Margin Notes
These blog posts search ordinary moments in my life. That's where magic hides. Always.
Sixth Grade: English Major Math
When our sixth-grade teacher Mrs. Doty announced we'd be doing story problems, I could hardly wait. Math with words? What could be better? I loved stories. The problem on our homework sheet had something to do with speeding boats. I told my dad I didn't get it. He said he could solve it but not…
You Never Know about a Teacher
When I was in the ninth grade, English teacher Mrs. Billman announced we’d be reading poetry. She distributed mimeographed sheets fresh off the press. We held them to our noses, sniffing the chemical odor, hoping to become momentarily light-headed. She’d given us ee cummings’ “anyone lived in a pretty how town.” It begins: anyone…
Second Grade: The Learning Lottery
After reading about my dismal kindergarten experience, a mother emailed me. She worried that her kindergarten daughter might be learning to coast as I did. I reassured her that gifted educators were out there. My second-grade teacher more than made up for my lackluster beginning in school. With second-grade teacher Mrs. Miller, I definitely won…
Still Sorting and Folding
I know SCBWI members haven't wondered what happened to me after my first essay appeared twenty years ago in their bulletin (Read my previous post.). For those who are thinking about giving up on writing, it might be worth knowing, however, that I finally got published. So, yes, it's possible. Money and awards don't roll in. …
The Sorting and Folding of Writing
When I started writing picture book manuscripts in the late 1980s, I was fortunate enough to meet Florence Parry Heide, who authored over 100 children's books before her death in 2011. She insisted I join the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. Desperate to see myself in print, I submitted this essay that appeared…
Minnesota Spring
It's the first day of spring. In St. Paul, Minnesota, the wind chill is -12 degrees. I'm working at my desk in fingerless wool gloves, looking tragically like Bob Cratchit. The yard's snow-filled birdbath and pot of greenery looked spirited in December. Not now. But once upon a time when we lived in North Carolina,…
First Grade: My Dick and Jane Dilemma
Sometimes people ask me why I became a writer. I have several explanations, but the clearest answer involves the Dick and Jane readers, lining school shelves in the 1950s. Those characters puzzled me. Their lives unfolded inside a book, but there was no story. Try as I might, I simply couldn’t understand why they only…
Dancing at the Children's Literature Prom: Continued
See me smiling in the group picture from the previous post? Midwestern nerves of steel. A whirlwind was afoot in the back story for this day. Maggie, the Sweet Moon Baby herself, was in her school’s entry in the Minnesota State High School League One-Act Play Contest. Because they won at sub-sections (Hurrah!), they…
Dancing at the Children's Literature Prom
When we moved to St. Paul, MN, I joined the Children's Literature Network, an association devoted to reading, writing, promoting, teaching, illustrating, and loving all aspects of children's books for every age level. An incredibly decent bunch of folks. Each winter their newsletter appears with a photograph of authors and illustrators who have been invited to…
Kindergarten PR Lessons
Kindergarten didn’t work out so well for me. The classroom didn’t offer enough tables and chairs. Literally. The students rotated each week from the chairs to the floor and back again. Much later in life I learned this was true all over America when the Baby Boomers hit school. They weren’t ready for us. I…
Kid-food Rituals Are Still Good For What Ails You
For a while I wrote lifestyle pieces for newspapers. It was a great way to see myself succeeding in print and to feel that Mary Tyler Moore moment--twirling in the street while "You're gonna make it after all!" is sung in the background. When this essay was published, a reader identified with it so much…
Safe in the Clouds
In March 2012 we took Maggie back to China for the first time since she left there in 1997. I assumed landing in Beijing would signal our arrival in another culture. I was wrong. It began at gates C 18 and 19 at the airport in Chicago. One carry-on only means one to Americans, who carried…
The Sweet Moon Journey
When the nanny handed our daughter to us on a summer day in China, I thought the journey was finally finished. Here she was—happy and whole. I smiled until my husband gave me the orphanage report: “Baby found forsaking on steps of leather factory. ”Suddenly I realized she would always live with a missing piece. She would…
Mermaid Blue
I have absolutely no business here. The whole notion of blogging terrifies me. I have no wisdom to impart. I have no fascinating tales to tell. I have no time-saving tricks to teach. Blogging is another gerund to add to my list: exercising, flossing, dusting. Now blogging. But it’s more than that, too. It sounds…