Dianne White

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 [...]

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 out [...]

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 and illustrated [...]

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 of [...]

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 polish and [...]

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 part [...]

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 [...]

Tonight, I didn’t get to my desk until after 8 pm.  Last night, it was even later.  After a full day, it’s easy to excuse myself from writing by saying that I just don’t have the energy.  That I can’t think well at night.  That I’m kidding myself when I believe that if I just [...]