Laura Purdie Salas

Writing the World for Kids

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Statues in the Park [Poetry Friday]

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Happy Poetry Friday! Welcome, everyone! (Wondering what Poetry Friday is? Click here.) The Process FEEL FREE TO SKIP DIRECTLY TO IMAGE POEM BELOW IF YOU LIKE! This month, our Poetry Princess challenge (my choice) was a poem of any kind, mood, or topic to go with the title “Statues in the Park.” I was on […]

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Writing a Golden Shovel Poem: Day 5

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[You can read Days 1, 2, 3, and 4 by clicking, if you like.] Well, you guys, I feel like sharing my process makes it sound like I have put hours and hours into this poem! But, really, it was just a stolen 15 minutes here and there. I have spent more time writing the […]

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Writing a Golden Shovel Poem: Day 4

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[You can read Days 1, 2, and 3 by clicking, if you like.] After writing at Valleyfair, I took my poem on the road next to Taco Bell. I do most of my writing on my laptop or phone, but playing around with short poem drafts lends itself to longhand, sometimes. Here are the drafts […]

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Writing a Golden Shovel Poem: Day 3

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[You can read day 1 and day 2 here.] Yesterday, I went to Valleyfair (theme park) with Randy and Maddie. It was a gorgeous day, high 60s and sunny, and the park was practically empty. No lines for anything–even the big coasters! We rode and ate and laughed–and I worked on my poem. Sadly, even […]

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Writing a Golden Shovel Poem: Day 2

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You can read Day 1 here. So, yesterday morning, I walked around a little pond. It was lovely, misty, and grey out, so nobody else was walking. That meant I could think about my poem and do a little brainstorming. I dictated possible lines into my poem based around this line: With swift, slow; sweet, […]

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Taking Pictures (by me) [Poetry Friday]

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Happy Poetry Friday! (Wondering what Poetry Friday is? Click here.) Last week, I shared about the awesome Risking Writing session at NCTE. Today, I thought I’d share my final poem in a more legible way. But if you’d like to hear about the session and see my writing process, click here. Believe it or not, […]

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How My Monarch Poem Emerged [Poetry Friday]

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Happy Poetry Friday! (Wondering what Poetry Friday is? Click here.) A couple of weeks ago, I shared that my Poetry Princesses poem of the month was written on an airplane as I flew from Minneapolis to Orlando. Today, I thought I’d share the notebook pages of the drafts. I started out with my rhyming words, […]

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The Buzz of Self-Doubt for Writers (Not Just Students)

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I’m a fairly confident writer. But even though I know I can write, I never know if any particular person will like it. So, when I turn in a piece of writing to an editor, I hold my breath. It’s like turning in a school assignment and waiting for a grade. I just turned in […]

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Writing Openings

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A couple of weeks ago, I posted about working on the opening to my next picture book. I still haven’t heard if the opening I submitted will fly or not, but I thought I’d follow up here and share a couple of openings written after the fact. A lot of times, the meat of the […]

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Inviting a Reader in

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Teachers, I’m in the editing/revision process for my next book with Millbrook Press. Carol, my insightful editor, wondered if the book needed more of an opening to orient the reader. I wrote the book as a Things To Do If… poem (see some quick TTDI poems here and here and here), and if you go […]

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