Writers Gather

Some of the writers and illustrators

and other noted book people

at the recent Rhode Island Festival

of Children's Books & Authors:

Kate Messner with Professor Susannah Richards

Chris Van Allsburg with Jarrett Krosoczka

Gregory Mone with Avi

Editor Susan Rich with Dan Santat

and the illusive Lemony Snickett

**

Much love for enthusiastic readers

and much love for fellow writers 

and illustrators

and book lovers.

We did laugh an awful LOT.

xx

The Harbor

Down in the harbor

boatmen and women

are making repairs

steadily preparing

to wrap up for winter

cocooning

as the sun 

slides lower and lower

in the sky

and the dinghies

lie in wait

for their final shuttles

of the season

. . .

xx

Refilling the Well: or Why I'm Not Getting Any Writing Done

I give up.

The next/new story

is just not going to get written

until

it turns ugly

outside.

xx

Sudden Beauty

You're carrying a load of laundry

down the hall

you round the corner 

and there!

whoah!

on the windowsill:

You stop

you freeze

you are struck dumb

It's too much

this sudden beauty

on laundry day

*

Sometimes I think 

I should never write another word

because words pale

in comparison

to 

so much else.

xx

About those tomatoes . . .

Oops.

In the last blog post

a photo of tomatoes on the vine

prompted the recall of

a long-ago poem.

I thought the first two lines were:

clothes on the line

tomatoes on the vine

BUT!

Today I remembered the correct version:

flowers on the vine

bermudas on the line

summer came and 

summer went and 

no one fed the swine.

++

Ho! 

Flowers!
Bermudas!

No tomatoes!

Brains are amazing storehouses . . .

xx

Tomatoes on the vine . . .

Yesterday I brought in these

unripened tomatoes

to save them from frost

but seeing them today

jolted me back to a poem

I wrote and published

(in a small journal)

over thirty years ago

I'm still looking for a copy of the poem

but here are the lines

I can remember so far:

clothes on the line

tomatoes on the vine

summer came and summer went

and no one fed the swine . . .

Well!

I didn't say it was a good poem.

xx

The Boy on the Porch: Beginning

Usually I begin writing a story when a clear and insistent image appears in my mind of a character and a place. That initial image often becomes the opening image of the book, as it does here:

I'm curious about that boy and the people who find him, and so I write the story to learn more.

I hope that readers will be curious, too, and will read the story to learn more. . . and will like what they read.

xx