The League of Exceptional Writers–Writing from your Family Tree

Hannah Holt is the debut author of The Diamond and the Boy a picture book about diamonds and the person who figured out how to make them. She is going to talk about how to take people from your own family tree and find the seed of a unique and brilliant story.

The League of Exceptional Writers is a free mentoring program sponsored by the Oregon Society of Children’s book Writers and Illustrators and hosted by the Cedar Hills Powell’s Bookstore. We meet every second Saturday at 2pm from October to May. Avid readers and writers ages 8 to 18 are welcome. Please share the poster below with your friends, your school and your library.

New Year’s Reminders to Myself

Louise Erdrich has a poem called Advice to Myself which I read each New Year’s Day as I set my intentions in motion for another trip around the sun. It’s a delicious poem and you can read it in it’s entirety here. What I love is the encouragement to step back from the culturally-driven urge to tidy things up and reflect on what will support the vocation of writing,

Here are two of my favorite bits.

“…don’t worry who uses whose toothbrush or if anything
matches, at all.
Except one word to another…”
“…–decide first what is authentic,
then go after it with all your heart.
Your heart, that place
you don’t even think of cleaning out.
That closet stuffed with savage mementos…”
Louise Erdrich, Advice to Myself

So I’m reminding myself again this year to set aside the clutter of my desires for my writing and the pressure of my publishers’ desires for my books, and take a moment at the beginning of each working day to bless the blank page and light a candle for the child who will read it some day, and then forge ahead as best I can with the light of that child reader first in my thoughts.

A Wolf Called Wander cover reveal

I’ve been working for months on the most amazing project of my writing career. It’s my first fully illustrated novel and my first book that will be translated and sold abroad. Here is the cover for the UK edition of A Wolf Called Wander illustrated by the wonderfully talented Mónica Armiño. Many thanks to the team at Andersen Press, Chloe Sackur, Kate Grove, and Klaus Flugge. And many thanks to the publishers who saw the package Andersen press put together and chose to bring the book to their country: Greenwillow in the US 🇺🇸, Coppenrath in Germany🇩🇪, L’Ecole des Loisirs in France🇫🇷, Mann Ivanov Feber in Russia🇷🇺, Beijing Arcadia Culture in China🇨🇳, and Albatros in Czechia🇨🇿.

The League of Exceptional Writers–Hissing Roaches and Fuzzy Noses

Barbara Kerley is the author of Following Baxter a sweet story for anyone who has ever gotten a crush on a dog. She will be sharing her strategies for using research in your writing.

World Read Aloud Day Skype Visits

In just three short months we will celebrate my favorite literary holiday, World Read Aloud Day on February 1st, 2019. I will be doing Skype visits to classrooms all around the world. It’s pretty simple. If you want an author skype with me, we can set up a 20 minute slot. I’ll greet your students, give them a quick tour of my workspace and then read aloud for about 5-8 minutes. They can ask me a few questions and I’ll end by recommending something that I’ve read recently that I really liked–usually one fiction and one non-fiction book. It’s easy, fun and free!

This is my availability.

I live in Oregon in the Pacific timezone. I can skype between 7am and 5pm on Friday February 1st. If you are an international school and need a time outside those hours please ask. I do have a few evening spots that tend to work for Asia and the Pacific Islands.

Please use the contact button on my website or email rosanne@rosanneparry.com to set up a skype time. Slots go quickly so please contact as soon as you can.