JOIN: Celebrating Literary Agents and Writing Lessons Learned

Every Saturday, join me as I CELEBRATE This Week 

with Ruth Ayres from Discover. Play. Build.

This week I have very big news to share! It's super exciting...I have a literary agent! I queried for about two years, which means I sent samples of my novel in a letter to agents who might be interested in representing me. And then Danielle Smith from Lupine Grove Creative offered to represent me. After notifying other agents who had my work and waiting to hear back from them, I accepted Danielle's offer. Hooray!

This is the first time I've ever had an agent and it's so fun. A few people have asked me what this means exactly...which was good because I forgot that not everyone knows what it means to have an agent in the book world. Basically, now that I'm working with Danielle, she'll pitch my manuscripts to publishers and editors who'll decide if they want to make any of them into books. I've written young adult novels and picture books, but no, I don't illustrate my own work. A publisher would choose an illustrator to create the artwork to go along with my text. And of course, all this will probably take a long time...but I'll let you know when I have more news to share! For now, check out the Lupine Grove website and see if you can find me on the Authors page. (Yay!)

I'm completely overjoyed. This is a big step but also one little step on my journey towards being published. So while I'm celebrating having signed with an agent, I'm also celebrating all the work it's taken to get here. I've written and revised, shared and considered feedback, revised and revised again. And all along the way, through the rejections and doubt, I surrounded myself with supportive friends and family, and I learned that I can keep going - sure, it might mean a good cry at Starbucks and taking a few days to muster up the courage to face revisions - but I know more about myself as a writer today then I did when I started seriously writing over five years ago. 

Thinking about your life as a writer, 

what can you celebrate in terms of what 

you've learned about yourself from actively writing? 

I'm excited to celebrate with you! 

Thanks for stopping in to celebrate with me!

WRITE: A More Beautiful Question

“Always the beautiful answer

Who asks a more beautiful question.”

-e.e. cummings

In his book A More Beautiful Question, Warren Berger asks readers to think about the art or the science of questioning. He explains that questioning plays a critical role “in enabling people to innovate, solve problems, and move ahead in their careers and lives.”

Instead of pursuing happiness, what if we came up with a questions to think about, grapple with, and work towards? Would we live a more fulfilled life if we worked towards pursuing this question?

I'm not sure about you, but I've taken quite a few personality assessments in my life. From the quizzes in Seventeen magazine when I was a teenager to the Myers-Briggs I took as an adult and all the other self-awareness activities I've done in between, I've learned that I'm a do-er. My first thought is, "What should we do?" in most situations and if I'm ever in a rut, a stop and make a list and identify something - even small - to do. Doing feels good. Doing feels like progress.

But a few years ago, I found myself struggling to do it all.

I took a new position which meant I worked longer hours and still commuted an hour to and from work. The change put a strain on how much time I was home with my family and how much time I had to devote to things that were important to me like spending time with family and friends, reading, writing, blogging, running, practicing yoga, and cooking healthy meals (just to name a few…). Finding a way to balance work and home became a struggle.

Here's what I learned from that experience:
I know now that I get cranky when I can’t do all the things I want to do,
I get emotional when I’m not able to take care of myself and fit everything in,
and I’m not helpful or productive when I’m exhausted.

It was an interesting kind of guilt to feel I was not enough in all areas of my life.

What I also learned is:
I can adjust my expectations for myself and others by taking deep breaths and reassessing,
I have a super strong support group of wonderful family and friends,
and I'm not good at communicating to people how much they mean to me.

Without certain people who were there for me when I needed them, I wouldn’t be where I am right now physically, emotionally or mentally. Some of them know how much their belief in me made a difference and others may not realize. Which is how I came to my two beautiful questions:

1. How might I find time every day to show the people in my life that I see them?
2. How might I inspire others by sharing my life as a writer?

I've talked before about the power of being seen and trying to find what what make our lives ideal. I hope to show people that they are seen. Writing is the easiest way for me to pay tribute to the people who inspire and support me. Whether it's notes, cards, social media posts, I try and make time to recognize people in my life who help make me a better person.

Going through those two years of being so far out of my comfort zone helped me realign myself to what's important in my life. It helped me see the people who are there for me but also to recognize how important writing is to me. I hope that by sharing my life as a writer, I can inspire others to follow their dreams...whether they want to be writers too or have dreams of something else they need to work hard at.

Let's Write! Do you have your own beautiful question? (Or two?) Maybe think about what energizes you...or think about what really bogs you down. Can your question help focus you on spending more time with what really excites you? Do you recognize an area of your life to spend more time on? Maybe it's a weakness or maybe it's a strength you can really build up. Write a question (or two) that you can work towards living your life to answer. If you want to share, I'd love to hear your beautiful questions!

