Category: Blog

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NCTE Annual Conference

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I’m thrilled to be attending the 2015 National Conference of Teachers of English. If you’ll be at the conference too, I’d love to see you. Here’s where you’ll find me:

Saturday, November 21

9:30-10:45 am
Minneapolis Convention Center, Room L100J
Revved for Research. I’ll join authors Sarah Albee, Chris Barton, Sy Montgomery and Laura Purdie Salas, in a panel presentation moderated by Alyson Beecher. Join us for a look at how professional writers gather information for their writing. (Hint: they go way beyond books and online sources!)

11am-12 noon
I’ll be signing books in the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt booth (#640). Stop on over!

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QCC Lecture

I’ll be speaking at Quinsigamond Community College today, October 27, at 1:30pm. If you are in or near Worcester, Massachusetts, feel free to join us. Details on the flyer below, which you can click to enlarge …

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AASL Annual Conference

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I’m thrilled to be attending the 2015 American Association of School Librarians annual conference in Columbus, Ohio in November.  Here’s where you can find me a the event …

Friday, November 6
Presentation
To the Library … and Beyond
Loree and fellow children’s author Sarah Albee will share creative approaches to research, suggesting ways to adapt the methods of the pros for student writers. This interactive workshop will be held at 11:20am in Room D230.

Signing
Loree will be signing books from 3:30-4pm in the conference exhibit hall. Look for the Author-Palooza signs at Booth #543!

Saturday, November 7
Presentation
Changemakers in Society: Books that Motivate Kids to Solve Problems and Make the World a Better Place
Loree will join Don Tate, Melissa Stewart, and Shana Corey for a panel discussion, moderated by author Laurie Ann Thompson. This event will be held at 8:40am in Room E-171 of the Convention Center.

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Surtsey!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQAP3EF3D14&feature=share

 

Hello! Happy summer! I hope you’ve had yourself an adventure or two. As you can see in the video above, I’ve managed at least one* …

I spent last week on the volcanic island of Surtsey, located off the southwestern coast of Iceland. This unusual place–and the men and women who study it–will be the subject of my next ‘Scientists in the Field‘ book. It’s going to take me a while to edit my photographs and process the incredible experiences I had, but if you happen to read Icelandic, you can get an overview of the mission now right here. And if you don’t speak Icelandic, you can just head over there and gaze at the incredible photos members of the 2015 Surtsey expedition team took and shared.

*The video, taken by Dr. Pawel Wasowicz, shows me and several other expedition team members as we were transported off the island. The Icelandic coast guard picked us up on shore, ferried us out to a cutter waiting at sea, and made sure none of us fell into the North Atlantic as we made our way up and onto its deck!

 

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New Discussion Guide

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I’m happy to report that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, publisher of The Hive Detectives, has created a Discussion & Activity Guide for the book, complete with common core connections. Download the full PDF file by clicking this link: Discussion Guide.

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Collaboration

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Okay, confession time: sharing my poems online during the month of April scared me. REALLY scared me.

Here’s the thing: writing haiku is something I’m new at. I’m still learning. And sharing work that is new and different from what you usually do means opening yourself up to the opinion of other people, to correction, and even to criticism. These are scary things!

But there is a law about scary things, you know. From what I can tell, it goes like this: being brave and working through scary things always works out for the best. Always. I’m invariably glad when I push myself to try something that, at first, feels scary. For one thing, I learn a lot. I also tend to make connections that are meaningful. During my National Poetry Month haiku extravaganza, for example, I met some amazing haiku poets (like Liz Garton Scanlon and JoAnn Early Macken) and found a great poetry community. I’ve learned a lot from these talented people already! Other connections happened, too. One of my favorites is described in this blog post from Melissa Guerrette, a fourth grade teacher in Maine.

So, friends, go forth and be brave. You can do it!

 

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Haiku for April 30

beside the back door
rubber boots caked in spring
mud and chicken poo

© 2015 Loree Griffin Burns

And that’s a wrap, friends. I managed a haiku every day for the month of April, although on a couple days the posted haiku were written by other people. (Like Issa. And Basho.) I hope you were inspired to write a poem or two yourself.

Here’s a link to the entire 2015 collection.

Happy National Poetry Month!

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Haiku for April 29

eleven robins
hopping around the outfield;
ordinary day

© 2015 Loree Griffin Burns

Okay, people, this month-long celebration of haiku is just about over. (I’ll still be writing them, I’ll just stop sharing so many of them!) Before we end, though, do hop over to Liz Garton Scanlon’s blog and read what she wrote yesterday about the place haiku can occupy in this crazy and often upside-down world. She is so wise, that Liz. Wise.

Have a spectacularly ordinary Wednesday …