Adventures

For this new year, I will be sharing the wonders I find when writing my stories. Even when my own words fall short, I find joy in my discoveries about the world around me.  I am still shopping around for a new blog look, but, in the meantime, I wanted to get started with a… Read more

When we last saw Mr. G on his trip, he discovered that people drive on the left in the island nation just before he enjoyed an apple–or rather he watched while the human ate the apple. Today, I report on the rest of his adventures as told by tour guide Marci Kobayashi-Smith. These adventures took several… Read more

Do you remember Flat Stanley? The cut out that kids sent to their friends and family around the world? My son’s kindergarten teacher gave his class a gingerbread man to send instead of Stanley. Quinton’s cut out is making his way around Tokyo with my friend from high school who came to visit us this… Read more

Wednesday Wonders: Mutt and Jeff

“Look at Mutt and Jeff!” I showed my teenager a picture of our cat and his brother. https://www.instagram.com/p/BNVFYxWB-Gn/?taken-by=karriezmy “Who?” He gave me a look that immediately reminded me that I speak an older version of English. I knew tucked in the back of my brain that my parents and grandparents used to say ‘Mutt and Jeff’ and… Read more

Spoiler Warning: If you haven’t seen Finding Dory and still want to be surprised, don’t read this.  I recently told my English class that I have two sons. One is 17 and the other is 6. This means, I told them, that I have been watching kid movies since 1999. Many of the films numbed my… Read more

Last weekend, I went to Western Washington University for the first annual Poetry Camp. After the end of the sessions and right before Jack Prelutsky, the first Children’s Poet Laureate, gave his fantastic reading of ‘Rat for Lunch,’ I went for a walk around the campus where I once went to school. I was hunting the… Read more

This will be a short post. The door is done! Done! (I ache to replace the hardware with silver but have no more oomph for that sort of insanity.) For now, I’m back to my usual groove of teaching and writing. A new quarter begins this Monday and I am gearing up for a poetry workshop… Read more

How to get yourself to write in nine easy steps: Tell yourself to take the week off. Give yourself some terrible, awful, no good house chore that you think will be fun like painting your front door. (Simple laundry or bathroom cleaning chores won’t work. It must be something dreadful.) Ask at least three cranky over-worked… Read more

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