For the eighth time in my life, I’m trying to finish Milton’s Paradise Lost. (So far, I’ve reread Book I, the bit about the fallen angels landing in hell. It’s fun to read aloud when you get to lines like, “Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen!”—which does not work on sleeping teenagers, BTW). I… Continue reading Satan Makes Lemonade
Tag: poetry
Writing Contests with Looming Deadlines
Attention young writers! The Ottawa Public Library’s annual Awesome Authors contest is now accepting poems and stories from Ottawa-area youth aged 9-17. Deadline February 16th. Not in Ottawa? No worries. If you've got your act together RIGHT NOW, you can enter the Jessamy Stursberg Poetry Contest for Canadian Youth in one of two age categories: junior (grades 7-9)… Continue reading Writing Contests with Looming Deadlines
Three Cheers for the Big Yellow Bus
A late August entry in my journal includes this little ditty dedicated to parents of teenagers in summertime: They were laughing, he and she, in their private cafe, before you stepped out of your room grown tall beyond towers of blocks, beyond models, stories, construction paper, beyond anything you built together. They drained their cups and turned their faded faces, remembering… Continue reading Three Cheers for the Big Yellow Bus
Freewriting
Freewriting is a practice I first learned about in Spilling Ink (A Young Writer’s Handbook by Anne Mazer and Ellen Potter). It’s simple: Once a day, begin to write and don’t stop – don’t take that pen off the page or those fingers off the keypad - for five minutes. No thoughtful pauses to get… Continue reading Freewriting
Book Launch – the Missing Fable
Writers, readers, book-buyers, teens and tweens in Canada's national capital region on Sunday, October 30th, head over to Aylmer (Gatineau, Quebec) to celebrate the release of my two fall titles: 26 Tips for Surviving Grade 6, a middle-grade comedy from Lorimer, and All Good Children, a teen thriller from Orca. The launch will be held at… Continue reading Book Launch – the Missing Fable
