A good Monday

Hi everyone,

Yesterday I received excellent help from Brett Piper at KOLR10-TV and my son Jeff Harrison. Brett took the two videos I made and placed them into the station’s Tell Me A Story program. You can now see five of my books read by station on-air Talent plus my two videos, and more book readings are to come. To see them, go to KOLR10-TV at https://www.ozarksfirst.com/community-2/, along the top of the page find “Living Ozarks,” click on it, scroll down to “Tell Me A Story,” click on that, and you’ll find the whole menu.

Thanks to Jeff, the videos are now available (until June 30) on YouTube by request from teachers and librarians. If anyone else is interested in having them the publishers ask that they go through a teacher or librarian. To get one of both videos, get in touch with me at DavidlHarrison1@att.net and provide your email address so I can share them with you.

In other news, Tim Rasinski tweeted the hand-washing ditty I wrote at his request and included the charming video made by Joan Arth reciting it with her great-nephew. Right away Mary Jo Fresch retweeted it. I did too and others have started. I hope you’ll join the fun. Tim’s tweet is at https://twitter.com/TimRasinski1/status/1244695652375896064?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet Some of you know Joanie Arth from all her years in assisting at the Children’s Literature Festival in Warrensburg, Missouri. when my 2018 book, CRAWLY SCHOOL FOR BUGS, was chosen to represent Missouri at the National Book Fair in Washington, DC, Joanie and her hubby Doug went to Washington to run the Missouri booth.

Yesterday my issue of “Literacy Today” arrived from ILA and I was delighted to see the Guilford Press full page ad, which includes two books, BEST PRACTICES OF LITERACY LEADERS 2ND EDITION and CHILDREN’S LITERATURE IN THE READING PROGRAM 5th edition. I wrote the poetry chapter in the second title, which was edited by Deborah A. Wooten and Lauren Almonette Liang.

All in all it was a great start on the new week. Today I’ll work on the second poem in a new collaboration, so bring it on.

One more to go

Hi everyone,

Today I begin work on the final poem in a new collection that began eight months ago. It doesn’t have a home yet although the only editor who has seen an early stage of it was encouraging. Beyond the poetry I still have back matter notes to write, but the research is done and I’m seeing the proverbial light from here.

This afternoon I have a ZOOM conference with Mary Jo Fresch and our editor on the book we’re finishing for the education market. That one, too, is near the finish line so we have high hopes of seeing it out this fall in time for NCTE. I don’t know if I’m going to that conference this year but I haven’t crossed off the possibility.

Blog tour #5 and ILA news

Hi everyone,

Today I’m grateful to Linda Baie for hosting the 5th stop on the blog tour to introduce AFTER DARK at TEACHER DANCE https://www.teacherdance.org/.
I’m grateful to all who are visiting the tour each day and especially those kind souls who are hosting. I’m loving every stop along the way!

Elsewhere, I’m happy to report the institute that Mary Jo Fresch proposed for ILA in October has been accepted. This year’s conference will be held in Columbus, Ohio and I’m looking forward to participating in the all-day event. Here are the title and lineup of presenters. Thank you, Mary Jo!

Best practices in literacy instruction: A day with experts who will transform your teaching

Mary Jo Fresch
The Ohio State University
Dublin, OH
Ruth Culham
The Culham Writing Company
Beaverton, OR
Michael Ford
University of Wisconsin
Oshkosh, WI
David L. Harrison
Drury University
Springfield, MO
Lester Laminack
Western Carolina University
Dillsboro, NC
Lori Oczkus
Indpendent Literacy Consultant and Coach
Reno, NV
Gay Su Pinnell
The Ohio State University
Dublin, OH
Timothy Rasinski
Kent State University
Kent, OH
Laura Robb
Johnson Williams Middle School
Berryville, VA
Jerry Zutell
The Ohio State University
Grove City, OH

If you have plans to attend ILA this year or know of someone who might, I hope you’ll consider signing up for our institute and/or sharing the information with others!

Making it work

Hi everyone,

It’s all about timing — and luck of course. Mary Jo Fresch and I have worked for months to finish our manuscript and send it off to our editor for review. If it comes back with tweak requests, we’ll deal with that when the time comes. For now, we can take a break.

At this time I’m working with Laura Robb on our book and we’re about ready with the first three chapters. I hope to read over what we have this weekend or Monday for sure. Once we send those chapters off for review, I’ll work to finish my parts of the next chapter so Laura can develop hers. Etc.

In the meantime I’m doing what I can to peck away at a new poetry collection of my own. In another week or so I hope to have enough to share with my editor for that.

Gotta keep those pie plates up there spinning!

A good day to end on

Hi everyone,

Yesterday I won! The recalcitrant poem finally tired of teasing me and allowed me to steer it to a rather satisfactory conclusion. I borrowed one of Jane Yolen’s happy dances for that!

It was also a good day because Mary Jo Fresch and I concluded our manuscript for the new NCTE book and she clicked the 190-page manuscript on its way. This one began casually with an idea from Mary Jo on August 3, 2017. “I got an idea the other day…a book of nyms. Here is what I thought…I would give the explanation of the nym (antonyms are words that have opposite meaning, blah blah, blah), give examples (hot/cold; fast/slow, etc.), and a suggested lesson. You, of course, would use some in a poem. They are in the standards across the grades. Doable?” I, of course, said yes. This makes our 7th book together. So now, 889 e-mails and a handful of Skype sessions later, we’re ready to see what our editor makes of it. Next step is that the manuscript will be sent out to professionals in the field to gather their responses. We’ve already gone through this process once, in the beginning, before a contract was offered based on an extensive proposal.

And finally, I got a lovely note from a teacher/editor in France about the new book for ESL students. Here’s her message. I don’t think Melanie Herment will mind.

Dear David,
I want to thank you so much for inspiring our students with your poem. I am a teacher and author of textbooks in France, and we have once again used your wonderful ‘”It’s me” poem in a book for ESL students: In Full Swing 2nd (Ed. Didier, as always 😉 I have used your poem in class and the students loved it. We talked about art and the process of inspiration, which is why I asked them to make their own diptych and poem, and to record the poem. You can discover some of their productions here (if you’re interested): https://bit.ly/2JqLKPn ; https://bit.ly/2vDM9Wo and on the Facebook page of our collection: https://www.facebook.com/infullswingeditionsdidier/
Thank you so mcuh 🙂
Melanie

Good day? I think so! And today we pack and leave this lovely place on the gulf to return home after an absence of twenty-five days. I’ll admit to some goo foffing along the way — and it has all been lovely — but a little work has gotten done as well.