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Six word story – home invasion
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My Mother Helped a Guy to Stalk Me
Lately I’ve been dealing with a lot of resentment and anger towards my mother. To explain why, let me share a specific incident that kind of illustrates why I am upset. When I was 14/15, my mother worked with a guy named Danny who met me and developed a huge crush on me. He was […]
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“Love, Simon” Movie Review
Today my husband and I went to see the new movie “Love, Simon”. I love reading YA novels and have always enjoyed teen movies as well, so I was excited to go see this one. I thought the premise of a teen hiding his gay sexuality from his friends, family, and school was a realistic […]
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Drugs are Scary
Recently, my husband and I went to a special class about street drug use among youth. The only reason we really went was to earn some of our foster parent educational credit hours, but I must say that the class turned out to be eye-opening and even frightening on many levels. I thought I already […]
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Tips for teaching poetry writing to kids and teens
Along with all the author visits and book signings I do, I also spend some of my time teaching poetry and other writing forms to kids and teens. I often have teachers express to me how hard they find it to teach poetry (or any kind of writing) to the kids in their classroom, so I […]
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Cursing and sexual terms – ok in literature for young adults?
Lately, as I have been working with my editor to get my first book for young adults ready for publication, I have been thinking a lot about what is ok and isn’t ok to put in young adult literature. My new YA book is a poetry collection, and while it certainly isn’t riddled with sexual stuff […]
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Is the ‘Twilight’ Saga really all that bad?
Along with the throngs of female fans, it seems that the ‘Twilight’ saga has another group that feels just as passionately about the series, although their feelings go in another direction. It seems anywhere you go, whether it is online or in person, whenever the subject of the ‘Twilight’ movie or book series comes up, […]