I’m going to be doing a skype visit this Friday morning insha Allah with some kids at a school in Brooklyn about career choices and I’ve been thinking about what it takes to make it as an author. Thing is you need to have a number of ‘income streams’. I know that sounds kind of […]

Came across an interesting Ted Talk. I ended up reading the transcript instead of watching it. I find I often get more from reading something than listening to it. It was actually about marketability and it said what a lot of people are saying these days, that in order to get noticed in this day […]

Think of character sketches as a sort of ‘painting with words’. Using large brush strokes to capture a likeness of an individual. And notice the little details I included that provide clues. I read it just now and it still made me laugh! See if you can guess who it is.   George couldn’t help […]

Mr. Harrison was my grade five teacher. He was tall and handsome with chocolate brown hair that swept across his forehead and he was cool and funny. All the kids loved him and wanted to be like him. And when he was on yard duty we all hovered around him hoping some of his coolness […]

Doesn’t mean your own life has to suffer. We’ve been saying that a LOT around the homestead. I mean who wouldn’t be appalled at what’s going on all over the world? There’s carnage and bloodshed and dying and starving all over the place. I’m trying really really hard not to hate rich people! And I’m […]

I know it’s been a while since my last post. Been thinking of things to blog about but I’ve often been too busy to blog. And then something really sent me for a loop. Every once in a while that will happen. You’ll be coasting along and something impacts you with enough force to change […]

Things have calmed down somewhat with regards to the infamous comments of Daniel Handler during the National Book Award ceremonies where he pointed out that Jacqueline Woodson was allergic to watermelon, ‘make of that what you will’. Jacqueline Woodson then posted a very interesting open letter in the New York Times talking about how hurtful […]

Hmm. In light of that mini-speech I gave at the NCTE, I’m starting to think, hey, what’s so wrong with being on the porch? I’m feeling a little disillusioned with pop culture. Last night I was watching Toy Story 3. It’s not the first time I watched it. It’s the third time, and yeah, there […]

Isn’t it interesting that such an odd word ‘pedagogy’ deals with the teaching of stuff to kids? It’s funny how lately I’ve been pondering the physical impact of words and finding onomatopoeia in all kinds of words! Like ‘pondering’ for instance, doesn’t it sound like you’re doing just that, pondering, thinking, mulling something over? And […]

I just came back from attending a fabulous panel discussion that opened up the NCTE conference in Washing D.C. I was on a panel being moderated by Rudine Bishop, and my fellow panelists were Christopher Myers, Matt de la Pena, and Mitali Perkins. For the following two days all kinds of attendees came up to […]