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 […]
Poetry Friday
Friday, 9 June 2017
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, 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 […]
Thursday, 13 April 2017
Happy Poetry Friday, everyone. My series of interviews with verse novelists continues today with middle grade author Shari Green. But first, a quick PSA: This week, I did a guest posting at School Library Journal’s Teen Librarian Toolbox blog. Blog team member Amanda MacGregor invited me to write up this year’s February Poetry Project as […]
Thursday, 30 March 2017
Happy Poetry Friday, everyone! Are you ready to celebrate National Poetry Month 2017? Like many Poetry Friday bloggers, I do an annual project for NPM. This year, my theme is novels-in-verse. I’ve got a great line-up of authors, ready to talk about the art and craft of the verse novel. But, before the line-up, a […]
Thursday, 23 February 2017
Happy Poetry Friday. It’s been a while since we visited my bookshelf, friends. In Bookshelf posts, I pair a middle grade or young adult novel with a poem, to be read and enjoyed side by side. Earlier this month, my friend Jeff Giles visited Maryland as part of his book tour. Jeff’s debut novel, THE […]
Thursday, 16 February 2017
Dear Friends and Poetry Friday bloggers, I have to begin this post with a thank you. On Tuesday, I learned that THE LAST FIFTH GRADE OF EMERSON ELEMENTARY is the 2016 CYBILS award-winner for poetry. Many of you have cheered on my novel-in-verse for years — commenting on drafts of the poems on my blog, […]
Thursday, 2 February 2017
Happy February, everyone. This week, we kicked off my annual poem project, which has moved over to Facebook. This year’s theme is #10FoundWords. We have a daily news story, speech, or current event selected by a project member. That person chooses 10 words from the news source, which makes up our word bank for the […]
Thursday, 26 January 2017
It’s the last Poetry Friday of January. That means I am gearing up for the annual February daily poem project. This year, I’m encouraging participants to engage with current events, news articles, political speeches, and interviews. Each day, we’ll be using 10 Found Words from a news-related source and building our poems around those words. […]
Thursday, 19 January 2017
Well, here we are. It’s really happening. First, I’d like to thank all of you for your comments on the press conference found poems. Several Poetry Friday regulars have been engaging with transcripts of the president-elect’s words. By paring away (or emphasizing) the fluff, these poems help us expose problems with the way language is […]
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.
