logo represents how everyone who works out with us is a winner! 
Note: if you're a blogger and you'd like to share your response to the WWW in your own blog post, feel free to copy and paste the above logo onto your own blog. We ask only that you link back to our corresponding WWW post. 

While continuing with our regular posts on Mondays and Fridays, we'll devote Wednesdays to Wednesday Writing Workouts. Each WWW will be written by one of the TeachingAuthors or, as is the case today, by a Mystery Guest TeachingAuthor.

To introduce the new feature and celebrate a new year, we're also having a Book Giveaway! Every writer and writing teacher will want a copy of our giveaway book on his/her reference/inspiration shelf: Keep Calm and Query On: Notes on Writing (and Living) with Hope (Divertir Publishing). And the book happens to be written by today's Mystery Guest TeachingAuthor.

I'll share our Mystery Guest TeachingAuthor's bio before giving you his Writing Workout. See if you can guess the author's identity before I reveal it below. (No fair looking up the MGTA's books online before that!)

Today's MGTA has the kind of resume our readers love: A former teacher of grades 7 through 12 and a writer of children’s fiction, he’s the editor of the forthcoming book for teens and tweens, Break These Rules (Chicago Press). He co-edited Burned In: Fueling the Fire to Teach (Teachers College Press) and Dedicated to the People of Darfur: Writings on Fear, Risk, and Hope (Rutgers University Press). Teachers College Press also published his latest book for teachers, A Call to Creativity: Writing, Reading, and Inspiring Students in an Age of Standardization.

Does this bio sound familiar? That's because Esther reviewed Keep Calm and Query On back in October. She gave the book a big Thumbs Up!

Before I reveal the identity of our Mystery Guest TeachingAuthor, here's his TERRIFIC Wednesday Writing Workout:  

Give Logic a Lollipop:
I am one of those people who believes that we’re all still children, really. Whether we’re 32 or 64 or 96, there’s something innate in us that stubbornly refuses to grow up no matter how much coffee we drink (in my case, a lot), how much we worry about paying bills, or how professional we look in our formal attire.  The kid-like parts of us are often covered by layer after layer of logic. While the growth of logic is hugely beneficial to things like paying our bills, walking out of the house with matching socks and a straight tie or proper dress, and generally being responsible, an area that is bleached of vitality by our intense focus on forcing everything to make sense is our writing life.

This Wednesday Writing Workout, then, asks us to momentarily allow logic to sit by himself on the far bench, way over on the other side of the room. Give Logic a lollipop and the latest Time magazine, and then sneak off to your writing desk and try something illogical to fuel those writing muscles.

1.    Visualize your favorite film actor or actress.
2.    Close your eyes, and continue visualizing that person, and then reach out—literally!—your hand and shake their hand, up and down. Then smile knowingly (eyes still closed) like you and your favorite film star are sharing some inside joke even though you haven’t spoken any words yet. You’re that tight.
3.    Open your mouth (literally!) and speak the very first words that come to mind.
4.    Now open your eyes, pick up your pen or open up a Word document on your computer and write your name, then a colon, then the words you’ve just said.
5.    Then write the actor’s / actress’s name, a colon, and his / her response.
6.    Continue writing your ‘scene’ with dialogue that emerges organically and no matter how seemingly ridiculous it is, just follow the exercise through.
7.    Every once in a while, try to insert a small note on the setting—the weather outside, what you’re eating (lollipops?), what noises occur in the background, and anything else that creates the mood of your conversation.
8.    Try to continue this scene for at least two pages. This is a perfect opportunity to work our writing muscles by putting ourselves into a situation that allows the kid-like part of us to trump the adult part of us.

So often, as writers, we can think in terms of productivity and progress. And these are both great things in the life of a writer. Hey, who doesn’t want to add a few more pages to that novel, or bang out a few more notes for that picture book? But sometimes, persistent focus on productivity and progress have the side effect of hiding us from the kid-like parts of our writer selves, that are concerned—almost entirely—with joy, engagement, emotion, quirks, and creativity.

My seven-year-old nephew loves writing stories. When I talk with him about what he’s writing, he doesn’t give me the latest page count or the stats on which publishers have checked out his work yet. Even while I sometimes focus too much on those things, I try to shake my head and heart to return to what matters: the creation itself. The sheer beauty, hilarity, pain, joy, and love of it. And this process must, by definition, involve flights of fancy and the decision to leave logic a little lonely at times.

Today, for your Wednesday Writing Workout, craft this scene and let the kid in you lead the way. I promise you’ll discover pearls that—if nothing else—will make you laugh, and possibly even provide a kernel for a louder pop later.

