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Robyn Hood Black - children's author, poet, artist

Life on the Deckle Edge

Poetry Friday: Cherry Blossoms, Anyone?

March 22, 2012
Tags: Poetry Friday, Poetry, haiku, conferences, nature
Beautiful and sneeze-worthy!
Greetings! I'm busy presenting a "Haiku How-To" workshop at the 43rd Annual Children's Literature Conference at the University of Georgia in Athens this weekend. Will try to make the Poetry Friday rounds after the conference!

In preparing materials for teachers and media specialists, I decided to add a new HAIKU page to my website. It has links to download a 4-page Resource guide, as well as handouts with simple guidelines for creating haiku with grades 3-5 and K-2. Help yourself!

The pollen count in the greater Atlanta area has been off the charts this week. (Something like above 9,000?) Here in north Georgia, the tree canopies and the pathways are covered in cherry blossoms. Cherry blossoms, of course, have always been an important and favorite subject for haiku.

But today I think we'll revisit a few familiar lines from A. E. Houseman (1859–1936):

A Shropshire Lad II: Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

By A. E. Housman

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more. ...

Please click HERE to read the final stanza.

And please click HERE for the Poetry Friday Roundup, hosted by our Fearless Poetry Friday Roundup Leader, Mary Lee, at A Year of Reading. Don't forget the Madness Poetry Tournament at Think, Kid, Think - good luck to everyone still "in"! Everyone vote for your favorites! Read More 
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Springmingling!

February 28, 2012
Tags: SCBWI, Southern Breeze, authors, conferences, writing life
In SCBWI Southern Breeze, we love us some Kirby Larson!
Our 20th Anniversary SCBWI Southern Breeze Springmingle in Atlanta was a blast this past weekend! I'm still playing catch up. We enjoyed hosting editor Kristin Daly Rens (Balzer+Bray/HarperCollins), editor and art director Greg Ferguson (Egmont), agent Mary Kole (Andrea Brown Literary) and our wonderful keynote speaker, Kirby Larson, who not only inspired us through the weekend but who kicked things off with an all-day novel-writing intensive on Friday. Also, Andy Runton was our special guest Saturday for a workshop on comics and sequential art.

Whew! My writer's toolbox was much heavier when I left on Sunday than when I arrived Thursday night. We had a magical mix of great advice and warm camaraderie the entire weekend. Thanks to all the volunteers, some I didn't even get to thank personally, for all your hard work. Special thanks to our conference bookstore, FoxTale Book Shoppe, led by some of the foxiest bookstore ladies around, and to the wonderful staff at the Century Center Marriott.

Now, onto planning 2013... ! :0)  Read More 
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Write2Ignite Conference

February 14, 2012
Tags: writing life, conferences
I'm in the home stretch of all the crazy details going into planning our upcoming SCBWI Southern Breeze Springmingle Conference (Feb. 24-26 in Atlanta), and I'm happy to shine the light on another conference that might interest those who write for young people - the Write2Ignite Conference in South Carolina, March 16-17, 2012. I haven't attended this conference, but I always hear a postive buzz about it. (One of the featured speakers this year is someone whose historical fiction books I've read and admired - Joyce Hostetter, award-winning author of BLUE, COMFORT, and other titles.)

I asked the lovely Jean Matthew Hall, writer and conference organizer, to tell us about the weekend. Take it away, Jean!

Our mission at Write2Ignite! is to equip, encourage and inspire people who write for children and young adults from a Christian worldview whether they seek publication in the general market or Christian market.

I’m thrilled this year that we can present outstanding and generous speakers and workshop leaders. Carol Baldwin, Kristi Butler and Mitzi Smith will inspire us with Keynote speeches. I’m thrilled that familiar names like Carol Crane and Joyce Hostetter are part of our line-up. Our Write2Ignite! Team is excited that several editors and agents who represent children’s writers are joining us, and making themselves available for individual consultations. And we have ten scholarships available for registrees. I could go on and on!

One of our distinctives is that we offer a special Teen Track all day Saturday for middle school and high school students who write. Vonda Skelton is leading that track.

We are looking forward to Write2Ignite! 2012, as a great opportunity to Bring Hope to children’s writers and, by extension, to their readers.

Thanks, Jean!

For more information and to register, see www.write2ignite.com or contact Jean at write2ignite@jeanmatthewhall.com. Read More 
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Conference Call...

January 19, 2012
Tags: SCBWI, Southern Breeze, editors, illustrators, conferences
Breaking News: Sandy Fry made us a great TRAILER on facebook, with yours truly narrating. Enjoy!

Just a shout-out on behalf of the SCBWI Southern Breeze Springmingle Conference, which I'm coordinating in Atlanta Feb. 24-26. Early-bird discount registration ends THIS Sat., Jan. 21 (Note: the online registration site will be down for a few hours tomorrow night).

We've got a GREAT weekend planned, with Newbery Honor winner Kirby Larson as our keynote and optional novel-writing intensive leader, editors Greg Ferguson (Egmont), Kristin Daly Rens (Balzer&Bray/Harpercollins), and agent Mary Kole (Andrea Brown Literary), plus a workshop from OWLY graphic novel series creator Andy Runton.

