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Children's author Julie Hedlund, challenged participants of her 12 Days of Christmas for Writers series to post SUCCESSES (rather than resolutions) on our blogs this year. She believes the way New Year's resolutions are traditionally made come from a place of negativity - what DIDN'T get done or achieved in the previous year. Instead, she suggests we set goals for the New Year that BUILD on our achievements from the previous one. I decided to participate in this Anti-Resolution Revolution! Here is my list for 2021.
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Congratulations to Susanna Leonard Hill for 10 years of Halloweensie! What's Halloweensie? It is a very short story for kids contest - 100 words or less. This year, we had to use the words skeleton, creep, mask or some form of them in our stories. Happy Halloweensie!! 
 It's that time again! The #50PreciousWords contest created by Vivian Kirkfield inspired me to work on Puffin's Problem. I love birds, especially Puffins, and when I learned that puffins are tool users , I wanted to write about it. Honing a story to its essence is one of the tools I use to get the to heart of the story and this contest it the perfect way to do that. Thank you @VivianKirkfield!
 Today is a day to recognize the achievements of women and girls in science, those that have achieved and those that will achieve. I am reminded of a TED Women talk given in 2017 by Anushka Naiknaware, who at the age of 13, was the youngest winner of the Google Science Fair, with her invention of a clever new bandage that tells caregivers when it needs to be changed. Astounding.
 I've had this button for a really really long time. I never thought I would be writing about it in 2014. In fact, I hadn't thought about it at all until I recently heard a panel discussion on banned books at the SCBWI 2014 conference in NYC. When I got home, I dug through a box in the back of my drawer to see if I still had it. Then, I searched the ALA (American Libraries Association) site to read through the frequently banned books list. To Kill a Mockingbird jumped off the page because it had such a profound effect on me. To Kill a Mockingbird changed me. It challenged me to think about other people in a way that I had never before. It awakened my mind to a new way of seeing people - it changed my perspective.  Button circa 1974. Click for a list of banned books from the American Libraries Association (ALA). Photo: k.marcus  "First of all,' he said, 'if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.'" -Harper Lee Atticus' words gave me a concrete and practical way to try and imagine myself as another person. If this book had been banned in my school and I never had the opportunity to read it, I would have lost something so rich and compelling; something that I've held on to for my entire life.  To Kill A Mockingbird did put an idea in my head that has stuck with me since I was a kid. That can be very scary for people. I think, for some parents, their fear is that their child will be different than them and so, if they can control what their child reads, sees in the movies and on tv, then their child won't get ideas in their heads and they won't change. It is a real fear. And I can empathize with that, maybe, just maybe because I read To Kill A Mockingbird.  I make my book choices based on thickness…okay, okay, not all the time. If I did, I would have missed out on some great thin books like The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. I definitely have chosen by thickness though because I love to immerse myself in a good book for a really really long time.
I used to read the dictionary when I was a kid. It was a wonderfully thick book. I read the encyclopedia too but that's another story. I used to make up these word tree games and I brought them in for my teacher to teach to the class. (Yes, I was one of those kids.) I never understood why she didn't use them so one day I made copies for each of my classmates. I told my classmates to bring the papers back in when they were finished so I could correct them. What do you think happened?  You get the point. |
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December 2021
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All images are either my own, free, or purchased. © k. marcus 2021