Laura Purdie Salas

Writing the World for Kids

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Marketing Monday: It Begins

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I am not a marketing/promotion type person. If I had to sell things for a living, I would surely be sleeping under an overpass somewhere. But, as we’re all too aware, making a career as a writer requires you to support your work by promoting it. And with my first trade poetry picture book collection […]

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Make Art!

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I’ve been thinking a lot about the life of our words. As I work on nonfiction work-for-hire books, I run into other writers who hate the idea of selling all rights to their work. Other writers don’t want to do assessment work because they can’t display their work anywhere (due to confidentiality agreements). Still others hesitate […]

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Nikki Grimes Talks About Promotion

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I attended a CLN (in the picture, I’ve got my legs crossed and back to the camera) Nikki Grimes event a couple of weeks ago. Shoot. I’m having major computer issues this morning and am not even sure this post will be able to go live. I can’t add any more links, either! Anyway, Nikki […]

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Camp du Nord pictures

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After the Polar Bear Plunge Here’s me and Randy and Maddie after the Polar Bear Swim one morning. Lake Burntside in northern Minnesota is a glacial lake–not only formed by glaciers, but cold, too! Especially at 7:30 a.m. every morning. Laura does inkle weaving class for Annabelle How do I get roped into these things? […]

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Nonfiction Monday: Science Songs Update!

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  Back in January, I told you about a set of four science songs books I was assigned to write.  I turned the books in and have been waiting and waiting and waiting to hear about revisions. Because trying to include tons of content as well as match the meter of a traditional song was a […]

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My Chapel: Original Poem

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This week’s Poetry Stretch from Miss Rumphius asks us to “write a poem that contains the five words sky, knot, fork, wall, and rose, as well as either trumpet or bullet as the sixth word.” This exercise is based on the book, I Am Writing a Poem About . . . A Game of Poetry. […]

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Stop Using Rhyme as a Weapon!

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Back at Wordy Girls last year, I posted a wretched poem McDonald’s was using on their placemats. Talk about giving poetry a bad name! Well, a week or so ago, I was at a Taco John’s. Great tacos, terrible marketing. The tabletop seller advertising their “SOOO TASTY!” crunchy chicken and potato burrito had this gem […]

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How Much Money Do You Put Into Promotion?

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My first trade book, a picture book poetry collection called STAMPEDE: POEMS ABOUT THE WILD SIDE OF SCHOOL, comes out from Clarion next spring. Yea! And I’m realizing I need to shortly start putting promotion plans into place. I’m getting ready to read the Shrinking Violet Promotions blog in its thus-far entirety over the next […]

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Always Writing

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   Our whole family spent the weekend with another family at their “up north” cabin. That means we drove 4 hours into northern Minnesota, where it seems that 1/3 of the suburbs’ population disappears to every summer weekend. We spent our time boating, swimming, tubing (that’s me having a great time above), playing Guesstures, and […]

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Nonfiction Monday: Same Series, Different Experiences

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   I’ve been working on two new nonfiction books the past few weeks. I originally wrote six books on different ecosystems for Picture Window Books a few years ago. They contacted me recently to ask if I could write two more, on a very quick turnaround. I said yes and started putting books on reserve […]

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