The Reader, Author Interview with Traci Chee

Today I have the pleasure of interviewing Traci Chee who wrote the young adult novel The Reader. I'm lucky to be a fan of Traci's and also a friend. 

TMT: Can you start by telling us a little bit about you and your new book, The Reader?

Traci Chee: Thanks so much for inviting me to chat with you! I am a total book geek/word nerd, and I think that shows in my YA debut, The Reader, which is set in a world where literacy is unheard of, and a sixteen-year-old girl must teach herself to read in order to solve the mystery of her father’s murder and rescue her kidnapped aunt. It’s got a little bit of a ton of different things I love, including bookishness, magic, long walks in the woods, cowboys/pirates with hearts of gold, and secret messages!

TMT: The Reader is set in a fantasy world where books no longer exist. Can you talk a little about your writing process? Where did you start and how did the world of Kelanna influence Sefia or vice versa?

Traci Chee: I feel like I collect ideas from all over the place, and sometimes they all come together in a glorious creative chaos, which is what happened with The Reader: I walked into the McHenry Library Special Collections and was immediately entranced by their collection of art books. I started scribbling down a story about a girl with a book on a pirate ship for my friend Tucker. I’d been wanting to write about a cowboy with a heart of gold since seeing The Magnificent Seven with Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen. And all of them sort of came swirling together when I set out to write The Reader.

TMT: What is the best writing advice you have received and what advice would you give student writers?

Traci Chee: “Always keep learning.” I believe that there’s always a way to improve as a writer, whether by reading craft books, reading more widely (and deeply), taking classes, participating in workshops, talking with other writers, or using the wealth of internet resources we now have at our disposal, and I think it’s so important to always be challenging ourselves as creators.

TMT: What are you reading and loving right now (or recently)? What are some ways what you have read influences your own writing?

Traci Chee: Keeping with my approach of “always keep learning,” I try to glean a little something from everything I read. Since I’m currently working on Book 2 of Sea of Ink and Gold, I’ve been studying Leigh Bardugo’s Siege and Storm and Sabaa Tahir’s A Torch Against the Night, but I also like learning economy of language from poetry (Adrienne Rich comes to mind) and economy of story from short fiction (one of my favorite collections is Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino). Although I know it horrifies some people, I often read with a pen in hand so I can note passages I love and return to study them later (although I only mark up my own books, of course)!

TMT: Teach Mentor Texts is all about promoting the love of reading and writing. How would you finish the statements: “Reading is…” and “Writing is…”

Traci Chee: Reading is magic. Writing is power.

A giant thank you to Traci for being here to share her book The Reader and give us some insight into her writing and reading life.

I'm a believe in the growth mindset and that we can work towards anything we set our minds to. Writing requires a certain kind of mindset. Like Traci says, it's important for writers to realize we are always learning how to weave stories together...or sometimes how to just keep going. Keeping an open mind and paying attention to what we learn works for us as writers is key.

I hope you pick up The Reader!

(P.S. Do you like to write notes in the margins as you read? I do!)

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? 12/05/2016

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? From Picture Books to YA! 

It's Monday! What are you Reading? is a meme hosted by Kathryn at Book Date. It is a great way to recap what you read and/or reviewed the previous week and to plan out your reading and reviews for the upcoming week. It's also a great chance to see what others are reading right now...you just might discover your next “must-read” book!

Kellee Moye, of Unleashing Readers, and I decided to give It's Monday! What Are You Reading? a kidlit focus. If you read and review books in children's literature - picture books, chapter books, middle grade novels, young adult novels, anything in the world of kidlit - join us! We love this meme and think you will, too. We encourage everyone who participates to visit at least three of the other kidlit book bloggers that link up and leave comments for them. 

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Last Week's Book Adventures:

Last week I finished Root Beer Candy and Other Miracles by Shari Green and finished Lunch Lady and the Video Game Villain with LittleBean. We started Comic Squad: Recess which is so fun! Peanut and I are working our way through Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. He also begged me to make wands this weekend which was pretty fun. I'm still reading Rising Strong and also grabbed the new edition of Flow magazine which I started reading as well.

Reviewed Last Week:

Click on any picture above to go read my review/post.

Upcoming Book Adventures: 

I'm planning on continuing to read Harry Potter with Peanut and the Comic Squad comics with Little Bean. I'll continue reading Rising Strong and see what I get to next!

This Week's Reviews:

Check back throughout the week to read these reviews/posts. 

So, what are you reading this week? 

Link up below and don't forget to check out other blogs to see what they are reading!

To help build our community and support other bloggers, 

we ask that you comment on at least three other blogs before you. 

