My humor picture book club is one of the highlights of my week. We’re all writers of picture books who want to learn to write funny – we’ve read books on humor writing, but most of the time we all read and discuss a picture book. Our chats are equal parts insightful and hilarious. View …
Every year, Vivian Kirkfield hosts the 50 Precious Words contest. Contestants write a complete story for kids with beginning, middle, and end. The challenge is that you have just 50 words to write the whole story. Every year I’m blown away by the entries. But this is my first year throwing my hat into the …
Every year I participate in the free 12 days of Christmas for writers series. Every day you get a prompt that helps you assess the previous year and make goals for the new year. Today’s prompt is to list your successes. In public. Gulp. Why listing successes is important 2021 was not an easy year. …
As I limp toward the end of 2021, I’ve been reflecting on the year that tried to outdo 2020. Inspired by my friends Chana Steifel and Tara Trudel, I’m closing out the year with my very own superlative writing awards and my predictions for the 2022 awards. 2021 Year in Superlatives Best Preschool Math Books …
Every year I put together a list of my favorite children’s books I read that year. As in previous years, the books are broken down into age categories. This is definitely to make it easier for you to find appropriate books and not because I’m incapable of whittling the list down to something reasonable. Books …
I love bullet journaling. (I have a few posts about it.) I also love reading books. (Lots of posts on that, too.) And yet, I have never tracked my reading in my bullet journal. Not for lack of inspiration: there are a ton of gorgeous examples out there. People with whole notebooks dedicated just to …
The research is in on the first three Little Elephant books. Drumroll, please! Yes, kids learn math from fictional picture books! Specifically: preschoolers learned a significant amount of math from reading my picture books with their caregivers. If you’ve read books with young kids, you’ve probably experienced this. Kids pick up a surprising amount of …
The Research is in on the Little Elephants’ series Read More »
Querying is no writers’ favorite. These free submission spreadsheets won’t make the querying process less emotionally fraught or more successful, but they will help you be more organized. That frees more time for writing and binge-eating ice cream which will make your querying more successful and ease the emotionally fraught-ness. I’ve outlined how to use …
Get Organized for Querying: Two Free Submission Spreadsheets Read More »
The writing life is a roller coaster. Ups, downs, freefalls, derailments, and the occasional technical difficulty that leaves you stranded at the top of a virtual mountain. 2020 was truly some next-level stuff, but so far 2021 is also keeping me on my toes. My current roller coaster life UP: New books published! After 4.5 years …
The first books in The Little Elephants BIG Adventures series finally published! *cue happy dance* I wrote these books whole five years ago. (And one of those years was 2020 – so it feels like a couple of decades.) Even in the slow world of children’s book publishing, that’s a long time to keep book …
12 Things to Know About The Little Elephants’ BIG Adventures Books Read More »
