Poetry on the radio-- it's a perfect match. A poem can lift the spirits and light the way as we go about our day. My poem "Running in Flips Flops" was recently featured on our local NPR station's Poetry Sunday series. WCAI-FM (Cape and Islands NPR) includes a local...
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A Prison Writing Class using Children’s Books
Get people talking about the books they remember as children, and all sorts of things happen. The voice softens. There is laughter. The eyes look beyond, beyond the room to another place, another time. That’s what happened in the first session of my creative writing...
A nod for TOMFOOLERY!
May the road rise to meet you, and the wind be always at your back. ~Irish Proverb Tomfoolery. It's a word I love, and the title of the middle-grade novel that I'm revising and preparing to send back to my agent, Linda Camacho. Tomfoolery just received a runner-up...
Connecting Through Kids’ Books: A Prison Writing Project
Like a plane coming in for a landing, I am settling back in to work and writing after the excitement of the holidays and a January trip to Ireland. Thanks to local arts funding, I will be teaching a new version of my creative writing class in the women's unit of the...
I Went to Rutgers One-on-One Plus Conference and Good Things Happened
A little over a month ago, I attended the Rutgers University One-on-One Plus conference, hosted by the Rutgers University Council on Children’s Literature (RUCCL). It was a game-changer for me! Here’s why. I used the October conference as a deadline. I was...
LGBTQ Youth- Hiding in Plain Sight
I was shaken recently when a friend relayed a story from a school in my liberal state of Massachusetts: an 8th grader received an anonymous note at school, to the effect of "Faggot- hope you kill yourself." In my writer world, I admit I get lulled into a sense of...
Back to the homeland: NYC
I'm still buzzing from a dynamic weekend in NYC. I saw family, covered a lot of ground (Bronx to the Battery!), and attended the Rutgers One-on-One Conference. The Rutgers One-on-One conference is a different kind of conference: it feels very focused, very...
Summer School on Gender
Learning about gender: that was one of my summer reading goals as a children's writer, a teacher of teachers, and a creative writing instructor. As a lesbian writer and supporter of We Need Diverse Books, I am always on the look-out for new titles to recommend. Two...
What a children’s writer learned from a fierce diva’s cabaret act
Billy Porter was just in Provincetown for a three-night nightclub engagement. You know, the Billy Porter who won a Tony for the role of Lola in Broadway's hit "Kinky Boots." He sang with supreme confidence in a skirt, a killer hat and some kick-ass ankle boots. He...
Rainbow Boxes- books for LGBTQ+ youth
Have you heard about Rainbow Boxes? It's a way to get sorely needed books into the hands of LGBTQ+ youth. Flashback to a scene in a middle school library about six years ago: the school counselor, who happens to be my wife, was showing me the section in the library...