While enrolled in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Hamline University from 2001 to 2007, I not only had the opportunity to take multiple classes in fiction with Sheila O’Connor, but I also had her as my thesis advisor. My first published novel for middle graders, Tango: The Tale of an Island Dog was… Read More
My granddaughter loves books, and she especially loves balloons. In last week’s blog post, I featured a list of Ofelia’s favorite books from the third year of her life; I was surprised by some she selected. This week, as I reviewed the list of books she’s had read to her, or has looked at, over… Read More
Those of us who love to read can’t help but be drawn into the multitude of “The Best” book lists that are published at or near the end of a calendar year. You ask yourself, are any of my favorite books on the list? Are there any books on the list that I’d like to… Read More
Following my author visit to Scandia Elementary School on March 28, 2018, third grade teacher Kelly Duncan asked her students to write “reflection papers” about my visit.
There is value in submitting creative work to small, local, or independent publishers as a means of building community. These three poems were published on different occasions in the Southwest Journal within the past several years.
At the end of March I made author visits to two Minnesota Schools: Scandia Elementary International Baccalaureate (IB) World School and River Grove, an elementary charter school in its first year of operation. Scandia is in the Forest Lake Area School District and River Grove in the Stillwater Area Schools. My visit was sponsored by… Read More
In which I meet with a family whose ten-year-old daughter. Audrey, adores sock monkeys. She read The Secrets of Eastcliff-by-the-Sea and loved it.
… it was through this act of playing that I practiced and learned the most valuable skill of all: I developed an imagination. I developed my innate ability to form stories in my mind, an ability to create.
It seemed fitting to end my journey to British Columbia visiting the house where Emily Carr grew up; to knock on the front door and be greeted by Jan Ross, curator of this National and Provincial Historic Site; to sit in the very parlor where Emily once sat; and learn more about this visionary whose art and life I so admired.
On the morning of our third full day in British Columbia, my husband Ralph and I departed for Victoria, the place of Emily Carr’s birth in 1871 and the city where she spent most of her life.