* * *

What a wonderful Wednesday Writing Workout to inaugurate our new feature! And now, finally, it's time for the big reveal. Today's Mystery Guest TeachingAuthor is (drum roll please):

Luke Reynolds!

Special thanks to Luke for helping to launch our new feature! Readers, if you'd like to know more about Luke, see his website. I also encourage you to check out his blog, Intersections: One Writer's Journey Through Parenting, Living Abroad, Faith, Publishing, and Social Justice.

As I mentioned above, Luke is the author of Keep Calm and Query On: Notes on Writing (and Living) with Hope (Divertir Publishing). If you read Esther's review, you're going to want to enter our drawing for a chance to win your very own copy.

To enter our drawing, you must follow the TeachingAuthors blog.  (If you’re not already a follower, you can sign up now in our sidebar to subscribe to our posts via email, Google Friend Connect, or Facebook Network blogs.)

You may enter the contest one of two ways:
1) by posting a comment below OR
2) by sending an email to teachingauthors [at] gmail [dot] com with "Book Giveaway" in the subject line.

Whichever way you enter, you MUST:
1) Just for fun, tell us whether you guessed Luke's identity before the big reveal. We'd also love your feedback on his Writing Workout and/or what you think of our new Wednesday Writing Workout feature.
2) give us your first and last name, AND
3) tell us how you follow us (via email, Google Friend Connect, or Facebook Network blogs) .
4) If you enter via a comment, you MUST include a valid email address (formatted this way:  youremail [at] gmail [dot] com) in your comment.

This contest is open only to followers who can provide a mailing address in the United States. Incomplete entries will be discarded. The entry deadline is 11 p.m. (CST) next Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2013. We'll announce the winner on Friday, Jan. 11. Good luck!

Happy writing, and happy 2013!
Carmela

With a moo moo here and a moo moo there

     I might have mentioned this before, but in a former life, I was a drama major. Perhaps this is why I think of picture books as "performance pieces." After all, picture books are meant to be read aloud. Jill started off this topic with her discussion of rhythm and rhyming picture books. Jill is a far braver soul than I. I have published six picture books (with another on the way) and none of them rhyme. My brain doesn't work that way.

    This is not to say that my stories don't have rhythm. They do. Jill covered this pretty well in her last post so I won't belabor the point here. I'll just say that if you aren't sure if your story has that "swing," read it out loud.  Better still, have a non-judgemental friend read it to you. If you find yourself stumbling over your own words, or if your friend's voice hits a word that sounds like an out-of-tune piano key, go back to Jill's post. 

     So if I don't rhyme, how do I (hopefully) hold my listener's interest?

     Repetition, for one thing.  There's nothing like a little group participation, whether you are reading to one child or seventy. If you want a good example of that, check out my First Grade Stinks. The title is also the main character's catch phrase whenever she is frustrated by yet another unfamiliar aspect of a new grade and teacher.  After awhile, the listener will chime in as well. (Loudly.)

    I love to play around with words. I'm a big believer in alliteration. In Camp K-9, Roxie goes to camp with a Pooch Pouch and makes friends with Pearl the Pug. A word of caution. Be spare with the mirroring consonants. When my daughter was small, there was one particular picture book (no titles mentioned here) that her father and I tried to hide at storytime.  Why?  Seemingly every word in this book began with the letter "p." It was not a short book either.  Two pages into it and my husband and I were sputtering and stuttering like Porky and Petunia Pig. Sometimes, we got so flusterated that certain expletives (not written by the author) slipped into the narrative. Not good.  Not good at all.

     My favorite writing technique (in novels as well as picture books), is the use of sounds.  (There is a polysyllabic word for this that I can't spell, and I am using a computer that doesn't have autocorrect.)  The stories I remember from my own childhood were actually songs, like "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" and "The Wheels on the Bus."  When I began writing my own stories, without really thinking about it, a "moo moo" here and a "cluck cluck" there showed up on my pages. Sounds are fun to write, fun to read, and give the listener another opportunity to "read along." (The only one who doesn't enjoy my "sound technique" is the copy editor who sends me notes questioning the correct spelling of "va-va-varoom.")

    If you want to see me go crazy with the sound effects, check out Surprise Soup.  In fact, when I was writing it, I began by listing all the kitchen sounds I could thing of.  Here is a partial list: chippity-chop (a knife), ka-rickety-ritch (a manual can opener), splishety-sploosh, slippety-slop, shakety-shake (ingredients going into the soup pot.) Once I had a list of thirty-something sounds, the story wrote itself. 

