“Fear is a Lock. Courage is a key.” That’s a quote from BORN BEHIND BARS. It’s a quote that I believe teachers, librarians and other educators live by. Especially these days, when our nation and our world seems so divided. This second day of #TeacherAppreciationWeek, I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to all the teachers who’ve made a difference in my life, and the lives of every child I’ve ever met. Thank you for sharing knowledge so selflessly, and for your bravery – you are heroes.
In the wake of so many recent tragedies, I sometimes feel at a loss for words. Yet words are the only gift I can give to educators. I’m not sure what else I can give – and I realize nothing can ever fully express the depth of my gratitude. So here is a short list of a few new resources, which are free and which I hope you will enjoy and which I hope will help you in some small way.
- My Opening Keynote for #TheEdCollabGathering is available online until July at: https://gathering.theeducatorcollaborative.com
- I’m delighted to moderate a panel for PEN America. If you’re in New York City, you can visit our event during the #PENWorldVoicesFestival this Saturday afternoon (see the graphic below for information). The event won’t be live-streamed, but will be recorded and shared on PEN America’s YouTube channel in July, so you can catch up with us in summer if you can’t see us live: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXtC846wFrdIIp4NBrNPKHg
- My latest #WritingPrompt for my #CookingUpStories series, edited by Alison Green Myers (Schneider Award Winning Author of BIRDS WILL SOAR) and accompanied by a brand new recipe contributed by the incredible Chef Amanda features a tip on writing dialogue, inspired by Torrey Maldonado’s latest novel, HANDS, which I loved holding in my hands, as you can see from the photo below! Here it is, thanks to Bobbie Coombs who regularly puts up these posts on the #HighlightsFoundation website: https://www.highlightsfoundation.org/2023/05/03/cooking-up-stories-hands-plus-a-recipe-and-a-prompt/
- Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong live by the motto every month is poetry month, which I love. So here’s a new poetry writing prompt and clip of me reading a poem for the elementary school age group, called “Nap” – which is a play on the word catnap. I was honored to have it published by Pomelo Books, in their anthology THINGS WE DO, and delighted to share it on Matthew Winner‘s #NationalPoetryMonth celebration, on his wonderful Children’s Book Podcast: https://www.matthewcwinner.com/post/poetry-month-2023-on-the-podcast
- If you didn’t yet catch my poetry writing prompts for #DiverseVerse, you can access them – and more posts and prompts by other amazing poets, at https://www.diverseverse.com/blog/love-letters-to-poetry
- Here’s another wonderful list of #poetrywritingprompts created by the #AuthorsTakeAction team which I founded and which still includes me, and now continues under the wonderful leadership of Laura Shovan: https://a3c6adbe-6a89-4d95-b339-d47cf1a34d9c.godaddysites.com/projects
- Finally, here’s a short story I wrote that you can access free of charge, along with discussion questions and more, which addresses the theme of bullying. It’s also uses the first person plural point of view (“we”) so it was a wonderful challenge to write, and provides and unusual address to explore while reading. https://www.commonlit.org/en/texts/her-story
Thanks again. Happy Teacher Appreciation Week and Happy AAPI month!