Gay Fawcett coming Wednesday

THANKS again to Marc Simon for being my Featured Guest last Thursday/Friday. Marc won the highest scholarship given this year by Writers Hall of Fame to a graduating high school student on the way toward working as a writer. Again our congratulations and good wishes go with Marc and all the other students who received scholarships this year to help them pursue their careers in writing.

Hi everyone,

As part of my summer program of bringing back Featured Guests, it will be my privilege to feature Gay Fawcett on Wednesday. Many of you are already friends and fans of Gay. Please don’t miss her post. It’s one of my favorites!

For now, here’s another look at her bio. Typical of Gay, it is modestly brief.

Gay Fawcett is a former teacher, principal, curriculum director, and director of Kent State University’s Research Center for Educational Technology. She now teaches online and face-to-face university courses, consults with schools, and writes (of course!). She has authored or co-authored over 100 educational articles, book chapters, and books. She collaborated with David Harrison and Tim Rasinski on the recently published Partner Poems for Building Fluency: Grades 4-6.

Places to visit during April Poetry Month

I know that many of you enjoyed my guest yesterday, Nile Stanley. There is always something new to learn and Dr. Stanley is a good teacher. Nile, thank you.

Last year during the month of April, Tricia Stohr-Hunt wrote a series entitled Poetry Makers. Each day she posted an interview with a children’s poet. By the way, not everyone might know that our friend and frequent contributor to the Word of the Month challenge is also Dr. Patricia M. Stohr-Hunt, Chair, Education Department, University of Richmond, VA.This year Tricia is continuing with her interviews and began posting the results yesterday on her blog site, which you can find at http://missrumphiuseffect.blogspot.com/search/label/poetry%20makers . Go there if you want to enjoy an entire month of poets, poems, and interviews. Thank you, Tricia, for bringing this all together for us to enjoy.

Another busy person is Greg Pincus, as in http://gottabook.blogspot.com , http://www.thehappyaccident.net , and http://twitter.com/gregpincus
Last year Greg celebrated Poetry Month by introducing a series of 30 poets, beginning with Jack Prelutsky on April 1, ending with Pat Mora, and throwing in a few “beginners” like Jane Yolen, Nikki Grimes, Janet Wong, Pat Lewis, Mary Ann Hoberman, and 23 other fine poets along the way. You can read about last year’s poets and enjoy their work at: http://gottabook.blogspot.com/2009/03/announcing-30-poets30-days.html

This year Greg is back featuring another lineup of 30 poets. He says that his goal is to create an event that gets attention outside of just committed poetry fans and offers something of value (and fun!) too. The fun began April 1 with Alice Schertle and continued on April 2 with Joseph Bruchac. As Greg says, “I hope you’ll join in the celebration.”

This just in from Ralph and Lisa in England:
Hi David,
A quick note to tell you that the response to the launch of smories.com has been nothing short of overwhelming, and we have had fantastic submissions from across the globe. We want to thank you for helping us spread the word – which of course we appreciate.

We will be announcing the 50 shortlisted stories for the March competition on the 5th of April. On the 1st of May, films of these stories will go live on the website.The April competition is now open until the end of the month. The format is slightly different this time:We will have 5 prizes:

First Prize: US$500
Second Prize: US$400
Third Prize: US$300
Fourth Prize: US$200
Fifth Prize: US$100

Stories will be restricted to 750 words.

Please take a look at the site for further info.

As ever, we welcome your feedback.

Best wishes,

– Ralph & Lisa
http://www.smories.com/
More Stories at Smories

Mark your calendars for one week from today, April 10, when Beth Carter will be signing books from 3:00 – 5:00 p.m. at Borders in Springfield, Missouri. I asked Beth about the book and this is what she told me.

The book is a compilation of 1,000 six-word memoirs and is entitled IT ALL CHANGED IN AN INSTANT, memoirs from authors famous and obscure. It’s sold on Amazon.com and will be at Borders and Barnes & Noble soon.The book was edited by Smith and is published by Harper. It includes memoirs from famous authors like the late Frank McCourt, Amy Tan and James Frey, as well as memoirs from Pulitzer Prize winners and several celebrities like Marlee Matlin, The Fonz, Ann Coulter, and many others). I attended the last leg of the tour in NYC a few weeks ago and got to read onstage. Quite exciting.Smith received over 200,000 submissions worldwide so I’m quite honored to have been selected. In fact, I’m the only one with two memoirs in the book, according to the editors, and one of mine is on page one!P.S. Another person in this book is celebrity Bob Barker. Contains memoirs from Dave Barry, and many celebs like Marlo Thomas, Neil Patrick Harris, Marlee Matlin, Molly Ringwald, Dr. Oz, Kenny G, Melissa Ethridge and many more.Congratulations, Beth. I hope your fingers get cramped signing on April 10!

David

Nile Stanley tomorrow

BULLETIN: I’m an early bird for a change. My spring poem just went up on the W.O.M. page.

Happy April Fools Day! If anyone has a poem on the subject to share, please post it under comments below this page. We can always use a good grin.

Today it’s my pleasure to share the bio that Nile Stanley sent. He has kept it briefer than it would be if he began listing his many activities and accomplishments, but check out his sites and you’ll learn much more. Tomorrow you’ll read (and hear) from Nile himself and that will be a treat.

Affectionately known as “Nile Crocodile, the Reading Reptile,” Dr. Nile Stanley http://www.unf.edu/~nstanley  is a reading specialist, performance poet, storyteller, musician, researcher, and professor of education at the University of North Florida. Nile is the author http://maupinhouse.com/index.php/authors/nile-stanley.htmlSID=b30015b853d90dcd765d143a6e3de6be  of the books, Creating Readers with Poetry (2004), and Performance Literacy: Reading and Writing with Storytelling (2009).

Our sympathy is extended to residents of Rhode Island who have been devastated by flooding. Steven Withrow has had his share of woes although not as severely as many others. We hope things begin to improve soon.

David