I got a nice email from an editor at Compass Point Books a couple of weeks ago:
Hi Laura: Here’s a great way to start the week:
Write Your Own Selected as 2008 AEP Distinguished Achievement Award Finalist
Association of Educational Publishers has selected Write Your Own (Reading and Language Instruction category) as finalist in the Nonfiction 6-8 category. The Distinguished Achievement Award recognizes the best educational materials ? such as books, periodicals, educational toys, and software within subject categories and by audience.
Awards will be announced June 6 in D.C.
I wrote Write Your Own Poetry for this series:
The series is aimed at 5th-8th grade kids, and it’s really fun. I got tips from many wonderful poets for my book, including tips and poems by Lee Bennett Hopkins, Rebecca Kai Dotlich, Tracie Vaughn Zimmer, Lisa Westberg Peters, Susan Marie Swanson, and Joyce Sidman.
And not only that, I got to include a few of my own poems and solicit poems from fellow writers, and Kelly Fineman of Writing and Ruminating and Jan Fields both have poems in the book. Cool!
Natalie Rosinsky, a local writer here in Minnesota, wrote 7 of the 8 new titles in the series, while the poetry one is the only one I wrote. So she clearly deserves the lion’s share of the glory. But still, it’s fun to be a small part of a larger effort that’s been so well received. Congratulations, Natalie, me, and Compass Point Books!