The news of my debut picture book was shared on Publishers Weekly this week, and I could not be more excited! LIKE A MOTHER BEAR is a picture book biography of Jeanne Manford, an amazing advocate and mother who founded PFLAG, an advocacy group for parents and loved...
News
NCTE Convention 2023: A Sweet Spot!
Have you ever felt like you were in the sweet spot, a place where the two overlapping circles in a Venn diagram meet? That was me, attending the NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) 2023 Convention in Columbus Ohio. Being at the conference brought...
Alegria: Celebrating and Elevating Portuguese-speaking Brazilian students with an Author Visit
As a Literacy Coach in a K-3 school with a large Brazilian population, I was thrilled to win a grant from SCBWI that allowed me to invite Brazilian and American picture book author Ana Crespo to be a visiting author to Cape Cod elementary school M.E. Small in the fall...
Poetry Friday Goes to School
Inspired by the lively Poetry Friday community in the blog world, this year I decided to bring that magic into my work as a Literacy Coach in a K-3 school. Each Friday, I share a poem via email to our school community. Teachers can choose to share the poem on a...
Feeling the beat, feeling the love
Poetry came to life when the very talented music teacher in our Cape Cod elementary school used my poem “Drum” in her exploration of percussion recently. What a delight to read my poem to our K-3 students, to hear children drumming, to listen to them beat out the...
Finding Just the Right Word
Slipping into someone else’s voice when writing a poem is one of my writerly challenges and delights. In my hospital-themed poetry collection for adults, Unity Hospital, the poems are in the voices of women who intersected with the hospital in some way: nurses, a...
The history of a hospital– in a poetry collection!
Over the past three years, one object of my writing obsession has been the hospital in Brooklyn where my grandmother completed her nurse’s training as a young Irish immigrant. The nurse's residence was the address on her marriage certificate. It was called Unity...
Hope is a Drum
Feel that drumbeat? School is starting. A new school year fills me with hope-- hope for fresh starts, open hearts, new learning. I’m back to work in my job as an elementary school Literacy Coach. How perfect to kick off this school year by celebrating the publication...
“Make it poetic, but not rhyming.”
You might have heard this advice before; I know I have. A quick search on the internet finds lots of similar examples… “Tips for writing picture books: don’t write in rhyme.” “The editor loved the concept, but was not drawn to the rhyme.” I admit it—I love rhyme! But...
Glimpses of Green- a poem about nature in the city
I’m delighted that my poem “Glimpses of Green” is published today in the online children’s poetry journal Tyger Tyger, based in the UK. What I love about Tyger Tyger is that it is aimed at children and teachers-- giving educators (and anyone who cares for children and...