    A successful picture book is one that a child wants to hear over and over (and that the reader can read over and over without wanting to rip out his/her hair.) I think playful language is the grace note that adds zip and zing to "Jill's swing," and a little fun for the adult reader as well.

   Don't forget that the deadline for our latest book giveaway Forget Me Not by Carolee Dean is this Thursday, Oct. 11.  Good luck!


Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

Mystery Guest TeachingAuthor And Book Giveaway for Poetry Friday!

Howdy, Campers!  And...surprise!  Following the success of our first Mystery Guest TeachingAuthor which Carmela Martino posted last Friday, here's our second ever Mystery Guest TeachingAuthor (MGTA)—complete with his/her Writing Workout and a fabulous Book Giveaway! OMG.  I'll bet you can barely stand the excitement. The details about the giveaway are below, but DO NOT GO THERE YET.  If you do, you'll find out who our MGTA is and blow the whole deal.

Here's how we play the MGTA game: I'll share our MGTA's bio before giving you his/her Writing Workout [listen...this his/her thing is getting awkward...I'll give this to you: it's a her]. You try to guess who our guest author is before I reveal the MGTA's identity at the end of the post. (And even though it's going to kill you, no fair clicking on the MGTA's book links to find out the author's name!) 

Then let us know if you figured out who this most amazing lady is, either by commenting below, or an email.

Ready?  Okay, let's go!

Today's MGTA is a Professor in the School of Library and Information Studies at Texas Woman’s University and has taught graduate courses in children's and young adult literature at various universities since 1981. She has published extensively, including five books on literature for children [including—remember, no clicky-clicky—Poetry Aloud Here! Sharing Poetry with Children in the Library (ALA, 2006), Poetry People: A Practical Guide to Children's Poets (Libraries Unlimited, 2007), and Children'sLiterature in Action: A Librarians Guide (Libraries Unlimited, 2008)], as well as over 20 book chapters and 100 journal articles; she's recently co-edited several ground-breaking e-anthologies of poetry for children. In addition, she edits for Librarians' Choice. Is this woman is making you tired, just reading about her?  And there's more: her blog is full of tips and news (and poems) that help spread enthusiasm for poetry, and it has become a touchstone—the go-to blog in the field of poetry for children.

Have you guessed our guest yet?  No?  Well, let's let her tell us how she became a TeachingAuthor:

What a treat to be featured on Teaching Authors!

My mom tells me I started teaching neighbor kids when I was about 6, but it could be I was mainly bossing them around! My first paid gig was teaching sixth grade. Then I went to graduate school, loved it, and started teaching adults. I really enjoy working with both educators AND kids and have been doing it for 30+ years now.

I enjoy academic writing and lean toward the more pedagogical type rather than pure research. Helping teachers keep up with the latest trends and techniques is very rewarding. My focus has always been on children’s literature, sometimes generally (in my textbook, Children’s Literature in Action) and sometimes on specific genres—like poetry, my primary passion. I’ve written several books about poetry for children in hopes of giving those who feel uncertain about (or resistant to) poetry the tools they need to enjoy and share it in fun ways with kids.

This has led me to blogging; I am also the regular “Everyday Poetry” columnist for ALA’s Book Links magazine and serve as a consultant to the Poetry Foundation.

Poet and friend Janet Wong and I launched a biggie last year with the first digital e-books of poetry for young people, our Poetry Tag Time trio.  I’m so proud of those—particularly since they are traveling around the world and are a bit hit in Australia and Kenya, in particular. 

Before I reveal this author's name (if you've come here via Poetry Friday, chances are you've already guessed who our mystery star is because you're a poetry genius), here's our MGTA's terrific Writing Workout in her own words:

Here’s a Writing Workout that has helped me more times than I can count:

• Write, write, write.
• Then let it simmer,
• come back and try cutting out the first sentence or first paragraph.
• Let the next sentence (or paragraph) be the beginning. How does it sound? I find that I am often a bit wooden and cumbersome in the “set up” and cutting that off, leaves a fresh, more energetic sentence. The same is often true at the end. I say what I need to say, but then ramble.
• Chop it off.
• Read it again. Have I ended with what is most important and stopped with a fresh image or turn of phrase? Then stop. And my final tip?
• Even after that, I sometimes flip those two pieces—moving the end to the beginning and the beginning to the end. How does that feel? I sometimes find that it took me awhile to figure out my point (and say it well), but I really need to have that strong statement at the beginning, rather than at the end.
• So, flip it.

These are not absolute, of course. But it can help me look at my work with fresh eyes and see those words and sentences as more malleable than I thought at first.

