Turn Your Reading Passion Into Better Writing

Years ago, when I first decided I’d like to write books for children, I attended a program about Oklahoma history. One speaker mentioned Bass Reaves. Bass escaped from slavery in Texas, crossed the Red River arriving in Oklahoma Territory ready to begin a new life. He learned the lay of the land and survival techniques from Native Americans. Eventually, he became a United States Deputy Marshal under Hanging Judge Parker and always found the outlaws who dared to hide from him.

I fell in love with Bass. I quickly decided I was the perfect person to tell his amazing life. I even found an editor who was somewhat interested in my attempts to capture his story.

Then one day, the editor sent the email that broke my heart. She explained she would not be publishing my manuscript. I was devastated! My heart was broken. I don’t remember her exact words, but I read – there is a new Bass book and it’s so much better than your feeble attempts. I still feel the pain! I remember attending an American Library Association conference and there in the distance was BAD NEWS FOR OUTLAWAS – THE REMARKABLE LIFE OF BASS REEVES, DEPUTY U. S. MARSHAL, Written by  Vaunda Micheaux Nelson and Illustrated by R. Gregory Christie. Bass in all its glory. I quickly changed directions and walked down another aisle. It was such a painful moment in my writing life. I’m tearing up now as I think about it.



My husband thought my reaction was over the top. “Write something else,” was his remedy. The editor emailed, “Send me something else.” SOMETHING ELSE! I had nothing else. My writing life was over and it had just begun.
Well, it took time (years) but I recovered and I continued to write. Then one day I bought a copy of BAD NEWS FOR OUTLAWS. It’s fabulous! A page-turner! No wonder it received so many awards. It is a thousand times better than my feeble attempts.

Recently, I met Vaunda at a conference and told her my pitiful story. She hugged me and my world righted itself.
I also typed it and I could see, feel, and understand why I loved it and what made it successful. I began typing other books that moved my spirit.

I challenge you to type a favorite book or even a page or two of a longer work. What makes you cry, smile, or laugh out loud? Why was it hard or easy to put down? What made you decide it would have a place of honor on your bookshelf?

Think about your responses. You might discover a technique that will lead to stronger writing.

Posted by Gwendolyn Hooks

Learning from Friends

In honor of the start of another school year, we TeachingAuthors have been writing about various ways we “school” ourselves.  As usual, my fellow TAs have written eloquent blogs on this topic in a wide variety of ways.   I’m taking a different direction.  One of the ways I believe we as writers continue to learn is to talk to other writers.   Most of our families don’t quite “get” what we do, or why we do it.  Sometimes I don’t understand it myself.   That is why developing friendships with other writers are critical.  They understand.   

I’ve had the blessing in my life of having a fellow writer in my local area.  Darcy Pattison is a nationally known author, writing teacher, and independent publisher.   Click here for Mims House Books.  We met for the first time many years ago when her first book came out (a picture book), and mine (an adult inspirational) was about to be released.  We got to know each other slowly through our local SCBWI chapter—which Darcy started in our state.   

I was beginning to write my first nonfiction book for young readers in those days.  I bought stacks and stacks of how-to books, which are still in my bookshelf.  I devoured books about character and setting and formatting manuscripts and on and on.  Learning all these things was necessary.  But at some point there comes a time in a writer’s life when you have learned enough about how to write and you need to actually do it.  The next step is what I call: Put your seat in a seat and work.   In some ways that is when your real education as a writer begins. 

As the friendship between Darcy and I grew over the years, so did each of our published books.  (Her list is far longer than mine!)  Our writing styles and the types of books we each write are very different but we have been able to help each other.   The main way I believe we help each other is not in the form of manuscript critique—although we do that for each other.  It is in the way we discuss our work—over countless cups of coffee, phone conversations, emails and texts.  We bounce ideas off each other.  We brainstorm together.  We discuss how to handle various situations that come up in publishing.  We support each other.  We are sad for each other when disappointments come.  And we rejoice with each other when good things happen.   

In the words of E. B. White in Charlotte’s Web:

“It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.  Charlotte was both.”

My friend Darcy is both.  I look forward to a friendship that lasts for many more years as we learn from each other.  

I hope each writer who reads this blog will find a writing buddy-or maybe a whole group of friends to support them.   

