It was so much fun participating in RAOK (Random Acts of Kindness) during the launch of The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. I bought the e-book as soon as it was released, 
I wrote all the names on pink pieces of paper and placed them in a bag. Then, my daughter offered to choose the winner. Actually, she asked if she could put her name in first, then if she chose herself, I could do her homework assignment instead of giving her a critique (and no...I didn't add her name, but tomorrow morning I'm bringing in bagels and special cookies to thank her for helping me).
Here's Sammi holding up the name of the winner.
Congratulations, Sue--you won the critique!
But wait...there's more to the story. Sammi wanted her friend to pick out a name, too. And since she pulled it out of the bag and this celebration encourages random acts of kindness, I decided that I'd critique a picture book or five pages of a chapter book, MG, or YA for another winner. So...
By: Carmela Martino and 5 other authors,
on 4/27/2011
Blog: Teaching Authors (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Contests, Blogiversary, National Poetry Month, Esther Hershenhorn, Critique Giveaway, Add a tag
The celebration of our TeachingAuthors Second Blogiversary continues!
You can still enter to win one of our two Critique Giveaways!
Click on the link to learn the Contest details.
As always, we’re cheering you on.
Our Second Blogiversary got the six of us thinking: what nugget, what Truth, do we wish we’d known when we began writing for children?
I knew my answer instantly.
All I had to do was read (for the gazillionth time) the inscription on the one-of-a-kind gold and silver ring that’s adorned my right hand’s fourth finger for longer than I can remember: the journey is the reward.
(Note: poetically-inscribed jewelry is Jeanine Payer’s trademark.)
Of course, learning that Truth took a whole lot of years, underscoring the very nature of the word “journey.”
Back in 1977, when I first naively tried my hand at writing a picture book for my then two-year-old son, I shared the mindset of every beginning student and writer I’ve since encountered.
How hard could writing a picture book be, really?
I mean, I’d earned a Journalism degree and wrote for a newspaper!
I’d taught fifth grade in the finest of schools!
A picture book is but 32 pages.
The story, too, is for very young children.
And hadn’t I studied my favorite picture books from the inside out? Hadn’t I typed them out, cut them apart, repasted the text, read for the pictures?
And anyway, wouldn’t the illustrations fill in any details I missed?
Once the writing part was done, I’d use my Library’s publishing directories to gather names of editors at those houses I wanted to publish me.
I’d submit my story to the right person, and just like that, or rather, after a considerable (but certainly understandable) waiting period, I’d receive a letter requesting purchase of my story.
Voila. Abracadabra. My dream would be realized.
I would become a Children’s Book Author.
Right?
Wrong!
(Of course.)
I see now: I was only just beginning.
Beginning an education.
Beginning my writer’s story.
Beginning a journey for which I’m grateful every day.
But back then?
After each and every failed effort, I simply picked myself up, dusted myself off, filed away the form and growing personal rejection letters and began another story, my format explorations paralleling my growing son’s new interests and reading expertise.
I’d bravely sought out other children’s book writers, via SCBW (it was so new, the I hadn't been added yet!), local writing classes and lectures.
And I adjusted the carrot that swung in front of my nose.
You know the one – the one labeled “Publication.”
I honestly didn’t see the Light – or rather, the path I’d undertaken, until 1989 when I bravely left my Writing Room for (the sadly no longer in existence) Vassar College’s Summer Children’s Book Publishing Institute.
That’s where and when I learned, thanks to the Institute’s Director Barbara Lucas: that First Step I took back in 1977 brought me to a World - the Children�
By: Carmela Martino and 5 other authors,
on 4/22/2011
Blog: Teaching Authors (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Poetry Friday, Blogiversary, Carmela Martino, Critique Giveaway, Add a tag
Full details are posted below. But first, since today is also Poetry Friday, I'd like to share a special blogiversary poem by my amazingly talented co-blogger April Halprin Wayland. If you'd like to read the story behind this poem, along with more of April's Poetry Month poetry, visit her website. And don't forget to check out today's Poetry Friday roundup at the Book Aunt blog.
OUR BLOGIVERSARY!
by April Halprin Wayland
We six who ride our blog horse here
(c) 2011 April Halprin Wayland, all rights reserved
And now for our Giveaway Details:
For our blogiversary last year, we offered our first ever critique giveaway. This year we decided the best way to "help, support and cheer" would be to do it again. Only this time, TWO winners will have their choice of a critique of one of the following by a TeachingAuthor:
- fiction picture book up to 750 words
- nonfiction picture book up to 1000 words
- first five pages of a novel (chapter book, middle grade, or young adult novel): up
20 Comments on Our Second Blogiversary, a Critique Giveaway, and a Special Poem!, last added: 4/25/2011Display Comments Add a Comment
By: Carmela Martino and 5 other authors,
on 5/5/2010
Blog: Teaching Authors (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Blogiversary, Carmela Martino, Giveaway Winner, Blogosphere Buzz, Critique Giveaway, Teacher Appreciation Week, Add a tag
This week is Teacher Appreciation Week. So let me begin this post with a little classroom humor:
A child comes home from his first day at school.This joke is courtesy of the Teacher Appreciation website. In addition to teacher/student jokes, the site contains ideas for showing our teachers how much we appreciate them. Please don't let this week go by without saying "thank you" to a teacher.
