Celebrating the Year of the Horse with Books about Horses

How else would a reader and a writer celebrate? There have been some cherished horses in my life, and most of them were the stuff of story. A few, like my grandfather’s prize Clydesdale, Prairie Prince, came alive for me in stories told to me by my parents, but most of the horses I knew…

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Moving Forward — Open to Possibilities

As I said in my last blog post of 2013, I won’t be doing my month-end accountability posts this year. Instead, in keeping with my chosen theme for the year of moving forward, the last Monday of each month will feature a post designed to get us all thinking about some aspect of moving forward…

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A Word with Beth about Quotation Mark Quandaries

It’s the third Monday of the month, and that means it’s time to look at a grammatical question sent in by one of my readers. Today’s question has us looking at quotation marks. My thanks to the reader who sent this in. Here’s the question: I know when there’s a quotation, the end punctuation goes…

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A post in anticipation of Julie Gribble’s blog series

This post is a heads-up notification that NEXT month in this time slot, the second Monday of the month, and moving forward into the months beyond, right here on this blog, there will be a blog series by Julie Gribble, writer, and director of New York Media Works, LLC. No, that picture to the left…

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Year End, Year Beginning

Janus, the Roman god from whom the month of January derives its name, is usually depicted with two faces, one looking forward, one looking back. He was considered to be able to see both past and future at the same time. As I stand on the brink of another January, I find myself looking both…

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ERIK!

Tomorrow, December 24th, is a very special day in the kidlit world, but we’re celebrating today, because early celebrations extend the joy. In our writing and reading community, there is a person who reads voraciously, writes book reviews by the score (both for his blog and for his local newspaper), has recently published his first…

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No Deer This Year? Oh DEAR! (Holiday Story Contest Entry)

Susanna Leonard Hill is having another of her wonderful story-writing contests! The Third Annual Pretty Much World Famous Holiday Story Contest is starting today and running through until Friday, December 13th at 11:59 p.m. EST. Finalists will be chosen by Susanna and her elves over the weekend, and voting for the winners will begin on…

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