Hello Dear Readers, This month, I had the honor of attending a Poetry Jam with the 4th graders at Thoreau Elementary School in Madison, WI. It’s a return visit for me and I always enjoy the event. I shared some of my story and poetry from my new book, Shadow Work, and then listened to students from three classes read their original poems. It’s a big deal to read a poem out loud to your classmates and I never take this for granted. The students and teachers spend so much time on this – what a...

It’s that time of year when I get to attend a Poetry Jam at one of my favorite schools in Madison – Elvehejm Elementary School. I met with 50 4th graders and two teachers. I introduced myself, talked about what inspired me and read some poems from my three books. I did get some questions and comments relating to the poems, which is always interesting to me. It was then their turn to read the poems that they had created. For the first time in four years, they all read their poems out loud to...

We had to say goodbye to our beloved dog Chip this week. He was 10 1/2 but suffered from kidney disease that also wound up causing a heart murmur, anemia and high blood pressure. It was hard to see my kids’ reaction to this as they had convinced me to get the dogs in the first place, complete with a written contract listing out reasons why they needed a dog (or two) and how they were going to take care of them. I had resisted it because I didn’t want this day to come when we would have to say...