Author Archives: Rosanne Parry

Thanking the Light-Bringers

unknown Today is the feast of Saint Lucia, which is traditionally celebrated with a procession involving a girl wearing a crown of candles and a tray full of cookies or sweet breads. The custom commemorates an Italian teenager who, during the Roman persecution of Christians, spent her dowry to bring food and books and letters to Christians who were hiding in caves to survive. The story goes that she wore a crown of candles to light her way in the dark and give the refugee Christians light to read by.

My family has made a custom of baking sweet bread and sharing it with people who are light- bringers in our lives. For the past 21 years that my children have been attending public schools, we have brought sweet bread to their teachers with a note of thanks for all the unsung work they do to make their classrooms and the lives of my children a brighter place.

My youngest will graduate from high school this year, so I wanted to take one last opportunity to thank all of my children’s teachers and librarians over the years, their 16 primary school teachers and the the primary school librarian. their 72 middle school teachers and the middle school librarian, and their 96 high school teachers and high school librarians. All of them teaching in the Beaverton School District in Oregon. I am inspired by your dedication to excellence in the classroom, by your creativity, your steadfastness in a culture that shows little respect for education and even less for those who have dedicated their lives to teaching. Even in those years where one or another of my children struggled with illness or injury or immaturity, you were a steady hand in their young lives. Even in years when you struggled–I remember those too–the year your mother went blind, the year you were pregnant with twins, the year you were critically ill or grieving a death in your family. You were still faithfully in your classroom day after day trying your best with a dwindling pool of resources.

imagesAnd I want you to know that even though I will no longer have children at home to send to your classrooms, you are still all my local teachers. And my work of advocating for better schools and more just funding of educational needs and wise allocation of the funds you have, will go on. Your value extends far beyond what you can do for my immediate family, and I will continue to do what I can to support the light you bring to our community.

Thank you.

Can a book transform its reader?

Lots of talk lately about the role books play in helping young readers develop empathy and expand their world view. I don’t have definitive answers on that score but I will be talking about all of those meaty book issues with some fellow authors this weekend. I’ll be hanging out with Fonda Lee the author of EXO, Tina Connolly the author of SERIOUSLY SHIFTED  and Mary Elizabeth Summer the author of TRUST ME I’M LYING. It will be lots of fun. There might even be cookies.

It’s a ANOTHER READ THROUGH, an indie new and used bookstore in Portland at 3932 N Mississippi Ave . We will be there at 1:30 this Saturday December 3rd. Hope to see you thereseriously-shifted-smallHiRes Cover TIDEexo-199x300

Wordstock!

2016-wordstock_square-600x600-240x240 I’m so thrilled to once again be a part of Portland’s premier book event. I’ll be doing a pop up reading of The Turn of the Tide at the Portland Art Museum I spent a terrific afternoon scouting locations founknownr it. With a little luck I’ll be able to involve a little bit of audience participation art as well.

But the big excitement is that I will be moderating a panel with the authors of these lovely books: local writer Kathleen unknownLane who wrote The Best Worst Thing and National Book Award nominee Jason Reynolds who wrote Ghost. We will chat about the joys and particular challenges of writing realistic fiction for young readers. It will be at 4:15 in the Miller Gallery of the Portland Art Museum. It’s going to be a day full of inspiring book talk. I hope you can join us Saturday November 5th at the Portland Art Museum!

PNBA Trade Show and OCTE conference

I’ve got a busy fall. In addition to writing a new story that I’m absolutely over the moon about, I have a bunch of appearances in the next few weeks. I will be talking about bookstore events and what makes them work. I bring a perspective of a writer who has traveled to about a dozen bookstores in the last year. I’m also a bookseller at the Annie Blooms in Portland.

1320912I’ll be chatting with writers at the Oregon SCBWI PAL meeting at the Belmont library Saturday September 24th at 3pm. It’s a gathering for published writers and illustrators. I will also be at the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Trade Show on the 30th of September. I’ll be part of a panel about making bookstore appearances work. The trade show is in Tacoma at the Hotel Murano. They have a full day of educational programing for writers, librarians, and booksellers.

1462416905And then on the 8th of October I’m so thrilled to be spending my day with the terrific teachers and librarians who come to the Oregon Council of Teachers of English conference at Wilsonville High School. I’ll be doing a workshop on using books across the curriculum with Deborah Hopkinson and one about New and Notable books for use in the classroom. I will also be on an author’s panel. Lots of good stuff. Hope to see you there!

 

Changes!

IMG_0963Over the years, my family has watched tv less and less and we have spent more time at home making music. IMG_0964This week we finally took the plunge and got rid of the tv altogether to make more room for playing the piano, the guitar, the violin, and my beautiful new harp. I love everything about our new music room. It’s not that I dislike tv. I’ve just lost  interest over time and I’m eager to see what these new changes will bring to our lives.  I’m also feeling a huge debt of gratitude to the many music teachers and musicians my family has been privileged to know and who have steadily encouraged me and my husband and children in their music-making endeavors. I’m thinking particularly of Deb Burgess and Roberta Jackson of the Portland Symphonic Girl Choir, and the Boulding Family of Magical Strings, and Elizabeth Nicholson, my harp teacher, and Colleen Raney one of many Irish musicians who have inspired us all.  I owe a debt of gratitude greater than I could ever repay to the brilliant author and chamber musician Virginia Euwer Wolff who helped me believe that I didn’t have to choose between writing and music and that the two could enrich each other.