Wrapping Up Our Series on Frequently Asked Questions

Image by Margo Lipa from Pixabay

Happy August!  

It's hard to believe that summer is already waning here in the northern hemisphere and students and teachers will soon be returning to classrooms. Today, I'm closing out our latest TeachingAuthors series. At the end of this post, I also share one of my poems and a link to this week's Poetry Friday roundup.

I've enjoyed reading all my fellow TeachingAuthors' responses to the prompt: "Share a question you often get from your students or readers." I must admit, though, that the post that most resonated with me was April's, in which she talks about someone approaching her with an idea and asking her to write the book. I, too, have received that request many times, not only from my students, but also from strangers I've met at social functions and even via email from random people who found me online.

But there's another question I've heard far more frequently from those same sources: "How do you get a book published?" In fact, when I first started teaching classes in writing for children and teens over 25 years ago, the question was frequently worded as "How much does it cost to get a children's book published?" Back before self-publishing became prevalent, many people assumed you simply paid a book publisher like Scholastic or Random House to publish your book. These same people also typically assumed that if you were a writer and not an artist, you had to hire someone to illustrate your picture book before submitting to that publisher. 

If the person asking the question was not a student in one of my classes, I simply directed them to the Frequently Asked Questions page of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) website. But over the years, the answer has gotten increasingly more complicated, and the SCBWI FAQ page isn't as helpful as it used to be. Thankfully, Jane Freidman has a great resource: "Start Here: How to Get Your Book Published," that covers publishing books for adults as well as for children. The post describes three publishing paths: traditional publishing, hiring a company to publish for you, and self-publishing, and she updates the information periodically. 

There are now all sorts of books on writing for children, too. Two of my favorites include Ann Whitford Paul's Writing Picture Books: A Hands-on Guide From Story Creation to Publication and Writing Irresistible Kidlit: The Ultimate Guide to Crafting Fiction for Young Adult and Middle Grade Readers by Mary Kole, both published by Writer's Digest Books.     

How about you, Readers? Do you have any questions we haven't addressed in this series? If so, please let us know in the comments. 

Now for the poem I promised. Earlier this summer, I had the honor of having two poems accepted for publication at The Dirigible Balloon, a UK-based online magazine that publishes poetry for children--my first time being featured there! Here's one of them, which you can also see on their site here: 

      On the Launchpad (An Etheree)    
      by Carmela A. Martino

      Preparing for takeoff! I fuel up 
      on determination so I can 
      blast past expectations and climb
      skyward, higher and higher—
      beyond the stratosphere—
      to where earthly fears
      won’t weigh me down.
      Here I go—
      THREE, TWO,
      ONE …

  © 2025 Carmela A. Martino. All rights reserved.

As noted above, this poem is an Etheree. If you're not familiar with the form, you can learn about it on the Shadow Poetry site.  And you can read my other poem, "Puppy Litter," on this page of The Dirigible Balloon.

Don't forget to visit this week's Poetry Friday roundup hosted by Jane Whittingham for more terrific poetry.

Happy writing!

Carmela 

Embracing Change with an Etheree

Happy Poetry Friday (and St. Patrick's Day ☘ too)!

Today, I'm wrapping up our TeachingAuthors series on the theme of Moving Forward in the New Year by sharing an original Etheree poem.

You may recall that Esther kicked off our topic back in January with her review of The Stories Behind the Stories: The Remarkable True Tales Behind Your Favorite Kid's Books by Danielle Higley (Bushel & Peck Books). Of course, I loved reading all the posts in this series, but April's has especially stuck with me. She shared her One Little Word for the year: Simplify. The word is becoming my mantra as my husband and I try to declutter all the stuff we've accumulated over the last forty years. Given that we've lived in only one place in all that time, it's A LOT of stuff! 

This photo by Sigmund on Unsplash looks a lot like a corner of our basement.

The decluttering has been necessitated by the fact that we're seriously contemplating selling our house.  Doing so would be a HUGE change, and we're both finding the idea a bit overwhelming. That feeling inspired me to take up this month's Poetry Sisters' challenge to write an Etheree on the theme of "transformation." I came up with the following. (Click on the image below to enlarge it.)

I still don't know what the future will hold, but writing this poem helped me feel a little less overwhelmed. So, a big THANK YOU to the Poetry Sisters! I look forward to reading all your Etherees at the end of the month. 

Poetry Friday logo by Linda Mitchell

Meanwhile, I'm going to check out this week's Poetry Friday roundup hosted by Laura Purdie Salas.

Carmela

Playing with Poetry Snowballs

Happy Poetry Friday! Today, I kick off a new series on the topic of PLAY and share a related poem. It's also the last day of our current giveaway, so if you haven't entered yet, be sure to check out the link at the end of this post.

