Writing Workshop with Kate Messner & Jo Knowles - March 8th, 11:00 am

We're excited to be welcoming Kate Messner and Jo Knowles back to the store for a writers' workshop for teachers, librarians, and parents. Whether your interest is in fiction, nonfiction, or poetry, Jo and Kate will share a toolbox full of strategies and prompts to use on your own and share with young writers.

The workshop will take place March 8th from 11:00 am to noon in the Children's Room at Bear Pond Books.

There will be writing in the workshop, so please bring things to write with! Also, we're trying to keep track of how many people are attending, so if you can please take a moment to RSVP by e-mailing helen.labun.jordan@gmail.com or stopping in to see Jane in the Children's Room. This workshop is free and open to the public. Snacks are served, books are for sale.

Jo and Kate are both talented writers and talented writing teachers. If you want to learn more about their approach, check out some of these resources:

Kate Messner: Kate has several picture books and novels under her belt. One of our favorite (and bestselling) picture books is Over and Under the Snow --a New York Times Notable Book. Her most recent book is Marty McGuire Has Too Many Pets, the third in a series about a young, resourceful anthropologist. Kate has also written Real Revision, drawing on her experience in the classroom and as a writer. This is an essential guide to fine tuning any work in progress and includes reproducible "mentor author" pages and related classroom ready activities from dozens of published authors.

• Kate's Website 
• Real Revision by Kate Messner (will be available for sale at the workshop)
• Kate's TED-ED video on world building.
• Visit the Dig Deeper section for lots of resources
•  Kate's Recommended Author Blogs - authors who share good writing advice
• Teacher's Write - Virtual Writing Summer Camp
• Kate's resources from being a presenter and featured speaker at the 2014 SCBWI conference.
• Apropos of Kate's talk on failure, consider this writing prompt from Jo Knowles (it sounds gloomy when we phrase it like that. . . but just go ahead and listen and write)

Jo Knowles: Jo has five published novels, her most recent being Living With Jackie Chan, which is on YALSA's Best Fiction for 2014 list. See You At Harry's is on the current Dorothy Canfield Fisher list, and she will be the keynote speaker at this year's DCF conference in May. You can also find her on her blog where she regularly posts her Monday Morning Warm-ups (aka writing prompts) and you can also distract yourself during your writer's block by checking out the latest Things We Put On Fred post. (trust me, cat lovers, and see for yourself)

• Jo's Website
• Monday Morning Warm Ups - Thoughts, reflections, and writing exercises from Jo
• Jo's Interview with Sara Zarr on This Creative Life
• Jo's Interview with Debbie Ridpath Ohi on Inky Girl - with storyboard pictures
• A series of recent blog posts by Jo as the artist in virtual residence at Inside a Dog

• Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators