Virginia Euwer Wolff: Considering Flaubert
by Virginia Euwer Wolff For years I’ve taken primitive comfort in Gustave Flaubert’s mid-nineteenth century remark in a letter to a friend: “Last week I spent five days writing one page.” And Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac reminded us (Dec. 12, 2014) that Flaubert often put in a comma one day and took it out the […]
Mary Casanova: Three Questions
A year of school visits has just concluded, but I can’t unpack quite yet. I’ll soon head out on a book tour to support the release of my latest titles. The questions I get when I meet readers depend on the book—whether it’s a new release I’m promoting or an older book a class has […]
Elizabeth Verdick: A Look at “Autism Fiction”
by Elizabeth Verdick I spent the month of April reading children’s fiction featuring characters with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). April was Autism Awareness Month, but that wasn’t my only motivation. I love children’s literature, I have written nonfiction about ASD, and I’m raising a son who’s on the autism spectrum. I wondered, Which middle-grade stories […]
Marion Dane Bauer: The Power of Novels
by Marion Dane Bauer [I]f you are interested in the neurological impact of reading, the journal Brain Connectivity published a paper “Short- and Long-Term Effects of a Novel on Connectivity in the Brain.” Basically, reading novels increases connectivity, stimulates the front temporal cortex and increases activity in areas of the brain associated with empathy and muscle […]
Jen Bryant: It’s Not Pretty!
by Jen Bryant I’ve always had an ambivalent relationship with the word “inspiration.” On the one hand, I acknowledge the illusive, inexplicable aspect of the writing process that I can’t control, when the lines, paragraphs, pages seem to flow from somewhere outside of myself, knitting together almost seamlessly. On the other hand (and this is […]
Partners in the Dance: From Fiction to Nonfiction and Back Again
by Liza Ketchum This week, while I prepared for a talk at AWP (Association of Writing Programs) on writing non-fiction biographies for kids, I thought about how I enjoy researching both nonfiction and fiction titles. Yet a gulf often separates the two genres. In my local library, you turn right at the top of the […]
Avi: We Need to Honor That
Every parent, teacher, and librarian wants children to read. The reasons they wish for this are endlessly varied, ranging from educational skills, entertainment, to learning a lesson. Sometimes, however, we need ask, what is it about reading that children like? I’ve come to believe the answer lies in the different way kids and adults read […]
Melissa Stewart: A Fresh Look at Expository Nonfiction
by Melissa Stewart Narrative nonfiction. The words have a nice ring to them, don’t they? Expository nonfiction? Not so much. Rhymes with gory, purgatory, derogatory, lavatory. Gesh, it’s no wonder expository nonfiction gets a bad rap. And yet, plenty of great nonfiction for kids is expository. Its main purpose is to explain, describe, or inform. […]
Heather Vogel Frederick: Borrowed Fire
In Absolutely Truly, my new middle grade mystery set in a bookshop in the fictional town of Pumpkin Falls, New Hampshire, a first edition of Charlotte’s Web goes missing. There’s a reason this particular book features so prominently in the story—it’s a nod to my literary hero, E. B. White. E.B. White and I go […]