Category: General
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What Rhymes with Ketchup Bottle?
At a recent SoMIRAC (conference), author and illustrator Susan Stockdale told the audience how she grew up with a love for language in part because her mother used rhyme so playfully around the house. Here’s one rhyme she heard many-a-time during her childhood at the dining room table: Shake and shake the ketchup bottle, none’ll come and…
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Lowell School Readers and Writers
Fun creating stories and sharing the writing process with Lowell School (Washington, DC) students. I hear that students are writing like crazy now! Thanks to librarian Domi Long and her Sixth Grade Ambassadors for preparing and hosting my visit.
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Why are Ordinary Shoes so Important?
Writer Pamela Ehrenberg says it’s all about the shoes. Ordinary shoes. In college, she went to hear author Bobbie Ann Mason speak and recalls staring at her shoes. They were humble, inexpensive shoes, and Ehrenberg recalls being struck by the realization that this author had to stand in line and buy shoes, just like the rest…
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Mary Amato’s Tips for Teachers: How to Encourage Creative Writing
Children have a lot of writing assignments in school. Often, time for creative writing is squeezed out of the curriculum. If you are a teacher who wants to introduce/encourage more creative writing, here are some ideas. Keep a Writer’s Notebook. See my Tips for Keeping a Writer’s Notebook for more info. Create a Writer’s Corner.…
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Stonegate Elementary School
The third, fourth, and fifth graders at Stonegate Elementary School in Silver Spring, MD, wowed me with their great participation, their interesting questions, and their enthusiasm about writing! Here I am in their cool library showing them my rough draft of a book and sharing my writing process. Thanks to media specialist Patricia Warnock-Safford and…
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Hear what Hamster of Holton-Arms School is talking about…
Yes, this critter has something to say about Mary Amato’s residency at Holton-Arms School. So, click to read more…
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Edgar’s Cabaret & Party
Edgar Allan’s Official Crime Investigation Notebook book release party and benefit for Passion for Learning, Inc.
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The Writer’s Notebook: Don’t Leave Home Without It!
“Inside Sedaris’s left shirt pocket, he keeps an omnipresent notebook, a little spiral-bound one, in which he writes down everything that happens that might later be of use. If he walks out of the house and realizes he’s forgotten it, he turns around and goes home. “I might see a worm attacking a centipede. I…
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The Need for Obstacles
One of the recurring problems I see when I’m critiquing a story is the lack of an obstacle or nemesis. William Gibson calls it “the barrier” in his excellent book about writing titled Shakespeare’s Game. Something must get in the way of the main character’s yearning or else there is no tension and ultimately no…