Click here and then click SPRINGMINGLE for conference info.

To Poetry Friday folks, I'm sure it will be a great day of poetry, rounded up by Elaine at Wild Rose Reader. I'll jump back in next week; I'm covered up in Springmingle planning today. Enjoy!
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waving hi from SCBWI conference

October 14, 2011
Tags: Poetry Friday, SCBWI, Southern Breeze, haiku, conferences, workshops
SCBWI Southern Breeze Fall Conference
Just a late Poetry Friday wave from Birmingham, where we're enjoying the 20th anniversary SCBWI Southern Breeze fall conference. I'll be back here with bells on next week.

Today, Lola Schaefer led a wonderful all-day intensive on picture book writing. Tomorrow I'm presenting a workshop on haiku - :0)
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Highlights Founders Illustrators Workshop

September 13, 2011
Tags: illustrators, Highlights, conferences, workshops
Eric, Suzanne, Lindsay, Melanie, Floyd, and the new "barn" inside and out
As promised, a few more words about the recent Highlights Founders workshop for Advanced Illustrators. In short, amazing!

I can't possibly recapture all of it for you, so let me serve something like the appetizers we were treated to while mingling each afternoon.

With the largest Founders Workshop group thus far (29 of us, I think), we broke in the new "barn" - a lovely, functional structure which sprouted from the imagination and planning of executive director Kent L. Brown Jr. Alison Myers kept the weekend running smoothly, and always with a smile. (And no doubt you've heard about the food! Hospitality Manager and chef Marcia Dunsmore completely spoiled us.)

We got to meet several folks from Boyds Mills and Highlights - and did I mention Highlights Senior Art Director Cynthia Smith posed for us as a model Sunday afternoon? In her gorgeous belly-dancing ensemble? What an amazing surprise!

Dinner speakers included the wonderful Alix Kennedy, executive director of the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, and the ever-dazzling Vera B. Williams. - "In my mind, you need joy to make colors."

Each of us had a personal critique with a faculty member. I was fortunate to have a one-on-one meeting with the incredible Lindsay Barrett George (link below).

Also, each faculty member led a hands-on demonstration and workshop for the group, spotlighting a particular medium. (Check out my home page for one of my efforts!) Some great photos are up on the Highlights Foundation facebook page. Oh, and methinks a couple of our fearless leaders, Eric and Suzanne?, can always use stand-up comedy as a back-up career....

From my notes, here is a gem of wisdom from each award-winning faculty member:

Eric Rohman: "I want to live an interesting life, so I want to try a lot of different things."

Melanie Hall: "Infuse your work with your personality."

Suzanne Bloom: "What we do is magic."

Lindsay Barrett George: "Make your reader care about and love your character... connect with kids on an emotional level."

Floyd Cooper: "I'm opposed to lines in my work." He also shared a few quotes, including this one by Henry James: "The best things come, as a general thing, from the talents that are members of a group...."

What a privilege it was to be a part of THIS group for a few days - the experience will forever enrich my life and my sketchbooks. Read More 
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Happy Birthday to Paul Fleischman from Honesdale, Pa.

September 2, 2011
Tags: Poetry Friday, Poetry, authors, illustrators, writing life, SCBWI, Southern Breeze, conferences, workshops
Robyn at the Highlights offices in 2009
Greetings from Honesdale, Pennsylvania, this morning, where I’ll attempt to find an internet connection and connect to Poetry Friday! I’m attending my second Highlights Founders Workshop up in the beautiful mountains here. My first was a poetry workshop; this time around is an illustrators’ workshop with an amazing faculty (and attendees, for that matter!).

Perusing Lee Bennett Hopkins’s DAYS TO CELEBRATE this past week, I discovered that Monday (Sept. 5) is the birthday of the one and only Paul Fleischman. We SCBWI Southern Breezers had the honor of hosting Paul for our 2008 fall conference. (This is all related, really.)

I appreciated Paul’s keynote address on “found sculpture,” in which he described his own creative pursuits outside of writing. He shared that creative energy put into something “non-writing” will “flow into your writing,” noting that: “Art is problem-solving. Art is difficult.”

I for one am thrilled he’s let his own creative energy flow into so many wonderful works. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Paul Fleischman!

Let’s celebrate with a few lines from the 1989 Newbery Medal-winning JOYFUL NOISE – Poems for Two Voices (illustrated by Eric Beddows).

Fireflies

Light    Light

        is the ink we use

Night     Night

is our parchment

        We’re

        fireflies

fireflies      flickering

flirting

        flashing

For the rest of the poem (and proper formatting!), click over to the excerpt on Paul’s website .

The scope of Paul’s work is dizzying, and he has been named by The U.S. Board on Books for Young People as the United States' Author Award nominee for the 2012 Hans Christian Andersen Award , given every other year to “an author and illustrator for a body of work judged to have made lasting contributions to children's literature.” (Back to art – the amazing Chris Raschka is the U.S. nominee for the Illustration Award!) Winners are announced at the Bologna Book Fair.

Let me close with a quote from that 2008 keynote just for Jama, in case she drops by: “Serendipity is one of your four food groups, you know? Enjoy it!”

To enjoy more great poetry, head over to the Poetry Friday Roundup hosted today by Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect .
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