Dianne White

Yep.  Now that school’s out for summer, I’ve been busy catching up on those many things that fall by the wayside. I’ve picked up – and, most importantly, caught up -  on all the household basics since I clocked out, on the last day of school. Believe it or not, summer vacation is almost over. [...]

And I’m okay with a decent amount of math, too. But the bottom line is that the pendulum has swung TOO far and this op-ed article in Monday’s NYT sums up quite nicely the direction in which I *wish* education was headed. What I wouldn’t give to teach in the (theoretical) third grade classroom described [...]

Breezing through Facebook tonight, I happened upon a link a friend posted to Upstart Crow Literary .  Agent Michael Stearns has written an excellent piece on Agenting Picture Books v. Agenting Novels. It’s one of the most insightful posts I’ve seen on the subject of picture books – both the art of writing them and [...]

Every so often I come back to reviewing my priorities and asking myself how I can put my waking hours to best use. Is there a way to wisely parse out time and energy to those areas I consider my first priorities? How can I balance teaching which, by it’s very nature, gets the lion’s [...]

I have absolutely positively over-estimated the amount of time I’ll have this week to write new picture books, but I’m going to give it a try anyway! I just put my name in as one of some 75 (so far!) people who are pledging to write 7 new picture book drafts in 7 days. Check [...]

The other day Julie Larios passed along a letter challenge.  The goal was to make a list of things you love that begin with the letter you’ve been assigned. Here’s my response on things… photo credit: CarbonNYC BOOKS, of course.  All kinds, but especially those for children. The perfect “B” book? BABY BRAINS – written [...]

I’m in the middle of A Novel First Draft in 70 Days class and have been thinking a lot about process.  A while back I posted about the promises we make to our writing selves and a quote I love from the beginning of Mary Oliver’s A Poet’s Handbook about appointments with the muse. One [...]

Stephen Fry in  The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within has this to say about writing poetry: “It can take weeks to assemble and polish a single line of poetry… poems take time… they are to be lived with and endlessly revisited.” Fry could easily be talking about picture books.  They take ages to [...]

The other day, Kirby Larson shared a quote by Graham Greene which struck a chord with me:  “One does have to accept that one walks in a particular way.” Wise words.  After all, we *do* each have our own particular way of “walking,” our own particular schedules, obligations, lives.  And if we want to spend [...]

I’m woefully behind in my blogging of late, and have decided that I, like many others, am a “slow blogger.”  While the idea of being a more “present” blogger appeals to me on some level, it doesn’t, realistically, fit into my schedule.  Honestly, in some ways, I don’t know why more people don’t embrace the [...]