It’s Halloweensie time again at Susanna Leonard Hill’s blog. The challenge this year is to: write a 100 word Halloween story appropriate for children (children here defined as 12 and under) (title not included in the 100 words), using the words shiver, cauldron, and howl   Here’s my Halloweensie entry, written on Halloween! The Wavering Witch Witch’s hands were […]

Lucky me! Last week’s mail had a treasure chest of a new book, Sing a Song of Seasons, A Nature Poem for Each Day of the Year, illustrated by Frann Preston-Gannon and selected by Fiona Waters. As you might guess from the title, this delightful collection has one poem for each day of the year, […]

The hound’s howls alerted me to a package at my doorstep on Wednesday. I added my own howls of joy as I tore open the package’s cardboard wrapper and found a copy of J. Patrick Lewis’ newest National Geographic anthology–The Poetry of US. I’ve only begun dipping my toe in this book, and plan to […]

This month’s challenge at Today’s Little Ditty is to write letters to ourselves that we don’t necessarily have to answer. I was going to skip the challenge, as I have not been having very productive conversations with myself! But I just read the poems posted for the challenge, and figured I could come up with […]

Dakota, our resident hound, is a frequent distraction during my day. He alerts me to the mail carrier and UPS driver long before they reach our house. He enjoys going in and out approximately 756 times a day. He warns of deer, cranes, raccoons, and more. And of course he likes to walk every day, […]

Welcome to Poetry Friday! Is it summer yet? About twenty-five years ago when we lived in Urbana, IL our local NPR had a Friday morning feature with their famed weather man called “Ask Ed.” Folks would phone the station and tell Ed where they were going for the weekend and Ed would predict the weather […]

Welcome to the Progressive Poem! Each day in April the Progressive Poem travels from blog to blog, gaining a line at each stop. I’m happy to participate again in this wonderful community writing game, masterminded by Irene Latham. Today I’ll add a few new words as our poem prepares to wrap its tendrils closer to Earth. […]

If you are a frequenter of Poetry Friday, you know that today is the birthday of a champion of children’s Poetry (with a capital P!)—Lee Bennett Hopkins. And if you are a reader of children’s poetry, you no doubt have been delighted by Lee’s many poetry anthologies. To celebrate Lee’s birthday, I’m going to continue […]

Happy April! Happy National Poetry Month! I’m planning on reviving my long-neglected blog this month with reviews of picture books, and use them as springboards for my own writing. One of the benefits of being a judge for the Cybils poetry award is that I’ve received a few new picture books to review. This week […]

Welcome to Poetry Friday! I’m happy to host the party this week. I imagine many of you are busy with last-minute Christmas preparations. Are your stockings hung? Your presents wrapped? Your cookies decorated? Your house clean enough for in-laws and cousins? I wish you a Merry Christmas and a joyful New Year. And for those […]