When we TeachingAuthors were discussing our next topic, April Halprin Wayland suggested "something light, such as, how we each play with words." The idea felt perfect, especially because I'd recently read the following Tweet from Nir Eyal:

 Personally, I have been doing a lot of playing lately--with poetry!

Photo by Jasmin Schreiber on Unsplash

 
Back in December of 2020, I'd shared:

"one of the things I'm looking forward to in 2021 is becoming even more steeped in poetry, both reading and writing it."

I'm happy to say that I followed through on that intention. I've been not only reading and writing more poetry, but submitting it for publication, too. I'm thrilled to announce that several of my poems have been accepted and will be coming out in two new anthologies. I can't share the details yet, but will provide them when I'm able. 

One way that I've been playing with poetry is by writing in new-to-me forms, particularly math-based ones, such as pi-ku, Fib poems, and Etherees. I recently learned about snowball poems, developed by the OULIPO. If you aren't familiar with the organization, here's a description of OULIPO from Poets.org:

"Although poetry and mathematics often seem to be incompatible areas of study, the philosophy of OULIPO seeks to connect them. Founded in 1960 by French mathematician Francois de Lionnais and writer Raymond Queneau, Ouvroir de Litterature Potentielle (OULIPO), or Workshop of Potential Literature, investigates the possibilities of verse written under a system of structural constraints. Lionnais and Quenuau believed in the profound potential of a poem produced within a framework or formula and that, if done in a playful posture, the outcomes could be endless."

While writing my first snowball, or boule de neige, as the OULIPO call it, I definitely tried to keep a "playful posture." Here's what I came up with:

Background photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

This snowball poem is an example of one that grows, which is called a boule de neige de longueur. Such poems should resemble a right triangle. The text I've quoted in my poem is taken from this page. There, you can read more about the various types and shapes of snowball poems.

As I worked on this poem, I realized I have written snowballs before, in the form of nonets and Etherees. So technically, this isn't really my first snowball poem, though it's the first containing twelve lines. 😀

I'm wondering how many of you are familiar with snowball poems. Have you ever written one? Do let me know in the comments. I also wonder: Is there a name for a poem that describes the form it's written in? I think there should be.

You can check out more poetry at this week's Poetry Friday roundup hosted by Catherine Flynn at Reading to the Core. Before heading over there, though, don't forget to enter our current giveaway if you haven't already done so. Details are at the end of Esther's Student Success Story interview with Gwen Neiman Levy about the release of her debut picture book, What the Cluck?

Happy writing!
Carmela

Ten Days of Thanks-Giving & New Forms to Try

Inspired by Esther’s invention of the thanku (a thank you note in haiku form), we Teaching Authors are celebrating our first annual Ten Days of Thanks-Giving with poems in that form and others.

When I thought about writing a Thanksgiving thanku, I started by brainstorming a list of possible topics—people, places, and things I'm grateful for. My gratitude list was impossibly long, so I decided to focus on that moment.

stillness before dawn—
recliner, cozy blanket,
coffee, notebook, pen

Although it fits the syllable count and describes something I'm grateful for, this one doesn't feel like a thank you note. I went back to my list. In my poetry class this week, two students introduced me to new forms, so I decided to try them.

The etheree has ten lines of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 syllables—or in reverse, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1. An etheree with more than one stanza can include both.

This form seemed to suit my long list of things I’m grateful for, so I chose some that fit the pattern.

luck
coffee
purple pens
soft yellow yarn
dogs with wagging tails
chances to start over
sunlight streaking through dense woods
crossing chores off my to-do list
kicking up crunchy leaves on my walk
old family photo albums, labeled

Notice how coffee appears in both poems? I like to write first thing in the morning. But not only did this feel more like a list poem than a thank you note, using the etheree form forced me to leave out some of the most obvious things I’m grateful for. I could certainly add more stanzas with the number of syllables counting back down and up again. And again and again. (As I said, I have a long list!)

The lanturne is shaped like a Japanese lantern: it has five lines with 1, 2, 3, 4, and 1 syllables. Mine, like the thanku above, focuses on a moment.

long
drive home
from night class
open the door
sniff

fresh
spicy
aroma
what’s in the pot?
look

warm
kitchen
windows steamed
homemade chili
taste

beans
(two kinds)
tomatoes
from your garden
yum

sweet
welcome
(comfort food)
how you show your
love

This one hits the spot for me because it feels more like a thank you note. The end came as a surprise, which is one of my favorite things about writing. Sometimes I don't know what I'm writing about until it comes out of my pen.

Writing Workout: Write a Thanks-Giving poem. Teachers, invite your classes to join in! Try a thanku, an etheree, a lanturne, or another new form. See if you can express your thanks in 25 words or less. Then post your poems here or on any of our posts during our Ten Days of Thanks-Giving, November 20-30. Or send them to us by e-mail: teachingauthors at  gmail dot com.

Today's Poetry Friday roundup is at The Opposite of Indifference. Take a peek!

JoAnn Early Macken