*   *   *

Thanks for this Writing Workout, MGTA!  Campers, we'd like to know if you try this exercise—please comment below or or email us!  Now, finally, it's time for the big reveal. 

Today's Mystery Guest TeachingAuthor is (drum roll please):

Sylvia Vardell!

I met Sylvia many years ago at a conference through Janet Wong and I've been a friend and admirer of her ever since.  Readers, how'd you do? Did you guess who our MGTA was?  We'd love to hear what you think of our new feature. 

Appropriately enough, Sylvia would like to share a poem today from The Poetry Friday Anthology (edited with poet Janet Wong) (available Sept. 1).  

Isn't this a great cover?  

This book is a new anthology of 218 original poems for children in kindergarten through fifth grade by 75 popular poets from J. Patrick Lewis and Jack Prelutsky to Jane Yolen, Margarita Engle, Nikki Grimes, April Halprin Wayland, and many more. [Sylvia wrote this...I swear I didn't pay her to include my name in this blurb!]  Here is a sample poem to whet your appetite:

The Do Kind by Janet Wong

When my ball flies over the wall,

you run and get it back.

When my books fall down the stairs,

you help me pick them up.

Some friends are see friends,

me me me friends.

You are the do kind,

the me and you kind.

April says: Be a "do kind" of FOP (a friend-of-poetry)—or an FOTOP (a friend-of-teachers-of-poetry)—and arrange for your PTA or school district to buy a copy in September for every K-5 teacher!

Thank you, Sylvia, for being our second Mystery Guest TeachingAuthor, for sharing such a terrific Writing Workout with us, AND for offering a Book Giveaway to our readers!

The book Sylvia's giving away to one of our lucky readers is:

The Poetry Teacher's Book of Lists is jam-packed with poetry bibliographies and research-based strategies for selecting and sharing poetry with young people (ages 0-18). Need help finding the perfect poem for a holiday celebration or a science unit? A funny riddle poem or a bilingual poetry book? This book contains 155 different poetry bibliographies and lists of research-based strategies featuring 1500 poetry books for children and teens (ages 0-18).  Pretty cool, huh?  For more info, check out the dedicated blog.

Is your mouth watering yet?  Do you want to win this book?  
Here's how to enter THE POETRY TEACHER’S BOOK OF LISTS Book Giveaway:
1. Comment on today's post or enter by sending an email to us at teachingauthors [at] gmail [dot] com with "Book Giveaway" in the subject line. Tell us why you'd like to be the lucky winner.  Will you be keeping it for yourself or sharing it with a colleague or friend?
2.  You must include contact information in your comment.  If you are not a blogger or your email address is not accessible from your online profile, you must send us a valid email address in your comment.  Entries without contact information will be disqualified.  Note:  The TeachingAuthors cannot prevent spammers from accessing e-mail addresses posted within the comments, so feel free to disguise your address by spelling out portions such as "dot" and "at."
3.  You must send us your post by 11 pm (CST), Thursday, August 16th. Winner will be chosen at random and announced on Friday, August 17th.  Note:  Winners automatically grant us permission to post their names here on the TeachingAuthors website.
4.  You must have a mailing address in the United States.
5.  You must respond to the notification e-mail and provide a mailing address within 72 hours, or the prize will be forfeited and an alternate winner chosen.

And, hey! Thanks to Rena from

On the Way to Somewhere

for hosting Poetry Friday this week!

poem (c) 2012 Janet Wong all rights reserved                                                

TTFN! ~ April Halprin Wayland

A Writing Workout from our First Ever Mystery Guest TeachingAuthor!

We have a special treat here today on our TeachingAuthors blog: a Writing Workout from a Mystery Guest TeachingAuthor (MGTA). This is a new feature we're trying out, so I hope you'll let us know what you think.

[Note: I'm still waiting to hear from Mary Ann about our giveaway winner. Sorry for the delay--we'll be posting the lucky winner's name soon.]

Now, here's the plan for today: I'll share our MGTA's bio before giving you his/her Writing Workout. See if you can guess who our guest author is before I reveal the MGTA's identity at the end of the post. (No fair looking up the MGTA's books online to find out the author's name!) Then let us know if you guessed correctly, or if the MGTA is someone who's work is new to you. You can respond via a comment, or send us an email.

