Big Green Pocketbook

Candice Ransom

Poetry from Stones 

Out­side my win­dow right now: bare trees, gray sky, a brown bird. No, let’s try again. Out­side my win­dow, the leaf­less sweet­gum shows a con­do of squir­rels’ nests, a dark blue rim on the hori­zon indi­cates wind mov­ing in, and a white-crowned spar­row scritch­es under the feed­ers. Bet­ter. Even in win­ter, espe­cial­ly in win­ter, we need to wake up

Candice Ransom

True Story 

Recent­ly I attend­ed a writer’s con­fer­ence main­ly to hear one speak­er. His award-win­n­ing books remind me that the very best writ­ing is found in children’s lit­er­a­ture. When he deliv­ered the keynote, I jot­ted down bits of his sparkling wis­dom. At one point he said that we live in a bro­ken world, but one that’s also filled with beau­ty. My

Candice Ransom

The Sameness of Sheep 

Once, when I dis­cussed my work-in-progress, mid­­­dle-grade nov­el with my agent, I told her the char­ac­ter was eleven. “Make her twelve,” she said. “But eleven-year-olds aren’t the same as twelve-year-olds,” I protest­ed. “Those are dif­fer­ent ages.” “Make her twelve,” she insist­ed. “The edi­tor will ask you to change it any­way.” I didn’t fin­ish the book (don’t have that

Candice Ransom

The Book Box 

For a fic­tion work­shop, I asked par­tic­i­pants to bring in child­hood books that influ­enced them to become a writer. Nat­u­ral­ly, I did the assign­ment myself. Choos­ing the books was easy, but they felt insub­stan­tial in my hands, vin­tage hard­backs that lacked the heft of, say, the last Har­ry Pot­ter. When it came my turn to talk, I fig­ured I’d stammer

Subscribe to Fresh Bookology for FREE!

Receive a monthly e-mail pointing out articles published that month as well as curated children's books and reading news.

Search

Recent Articles