When I was a kid, I loved books that felt real. Judy Blume’s Just as Long as We’re Together and Here’s to You, Rachel Robinson were two of my favorites because I could completely relate to the main characters. Tara Altebrando’s middle grade debut The Battle of Darcy Lane is just the kind of book I adored most back then because of the sensitive,… Read more »
Posts By: laurielmorrison
Student-Author Interview 04: Trent Reedy
Welcome back for the fourth installment of the Student-Author Interview series! This time, I’m excited to feature Trent Reedy, a fellow VCFA alum and a prolific author who writes brilliantly across genres. Trent was a member of the Iowa Army National Guard and served in Afghanistan. Trent’s first published novel is Words in the Dust, a powerful… Read more »
My Writing Process
Writing can feel like a solitary endeavor, so I’m always eager for opportunities to talk shop (whether virtually or in person) with other writers. That’s why I was excited when A.B. Westrick invited me to join the #MyWritingProcess blog tour! A.B. Westrick is the author of Brotherhood (Viking/Penguin 2013), an ALA-YALSA Best Book for Young… Read more »
Reading Aloud in a Middle School English Classroom
The other day, I read Joe McGee’s powerful blog post about being the kind of hero who doesn’t need a cape: the kind of understated hero who reads books aloud to kids. I recommend reading the post in its entirety, but in one part of it, Joe describes reading to one of his three sons: “I sit… Read more »
Student-Author Interview 03: Lisa Graff
I’m so excited to bring you the next installment of the Student-Author Interview Series! This time, three delightful sixth graders and two delightful seventh graders have interviewed the similarly delightful Lisa Graff, who has even shared some special bonus content with us! Poli, Sophia, Sydney, Dasha, and MaryElizabeth all read Lisa’s charming novel A Tangle of… Read more »
An Inspiring Author Visit with Eliot Schrefer
It’s a logistical challenge to coordinate an author visit. Especially if the author is coming in from out of town and presenting to multiple groups. And especially especially when there’s a snow day on the originally scheduled date. So it’s really saying something that Eliot Schrefer’s author visit on February 20th was worth the logistical… Read more »
Student-Author Interview 02: K.A. Barson
Welcome back for the second installment of the Student-Author Interview Series! This time, four terrific seventh grade readers are interviewing one terrific author: K.A. (Kelly) Barson. Kelly’s debut, the funny and poignant contemporary YA novel 45 Pounds (More or Less), tells the story of sixteen-year-old Ann Galardi, who resolves to lose 45 pounds in two… Read more »
Student-Author Interview 01: Amy Rose Capetta
I don’t know about you, but I love reading author interviews. I also love giving my students opportunities to interact with real-life authors. So I figured, why not bring these two things together and have students interview authors here on my blog! Welcome to the first installment of this student-author interview series, featuring Amy Rose… Read more »
How “Hooky” Is Your Hook?
During my first semester of graduate school at Vermont College of Fine Arts, I was working on a novel about a very anxious girl beginning her freshman year at a very intense prep school. I really loved this anxious girl, and I really loved her science-obsessed best friend and her kind, stressed-out dad and the… Read more »
Integrity…the Second Definition
As part of the middle school advisory program at my school this year, we’ve been focusing on the theme of integrity. From the start, most of my advisees already understood the first definition that’s listed in a print or online dictionary when you look up the word integrity; they already knew that having integrity means… Read more »
Exceeding My Expectations: A Great Author Visit at a Hectic Time
Last Friday morning as I was having breakfast before school, I read this blog post entitled “The Paradoxical Extremes of Middle Grade Students: A Holiday Memory,” and I teared up a bit. In the post, Braden Bell, a choir director and author, describes his experience with a talented but silly group of eighth graders and… Read more »
Planning Ahead
On Monday night, my fiancé and I went to see The Day of the Doctor, the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special, at a movie theater nearby. On our way home, we ended up talking about a question that’s come up several times before: How far ahead do the Doctor Who writers plan? When each new… Read more »
Safe Spaces
L. Marie invited me to write a guest post for her blog series on space, so I reflected on safe spaces, both real and fictional. Check out my guest post, the rest of the space series, and all of the other terrific stuff on L. Marie’s inspiring, entertaining blog! http://lmarie7b.wordpress.com/2013/11/06/safe-spaces/
“Why are we allowed to read this…?”
Pretty soon, I’ll post the final installment of my series on engagingly fallible first-person narrators, but in the wake of Banned Books Week last week, I wanted to post something else while it’s fresh in my mind. After A.S. King visited my school last spring and gave three amazing presentations to grades 7-9, several students… Read more »
Swearing and Drinking in YA Novels
When one of my wonderful writer friends recently read the revised version of my YA novel-in-progress, she had a lot of insightful things to say. Most of her comments helped me problem-solve small places in the novel where something wasn’t quite working so that I can finish making the book as strong as it can… Read more »
Choosing the Novel
I thought I would finish revising my novel-in-progress a while ago now. But the last couple of months of the school year included two multiple-day school trips to chaperone, a few weddings and a bunch of other special events to attend, and hours and hours of grading. Then, two days after my last meeting at… Read more »
The Challenge of Being Present, with Eyes Wide Open
Yesterday, I met my friend Miriam for happy hour. Afterward, we walked up the street together toward my apartment and the theater where she was going to see a play. We’d shared a half-priced individual pizza as an appetizer, and I was holding a to-go box with the leftovers inside. In front of us, there… Read more »
Crafting Likable Characters Who Make Mistakes (with Lessons from Lyn Miller-Lachmann)
My seventh grade students recently finished reading Riot by Walter Dean Myers, which is set in New York City during the draft riots of 1863. Because the students had studied immigration and visited the Tenement Museum and New York Historical Society during a trip to New York, they were familiar with the setting of Riot,… Read more »
Highlights from A.S. King’s Author Visit
The past week has been a busy one for me. On Saturday night, I returned from the 8th grade class trip to New Mexico, where we visited ruins and living pueblos, ate delicious New Mexican food, and saw breathtaking sights. And the day before we left, the inspiring and entertaining A.S. King came for a… Read more »
Excited about E-Books: An Author Visit from Andrea J. Buchanan
Most writers I know are a little bit wary about e-books. Some duck their heads and smile apologetically when they admit that they kind of like the Kindle they broke down and bought. Many seem worried about what electronic publishing means for independent bookstores and the future of the book as we know it. Not… Read more »