Also, if you tweet about your Monday post, don't forget to use #IMWAYR!

JOIN: NCTE 2016 Celebration

Every Saturday, join me as I CELEBRATE This Week 

with Ruth Ayres from Discover. Play. Build.

Every year I look forward to attending the annual convention for the National Council for Teachers of English. This year was extra special for me in so many ways but mainly because I was able to be surrounded by wonderful friends who feel like family at a time when I really needed it. 

2016 has been one bumpy ride and November felt like we were careening down a mountain clinging fiercly to not get thrown from the car and then any semblance of a road disappeared and now we're just bumbling along with no clear direction. At least that's how I feel...

But NCTE was a chance for me to hug friends tight, share my love of books and writing, and once again feel empowered to do good work. I was thrilled to be part of four wonderful presentations. 

Artist as Historian

I talked about visual literacy and then handed it over to these talented illustrators to talk all about the research they do for their non-fiction picture books. I know I left with lots of information to share with students!

Sophia Blackall, Brian Floca, me, and LeUyen Pham

Compassion with Mentor Texts

I conjured up some questions to ask these brilliant authors about their stories that tackle raw emotions and how to encourage student writers. 

Tracy Holczer, H.M. Bouwman, Corey Ann Haydu, Kat Yeh, Karen Rivers and me

Get Writing!

I look forward to Teachers Write every summer but I also got to look forward to connecting with Teachers Write friend this fall at NCTE as we shared ideas for teachers to take back to students. So many awesome activities and we shared a poem we wrote collectively with the audience at the end. 

 Ammi-Joan Paquette, me, Jo Knowles, Mike Jung, 

Karen Romano Young, Kekla Magoon, and Kate Messner

Thinkers Who Thrive

This session was the perfect way to end NCTE. I'm so inspired by these three educators and am glad to call them friends. We each shared ideas for connecting with students - Terry talked about scaffolding support without rescuing students, Patrick talked about teaching kids to question, Ruth gave ideas for using compassion to entice reluctant writers, and I shared ideas for how reaching writers is about mutual trust. I keep thinking about this presentation. It will stay with me always.

 Ruth Ayres, me, Patrick Allen, and Terry Thompson

 What are you celebrating this week? Were you able to visit with family and friends over Thanksgiving or are you looking forward to time to connect with loved ones this month? I'd love to hear about it!

Animal Atlas

Title: Animal Atlast
Author: Virginie Aladjidi
Illustrator: Emmanuelle Tchoukriel
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Publication Date: October 4th, 2016
Genre/Format: Non-Fiction/Atlas - Informational
GoodReads Summary: Did you know that: 
Sea otters can spend months in the water without returning to land? 
Flying fish can glide for 300 ft over the water? 
A Praying Mantis can rotate its head 180 degrees?

Become an expert on all things that swim, fly, walk, hop, slither, and crawl! In a celebration of the many animals that share our planet, this gorgeously illustrated atlas explores over 250 different animals across the seven continents. Learn where different animals live, what they eat, how they communicate, and many more fascinating facts!What I Think: The setup of Animal Atlas makes it really easy for readers to see where animals live on the Earth. The concept of the Earth being such a big place and understanding where other countries are compared to our is pretty abstract. Animal Atlas is organized so animals are presented with other animals that live near them. Readers can easily see where animals are in the world while also learning about many different animals. This book covers a range of animals, some common and others unique. This book would be a great to use when inviting students to learn about animals in a certain part of the world and could lead into further learning about animals. I work with a 4th grade teacher who did a focused Genius Hour where she let students pick any topic to research as long is it related to the northeast region (which is what their were studying in their SS unit). This book would be great if you want kids to think about researching animals from a certain area of the world and then encourage them to read other texts to learn more about a specific animal they chose.
Snatch of Text: 
"Appaloosa Horse - Equus caballus, Class: mammal
The Appaloosa, with its spotted coat, was brought to American by the Spaniards in the sixteenth century, then raised by the Nez Perce tribe near the Palouse River, from which the horse gets its name. The Appaloosa breed is popular for western riding competitions." (p. 3)
Writing Prompt: Can you find your favorite animal in the Animal Atlas? Incorporate what you learn about an animal in the Animal Atlas and what you read about that animal elsewhere to share what you know about that animals.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? 11/27/2016

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? From Picture Books to YA! 

It's Monday! What are you Reading? is a meme hosted by Kathryn at Book Date. It is a great way to recap what you read and/or reviewed the previous week and to plan out your reading and reviews for the upcoming week. It's also a great chance to see what others are reading right now...you just might discover your next “must-read” book!

