Laura Purdie Salas

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[Nonfiction Monday] Picture Yourself Writing Poetry

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I’m trying to share more about the process/background for some of the nonfiction books I write, since I realized I was kind of neglecting them on my blog! Picture Yourself Writing Poetry came out last year from Capstone Press. It was really cool to write since?y’all know how much I love using?images to inspire poems–and that’s the premise of this entire book!??Picture Yourself Writing Poetry; Using Photos to Inspire Writing (Fact Finders: See It, Write It)

This was a work-for-hire informational?book (for upper elementary kids), pretty typical of the books I write on assignment for educational publishers. I accepted the assignment in early June of 2010, and I was excited to be asked to write a book that so closely paralleled my own passions. The fee was $2,000, and I turned in my final revision in early September. The editing experience was great–the editor (Jen Besel) had suggestions that were totally doable and made the book stronger. Then in January of 2011, she sent me a pdf of the laid-out project for me to check over, and the book came out seven months later in August. It was just one of the work-for-hire experiences that was totally enjoyable from start to finish. And I love the thought that it’s helping teachers and kids create poetry!

To top it off, the book was named a 2012 Teachers’ Choice by the International Reading Association and a 2012 Book of Note by the TriState Young Adult Review Committee–yay! You can read reviews of it here.

So, that’s a bit about Picture Yourself Writing Poetry, which, by the way, is part of a series about writing in various genres based on images.

If you’d like to learn more about writing informational books for educational publishers, check out this post or my textbook on the topic.

And be sure to go to?Hope Is the Word’s Nonfiction Monday roundup to learn about?lots of terrific nonfiction books!

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Comments

  1. Hi Laura! I wrote Picture Yourself Writing Fiction in the same series and — same! — that book was a joy to write from start to finish! It is a gem of a series. Those books are like lesson plans in a box. A teacher can open one of those books and find lessons and activities, chapter by chapter, to last a day, a week, or a month. For fiction, I found it especially exciting to unfold the “Story Arc” for young readers. I never learned about that stuff until college! Congrats on your Teachers’ Choice Award 🙂 . Yours, Sheila Llanas

    • I DID see that you did the Fiction one, Sheila! I love seeing writers’ names I know as series mates:>) And…I’m STILL struggling with Story Arc! (Sounds like I had better check out your book!) Don’t you wish every single assignment could go as smoothly as these books did?

  2. Hi Laura! I wrote Picture Yourself Writing Fiction in the same series and — same! — that book was a joy to write from start to finish! It is a gem of a series. Those books are like lesson plans in a box. A teacher can open one of those books and find lessons and activities, chapter by chapter, to last a day, a week, or a month. For fiction, I found it especially exciting to unfold the “Story Arc” for young readers. I never learned about that stuff until college! Congrats on your Teachers’ Choice Award 🙂 . Yours, Sheila Llanas

    • I DID see that you did the Fiction one, Sheila! I love seeing writers’ names I know as series mates:>) And…I’m STILL struggling with Story Arc! (Sounds like I had better check out your book!) Don’t you wish every single assignment could go as smoothly as these books did?

  3. Hi, Laura. What a great concept for a book. I do a portrait poem workshop with kids using fine art portraits or clips of photos from the newspaper. I’m looking forward to checking out this book.

    • Cool! I think images are so terrific for inspiring poetry. Wouldn’t it be fun to do a field trip to a museum and go around writing poems based on pictures? Right there–on the spot? Hey, that gives me an idea for my next young authors conference–thanks, Laura!

  4. Hi, Laura. What a great concept for a book. I do a portrait poem workshop with kids using fine art portraits or clips of photos from the newspaper. I’m looking forward to checking out this book.

    • Cool! I think images are so terrific for inspiring poetry. Wouldn’t it be fun to do a field trip to a museum and go around writing poems based on pictures? Right there–on the spot? Hey, that gives me an idea for my next young authors conference–thanks, Laura!

    • Sure thing, Janelle! I’m trying to start sharing a bit more about my process–either the research/writing itself, or the getting the asst, going through editing, etc. This one was a blast!

    • Sure thing, Janelle! I’m trying to start sharing a bit more about my process–either the research/writing itself, or the getting the asst, going through editing, etc. This one was a blast!

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