Carla Killough McClafferty

Darcy Pattison and I with our books at the Arkansas Reading Association conference.  

CONGRATULATIONS TO COLLEEN K, the winner of our TA giveaway!! She will receive a copy of Great Morning! Poems for School Leaders and Read Aloudby Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong.  Enjoy the book Colleen K.     

Learning from The Best: The Worlds and Words of Sharon Darrow

When it’s time for this TeachingAuthor to retool, I often return to my friend, Sharon Darrow, one of my earliest fellow writers and SCBWI kin, to bask in the wisdom she’s gleaned from a lifetime of writing and teaching.

Lucky me that this time around, Sharon could share not only herself but her newest book, WORLDS WITHIN WORDS (Pudding Hill Press, 2018), a compilation of her lectures presented during twenty-five years of teaching in the MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults program of Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Sharon believes, as do I, that “one’s writing and one’s life each impinge upon and transform the other.”
Both the book and Sharon heartfully enlightened and inspired me so I could keep on keepin’ on, teaching, coaching and even writing.  Part III – THE TEACHING WRITER, proved especially insightful.

Many here in my home state of Illinois know Sharon as not only the founder of our SCBWI Chapter in the late 80’s but as an inspiring teacher and award-winning author. She helped found the VCFA Writing for Children and Young Adults MFA program, serving in every capacity the past 20 years from graduate assistant to program director to faculty chair. She retired this past January.  VCFA’S Darrow Lectures honor all Sharon’s contributed to the words and worlds of her students. She’s also an alumna of VCFA’s MFA in Writing program, graduating in 1996.

Sharon’s books include the picture books OLD THUNDER AND MISS RANEY (DK Inc) and THROUGH THE TEMPESTS DARK AND WILD - THE STORY OF MARY SHELLEY (Candlewick). Her Candlewick YA titles include TRASH and THE PAINTERS OF LEXIEVILLE. Sharon is also a published poet, contributing to Lee Bennett Hopkins’ HOME TO ME: POEMS ACROSS AMERICA and numerous anthologies.

I loved sharing Sharon this past July with my Vermont Manuscript Workshop writers.  All of us sat spell-bound, taking in her words with our ears and hearts so we could connect with our stories and readers.

The blurbs on the back of WORLDS WITHIN WORDS say it all.  Louise Hawes writes that Sharon’s teaching changes lives.  William Alexander refers to her as “a mentor straight out of myth and folktale.” Carrie Jones shares that Sharon “reaches into a student’s soul and helps to make it sing.”

Sharon truly leads, worthy of a poem, in fact, in our current Book Giveaway of Sylvia Vardell’s and Janet Wong’s GREAT MORNING! – POEMS FOR SCHOOL LEADERS TO READ ALOUD (Pomelo Books).

But see for yourself as you read through Sharon’s answers to my questions below and come to know my go-to TeachingAuthor.

Thank you, Sharon, for your acts of YOU-ness! (I stole those words from a Calypso greeting card!)
I’ve longed to attend VCFA…and now I have, vicariously, at least, via your newest book.

And happy word-making and world-building to all!

Oh, and don’t forget to enter our Book Giveaway of Sylvia Vardell’s and Janet Wong’s GREAT MORNING! – Poems for School Leaders to Read Aloud (Pomelo Books). Click here for more information.

Esther Hershenhorn

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

So, how exactly did your teaching inform your writing?

I think that it started the other way around with my writing informing my teaching. From my teachers, I developed some quite strong opinions about the process of writing and hoped to pass my knowledge on to my students. Over the course of time, I had students who proved that not all my notions held across the board and they sometimes found ways to do amazing things in their work that “broke the rules,” if there are such things. So I’ve grown in my understanding of what can and “should” be done in my own prose style, and even more in my poetry. I’ve always been a voice-based writer and have trusted that, but seeing the various ways my students at VCFA came at their work has given me more confidence in finding other ways into my imagination. I’m still not a writer who begins with a sense of structure, and that slows my work down considerably because at some point I have to retrace my steps and go back to work on that. Some of my students were incredible at structure and in conceptualizing story arc. I learned from them and, in turn, challenged them to build up characterization and voice. From my point of view, we have all grown and learned from each other and I owe them many thanks.

Who were a few of your teachers/mentors/TeachingAuthors and how are you different for the way they viewed story, writing and the writer’s life?