Mother asks, "What did you learn today?"
The child replies, "Not enough. I have to go back tomorrow."
This post is later than usual for me because I spent the morning visiting Union Ridge Elementary School in Harwood Heights, IL. The students were so attentive and enthusiastic, and they made me feel very welcome. Thank you, Huskies! And I have to commend and thank the teachers and staff at Union Ridge for celebrating their marvelous young authors. I had the honor of presenting a writing workshop to the winners of their Young Authors competition. What a creative group!
The winner of our First Blogiversary Critique giveaway is Tricia, who blogs at The Miss Rumphius Effect. Tricia is a former middle school teacher who now prepares future teachers. She's going to have to decide between having a critique of her poetry or a nonfiction picture book manuscript.
The critique giveaway was such a huge success that we will definitely do it again. Meanwhile, if you're looking for a critique, you may want to consider placing a bid for one in the Hunger Mountain Critique Auction going on through May 9. Here's how Cynthia Leitich Smith described the auction on her blog, Cynsations:
"Bid to win full length manuscript critiques with Tanita Davis, author of the Coretta Scott King Honor Book Mare’s War (Knopf, 2009), Michelle Poploff, Vice President, Executive Editor at Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers, and picture book writer Tanya Lee Stone, who won the Sibert Award for Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream (Candlewick, 2009). In addition, National Book Award finalist Deborah Wiles and Jacqueline Kelly, author of Newbery honor book The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate (Henry Holt, 2009), will offer young adult and middle grade manuscript critiques. Bidding ends at midnight EST May 9."Visit Ebay to place your bid.
Our second winner is Sandra, a middle-school te
By: Carmela Martino and 5 other authors,
on 4/26/2010
Blog: Teaching Authors (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: birthdays, Writing Workout, Jeanne Marie Grunwell Ford, writing for hire, Critique Giveaway, process analysis, Add a tag
April may be the cruelest month, but I don't care. I'm too busy celebrating the last year of my thirties, my son's third, my daughter's fifth, and yes, a Blogiversary and our April's birthday, too.
Have you noticed that "Happy Birthday" is rarely (if ever) sung on TV? As Mary Ann pointed out, there's that pesky matter of royalties, and apparently this song commands exorbitant ones. Next time you watch a soap opera (if you dare), note the quick cutaway to commercial when the cake is wheeled out or the opportune ringing of a phone or sudden heart attack that befalls the birthday girl. It's not about the drama, I'm sorry to say. It's about the stupid song. Just as often, it's about the Midol product placement or the actor who can't remember his lines or the set that has enough room for only two people when you need to throw a wedding!
Most of my paid writing work has been writing for hire. Writing for hire can be an awful lot of fun. But apart from the challenges that are readily imagined (what if I hate the material?), there are also those devil-in-the-details moments I never considered. When I was writing Nancy Drew, I had to be cognizant at all times of the rules of Nancyland (no guns or drugs despite the raging crime epidemic in River Heights). There was a preordained number of chapters and pages, as well. An hour-long daytime program is only 39 minutes minus the commercials. Writing to a set structure (see the five-paragraph essay) makes life a lot easier in many ways. In other ways, it is horribly constraining.
My English Composition students write five essays per semester, and often they have trouble getting excited about the material, to put it mildly. This is writing-for-hire in its barest form, after all -- pass the class, and you get to graduate and, one hopes, find the job of your dreams. Fail to get the job done, and well... take English 101 again.
For my students, God is in the details. Once they can recount an experience vividly, without resorting to cliches and empty expressions, they have connected with the material in a way that makes the writing fun (and the reading, too). And if they have done it once, they can do it again. So even if their writing is full of run-ons and agreement errors and I despair of having taught them anything, I have. I think. I hope!
***
Don't forget to enter to win a critique of your work, in honor of our blog’s first birthday!
And please note: Your first entry must say how you follow us—via Google, Networked blogs, or email. You must post a SEPARATE comment to get a second entry. This makes tracking entries much easier. Entry deadline is 11 pm (CST) Tuesday, May 4, 2010.
Writing Workout
My students had a highly disrupted semester this spring (I use the term figuratively) thanks to copious snow, which is paralyzing to Marylanders in the baffling way that rain is to southern Californians.
I usually do this exercise earlier in the semester, but it's waited until the last day (today!) because we've been too busy cramming exercises in grammar
Such wisdom! I love it. And I believe it 100%. Lovin the journey.
I agree. The joy is in the journey.
My journey began in 1992. I had exactly your thoughts. I sold my first story to Guardian Angel Publishing in 2005. This year I've had my first deal memo from my dream publisher. Now I have an adult novel I want to pitch. I need an agent for that. But getting the right one? The journey continues.
You've been a beacon for my writer's journey, Esther, and always an inspiration.
It definitely is the journey, and I'm honored to be it with so many wonderful bloggers!
Lovely to meet you ladies :)
Hugs,
Rach