It was the solstice this week, Poetry Friday friends. Summer is here. I’m not a hot weather person, but there is one thing I will go outside for: baseball. I love going to Camden Yards for an Orioles game on a hot summer night, eating crab cakes, drinking beer or Icees, and spending time with […]
Laura's Blog
Thursday, 22 June 2017
Friday, 9 June 2017
Happy Poetry Friday, everyone. This week, I’m celebrating my friend Meg Eden‘s upcoming debut YA novel, Post-High School Reality Quest. I first met Meg when I was editing Little Patuxent Review. She is a talented young poet, and our journal published several of her poems. Here’s what you’ll find in this post: blurb of Post-High School […]
Friday, 2 June 2017
Writing is a messy process. For an organized person like me, revising a novel can feel overwhelming. There is so much to do: Develop flat characters, adjust the plot, review feedback from critique partners, check for overused words (“just” is my bugaboo). Not to mention detail work! If a character is described as wearing braces, how often […]
Thursday, 1 June 2017
Happy Poetry Friday! I’m saying goodbye to Northfield Elementary School this week. For the past month, I’ve been conducting a poetry residency with the school’s third grade. At the bottom of this post, I’m sharing a gallery of some of the poetry displays. The kids outdid themselves this year! Our final workshop was on persona […]
Thursday, 1 June 2017
Today is the poetry open house at Northfield Elementary, where I’ve been in residence for the past month. I haven’t seen the third grade poets since our revision day. It’s always exciting to read their poems again and see how they have developed. Let’s look more closely at persona poems. When we’re creating a character, […]
Tuesday, 30 May 2017
June is almost here! This week, the Northfield 3rd Grade poets, their teachers, and families, will be celebrating poetry at our annual open house. It’s a great time to recognize how hard the students have worked on their poems. I’ve shared the poets’ haiku and food poems. Today, I am posting the third graders’ […]
Thursday, 25 May 2017
Last weekend, I visited my home state for NerdCampNJ. (Hey, Jersey! Looking good.) There’s no better way to spend a rainy Saturday than surrounded by educators, authors, and super readers. One of the highlights of my day was co-leading a workshop: Building Literacy with Poetry and Books in Verse. You can find notes from the workshop […]
Friday, 19 May 2017
It’s Poetry Friday! Welcome back to Northfield Elementary, where the third grade poets are using their five senses to write about food. When I’m working with young writers on food poems, I want to guide them away from catch-all words: delicious, yummy, tasty, good, disgusting. Pizza and ice cream are both delicious, but they don’t […]
Friday, 12 May 2017
Happy Poetry Friday, Readers. It’s May, my month to serve as poet-in-residence at Northfield Elementary School. This is my longest running residency through the Maryland State Arts Council. 11 years! When I had my orientation meeting with third grade educators this year, they had important information for me. This year’s 3rd graders are active. They […]
Sunday, 30 April 2017
National Poetry Month 2017 has flown by in a blur of words. I’ve asked poet and author Holly Thompson to close out my NPM17 series of interviews with verse novelists. You’ll find links to each interview at the bottom of this post. Holly has published many books–including a picture book, MG, YA, and new adult […]
Laura Shovan is the author of the award-winning middle grade novel, The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary. Her second book, Takedown, is a Junior Library Guild and PJ Our Way selection. Look for A Place at the Table, co-written with Saadia Faruqi, in 2020. Laura is a poet-in-the-schools Maryland.
