I’ve just finished reading Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a terrific example of creative nonfiction. Check out this link for some great behind-the-scenes information on the importance of structure in a nonfiction piece and on how Skloot decided to include herself in the very story she was researching. >> See My “Just… [Read More]
Writer’s Retreat
April 14, 2012 By
In February, I drove east for eleven hours, through Ohio and the very mountains of Pennsylvania I used to call home, to the town of Honesdale, Pennsylvania. I turned left onto the property of the family that created the magazine Highlights for Children and pulled up to a small cabin with two twin beds, a… [Read More]
“Loud Voices”
November 14, 2011 By
Lucretia Jones could not have had an easy time raising her daughter Edith. She was a woman of average intelligence and superficial interests suddenly confronted by a child whose brilliance was apparent from the get-go. She probably tried valiantly to maintain her maternal authority and, if her daughter’s claim that pleasing her mother and pleasing… [Read More]
The Good Company of Story
September 12, 2011 By
There’s a lovely sculpture by Victor Issa in the Frederic Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It’s called “Grandpa, the Storyteller” and it captures for me the essence of story: Story connects, it communicates across time and generations. As the novelist Graham Smith put it, “As long as there’s a story, it’s all right.” For… [Read More]
Come For a Ride?
August 16, 2011 By
As the third set of lesson plans for Just Fine the Way They Are (“Writer’s Craft”) is posted and ready for you teachers out there to download, I realize how much I like the illustration my graphic designer chose for the “button” that clicks you to those lesson plans: A car in motion…a car obviously… [Read More]
Celebrate!
August 1, 2011 By
I started thinking about The Brave Escape of Edith Wharton in 2001. It was published in 2010. It seemed to me that, when it officially hit the bookstores, a celebration was called for. First, I alerted my “staff” (a.k.a., the special events committee of the Richmond Symphony Orchestra from whom Carl and I had purchased… [Read More]
Serious Research
July 14, 2011 By
Writing for children often means doing serious research. I brought my husband along on a research trip just last weekend. I carefully observed two little boys, one aged two, the other aged four. I observed as they woke from their naps, the older boy dapper and ready to meet the world, the younger temporarily speechless… [Read More]
Fighting for Democracy in the Bagel Shop
July 5, 2011 By
My assignment: An article on the Development of Democracy covering ancient Greece, ancient Rome, and the years surrounding the Revolutionary War in the U.S. Length: 1400 words First draft delivery date: Four weeks I commandeer my usual table at the Fifth Street Bagel Shop and set to work. I start with the ancient Greeks to… [Read More]
Backyard Stories
June 20, 2011 By
In 2004, I signed up for a Highlights Foundation Workshop on writing nonfiction and I grumbled silently for weeks before I set out for Honesdale, PA. The workshop leader, editor Carolyn Yoder, had asked each of us to bring a nonfiction piece about something “in our own backyard.” Up until then I had written about… [Read More]
I Don’t Talk – I Just Write
May 9, 2011 By
Here’s something I didn’t consider before I got into this writing business: As soon as you’ve published something, various groups start wanting you to talk to them. My first invitation came from one of my sons’ classroom teachers. What I (terrified!) wanted to say was: “I don’t talk – I just write.” What fell out… [Read More]