 I began studying with Fred Shafer after hearing him speak at Off-Campus Writers in early 1989. I joined his short story workshop and then his novel workshop. I owe so much to him, not just in my writing, but also in my teaching. I didn’t realize then that I was learning to teach as well as to write from him, but I was. I also learned much from other Chicago area teachers, such as Sharon Sloan Fiffer and Sharon Solwitz at The Writers.
I entered VCFA’s MFA in Writing in 1994 before the MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults was started. I worked with the amazing Bret Lott (fiction) and the equally amazing David Wojahn (poetry), as well as having workshops with other fine poets and fiction writers on the faculty.
My first agent was Jim Roginsky, who taught me so very much about writing for children, and my first editors were Melanie Kroupa and Mary Lee Donovan, both of whom taught me and guided me into the children’s book world. I am so grateful for them.
Many years attending and participating in SCBWI events and listening to authors, editors, and agents gave me a good grounding in writing for children and young adults. Plus, the years of critique groups of my peers—what would I have done without those writer friends as guides and support? I don’t even want to think about it.
After I received my MFA, I taught at Colombia College Chicago, which has a wonderful history of guest authors and poets, most of whom were very different from those of my MFA program. I learned to stretch my writing there. Also, my poetry students were great teachers for me. I loved their openness, excitement, and joy/angst rhythms in their work and student lives.
In addition, I’ve spent 20 years listening to lectures at VCFA by some of the field’s finest authors and teachers, too many to list here, but I am so grateful for the experience of being on faculty and thus still being able to be a student for so many years.

All of these teachers gave me models for the writing life. They took themselves seriously and me seriously, which enabled me to believe in myself as a writer—and later, as a teacher. They viewed story as almost a sacred calling, not just making things up, but making the Self real through story. They taught me that story is not about facts, but about truth, the inner life of things and characters, that can illuminate and guide the reader—and the writer—to become better and stronger people.

It’s often said the teacher learns more than the student.  What have your students taught you?

They have taught be so much! They have surprised me and stymied me and delighted me. I love the books they have published that I was privileged to see at early stages. I’m so proud of them. I’m heartened by their courage and perseverance, their willingness to work hard, to learn, to experiment, to revise, and revise, and revise. They have taught me that it is never too late and to never give up. My VCFA students will always be my guiding lights.

Can you please share a bit about your current writing projects?

For the first nine months of this year, I worked on revisions of a YA novel and a Middle-grade novel, both of which had been long in the works. Now, I’m turning my attention to another YA novel, one of three I’ve begun. I think the energy right now is for the science fiction project, though the realistic MG and YA mystery are still intriguing me. I also never seem to tire of tinkering with picture books and writing poetry.
It was fun and challenging to bring together the essays and exercises in Worlds within Words: Writing and the Writing Life and to publish it through IngramSpark under my own publishing imprint of Pudding Hill Press. Once I learned the process, I decided to bring out paperback and ebook editions of my first novel, The Painters of Lexieville, which had gone out of print. I’m sold on the idea of authors bringing out new editions of their out-of-print titles once the rights have reverted to them. I love that Painters is once again readily available.

Finally, once a teacher, always a teacher – what are you up to now?  Whose lives are you currently changing via your teaching?

This year, 2018, is the first year since 1997 that I didn’t have Vermont College of Fine Arts’ students’ writing to critique, so I’ve done less work with adult writers and more with young people.
At the International School of Curitiba, Brazil, I spent a week working with all ages, from pre-school through high school. I’ve always written my stories as they presented themselves to my imagination, whether picture books, poetry, or novels, and I’ve often wondered if I should have tried to concentrate in one area, age, or style. The week in Brazil made me glad I didn’t because I had books published that all ages could enjoy—even adults, with the new writing book.
I also taught two weeks for the Vermont Governor’s Institute on the Arts at Castleton University. The students ranged from 14 to 17 and I worked with poets and prose writers, as well as a few who were interested in producing cartoons and graphic novels. I wanted to be a cartoonist when I was young, so this delighted me.
Next year, I will be teaching and critiquing adults again at the 2019 SCBWI Wild Wild Midwest Conference in Naperville, IL, the Oak Park SCBWI Network and at Off-Campus Writers in Winnetka, IL.