Our first MGTA is the author of numerous books for young readers. MGTA's most recent publications are two young-adult novels, Dark of the Moon (Harcourt) and King of Ithaka (Henry Holt), and the four books in the middle-grade series, The Sherlock Files (Henry Holt). Nonfiction includes The Ancient Greek World and The Ancient Chinese World (The World in Ancient Times, Oxford University Press). This author was the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators’ Regional Advisor for the Midsouth from 1999 to 2009 and  is now SCBWI’s Regional Advisor Coordinator. MGTA was awarded the SCBWI Work-in-Progress Grant in 2005 and a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1994. MGTA holds a B.A. with Honors in Classics from Brown University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Medieval Italian Literature from the University of California at Berkeley. This author lives in Nashville, TN and recently retired from teaching at Vanderbilt University. 

Have you identified our guest yet? Perhaps this MGTA's description of his/her path to becoming a TeachingAuthor will help:

Hi, everybody! So glad to be here at TeachingAuthors.

I was a college professor for 28 years, but not of creative writing! I taught Italian, and my students had to write in both English and Italian, especially when I taught Grammar and Composition. My students told me that they learned a lot about writing in general, not just writing in Italian, from that class! Occasionally I also taught classes in children’s literature and in writing for young readers. A few years into my teaching career I started writing for young readers, starting with nonfiction. I added fiction and now happily write both.

I like reading and writing stories that explore a familiar story from a point of view (POV) that we don’t usually hear from. I’ve written King of Ithaka, a version of the Odyssey as told by Odysseus’s son, Telemachus, and Dark of the Moon, the myth of the Minotaur as seen by the Minotaur’s sister, Ariadne. As for reading, I love Grendel by John Gardner, which shows us the story of Beowulf from the point of view of the monster that Beowulf killed.  Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal (Christopher Moore) is a wonderfully new angle on a tale familiar to most people in the Western world. Donna Jo Napoli’s fairy-tale retellings usually create a different setting as well as a different POV character (her Beast is the best allegory of adolescence that I can imagine). I could go on and on . . .

But I won’t.

Before I reveal this author's name, here's our MGTA's terrific Writing Workout.

Writing Workout
First, a warmup: Take a familiar story and rewrite it—or at least summarize it—from the POV of someone who is marginal to the tale. Maybe Peter Rabbit’s mother is so frazzled from being a single mother to a kid with ADHD that she overdoes the discipline. Maybe Farmer McGregor is barely getting by on his vegetables and if Peter Rabbit eats them, his children will starve.

Now do the same with your own story, either a finished one, or one you’re thinking of writing (or a work in progress). If the minor characters seem uninteresting or undeveloped (the villain is there only because you need a villain; the best friend is there because your character needs a best friend), figure out who they really are. Nobody is a sidekick or a villain in her own life!

You’ll probably wind up with more interesting characters, and maybe even another story!

* * *
Thanks so much to our MGTA for this Writing Workout. If you give it a try, please let us know how it goes, either via a comment below or email.

Now, finally, it's time for the big reveal. Today's Mystery Guest TeachingAuthor is (drum roll please):

 Tracy Barrett!

As Tracy mentioned in her bio above, she recently retired from teaching at Vanderbilt University. She's been blogging about her transition out of full-time employment at Goodbye, Day Job! You can also read more about her at her website.

I was pleased to meet Tracy when she did a signing to promote her latest novel, Dark of the Moon (Harcourt) at Anderson's Bookshop in Naperville this past spring. Doesn't the book have a terrific cover? School Library Journal calls the novel "deft, dark, and enthralling." Here's a more detailed description from the flap copy:

Ariadne is destined to become a goddess of the moon. She leads a lonely life, filled with hours of rigorous training by stern priestesses. Her former friends no longer dare to look at her, much less speak to her. All that she has left are her mother and her beloved, misshapen brother Asterion, who must be held captive below the palace for his own safety. So when a ship arrives one spring day, bearing a tribute of slaves from Athens, Ariadne sneaks out to meet it. These newcomers don’t know the ways of Krete; perhaps they won’t be afraid of a girl who will someday be a powerful goddess. And indeed she meets Theseus, the son of the king of Athens. Ariadne finds herself drawn to the newcomer, and soon they form a friendship—one that could perhaps become something more. Yet Theseus is doomed to die as an offering to the Minotaur, that monster beneath the palace—unless he can kill the beast first. And that "monster" is Ariadne’s brother . . .

I'll be reconnecting with Tracy in September, when she'll be one of the speakers at this year's SCBWI Midsouth Fall Conference. Perhaps I'll meet some of our blog readers there, too?

Thank you, Tracy, for being our first Mystery Guest TeachingAuthor. Thanks, also, for sharing such a terrific Writing Workout with us.

Readers, how did you do? Were you able to guess the identity of our MGTA? Let us know via a comment, or send us an email. We'd also love to hear what you think of this new feature.

Happy Writing!
Carmela Martino