Kellee Moye, of Unleashing Readers, and I decided to give It's Monday! What Are You Reading? a kidlit focus. If you read and review books in children's literature - picture books, chapter books, middle grade novels, young adult novels, anything in the world of kidlit - join us! We love this meme and think you will, too. We encourage everyone who participates to visit at least three of the other kidlit book bloggers that link up and leave comments for them. 

Last Week's Book Adventures:

Thank goodness for the Thanksgiving holiday and a few days to catch up on life! Peanut and I finished up Wonder (I cried...he didn't) and he loved it - hooray! And believe it or not, we started Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - another hooray! I've waited so long to read it with him and he hasn't been very excited until now. We went to see Fantastic Beasts on Wednesday and that convinced him to give the Harry Potter books a try. I'm soooooooo excited! Little Bean and I even finished the 7th Lunch Lady - woo hoo! I also read Root Beer Candy and Other Miracles that I've been meaning to get to and read most of Between The World And Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. It was a great reading week.

Upcoming Book Adventures: 

I'm so excited to keep reading Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone with Peanut and Lunch Lady with Little Bean. I'm a bit all over the place as I forgot I was reading Rising Strong and that I had wanted to read Orphan Island from Laurel Snyder. So, I'm hoping to finish up everything I have going right now. We'll see how long it takes us to get through Harry Potter...I'm guessing that one will take a while. But that's okay, I'm excited to savor it with my kiddo!

This Week's Reviews:

Check back throughout the week to read these reviews/posts. 

So, what are you reading this week? 

Link up below and don't forget to check out other blogs to see what they are reading!

To help build our community and support other bloggers, 

we ask that you comment on at least three other blogs before you. 

Also, if you tweet about your Monday post, don't forget to use #IMWAYR!

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? 11/21/2016

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? From Picture Books to YA! 

It's Monday! What are you Reading? is a meme hosted by Kathryn at Book Date. It is a great way to recap what you read and/or reviewed the previous week and to plan out your reading and reviews for the upcoming week. It's also a great chance to see what others are reading right now...you just might discover your next “must-read” book!

Kellee Moye, of Unleashing Readers, and I decided to give It's Monday! What Are You Reading? a kidlit focus. If you read and review books in children's literature - picture books, chapter books, middle grade novels, young adult novels, anything in the world of kidlit - join us! We love this meme and think you will, too. We encourage everyone who participates to visit at least three of the other kidlit book bloggers that link up and leave comments for them. 

Last Week's Book Adventures:

I should have known better! You would think after all these years of attending NCTE I would realize how to be more realistic about what I can accomplish the week of NCTE. I did read Rising Strong by Brené Brown and Little Bean and I finished up the 6th Lunch Lady...but I didn't get to blog posts I was hoping to get to and I didn't get as much reading done as I pretended to think I might. But hopefully I'll have time to read this week. I've got lots of amazing books from NCTE to explore. 

Reviewed Last Week:

Click on any picture above to go read my review/post.

Upcoming Book Adventures: 

I'm hoping to finish up Rising Strong and Laurel Snyder's Orphan Island is calling my name. I'm hoping to be able to spend a lot of time reading this week as I recover from the nonstop brainwork of NCTE...oh, and I'll be marathon watching Gilmore Girls too.

This Week's Reviews:

Check back throughout the week to read these reviews/posts. 

So, what are you reading this week? 

Link up below and don't forget to check out other blogs to see what they are reading!

To help build our community and support other bloggers, 

we ask that you comment on at least three other blogs before you. 

Also, if you tweet about your Monday post, don't forget to use #IMWAYR!

JOIN: Celebrating Feeling More Whole

Every Saturday, join me as I CELEBRATE This Week 

with Ruth Ayres from Discover. Play. Build.

This weekend I'm in at Atlanta for the National Council of Teachers of English conference. I'm lucky enough to share my experiences as a teacher who writes and maybe possibly hopefully inspire teachers to write and to write with their students. It was soul-warming to be with educator, author, and illustrator friends who are family to me now. 

To say I needed this weekend is a complete understatement. Since the election last week, I've been processing so much information and feeling overwhelmed and shaken in a way I haven't felt since September 11th, 2001. I knew connecting with some of the people who I admire most in this world and having thoughtful conversations with them was going to be good for my soul. And it was. It really was. I'll be back next week to share more of my experience with remarkable people this weekend but today I'm celebrating Ruth Ayres.

Ruth is one of the most inspiring women I know. She's passionate about reaching student writers and her ideas take teachers to the core of what we need to address first with students. I'm so proud to know her and getting to catch up was only one teeny part of how this conference helped buoy me up so I can keep moving forward. 

What are you finding to celebrate this weekend?

Even if it's a small bit of celebration that we can find, please share!