Presents a profile of Patricia McKissack, giving insight into the forces that shape her work and beliefs behind it. (MG)

Presents an interview with an author of children's books covering how and why she writes. (JL)

Discusses the need for would-be writers to undertake on-the-scene research to become thoroughly familiar with a writing topic. Relates some of the author's experiences gained through such "field" work. (HTH)

Shares excerpts from an interview with George Ella Lyon who is a poet, playwright, teacher, and author of both adult and children's books. (MG)

Profiles two children's authors, Marion Dane Bauer and Katherine Paterson, examining the social interactions that have influenced their writing. Looks at the social context of their lives as influences on their writing, including family, friends and acquaintances, literature, research for a novel, editors, the marketplace, and readers. Suggests…

Third grade students were asked to create symbolic representations of themselves as readers and writers using the engagement of sketch to stretch.

Describes how Taylor's life experiences shaped her writing. Discusses nine of her books, what influenced them, and the context in which they were written. (SG)

Discusses how and why the author creates the characters she does and how she consciously takes account of gender issues in doing so. Suggests that both genders have to be allowed to be as real in literature as they are in life. (RS)

Profiles J. Patrick Lewis, a college professor and a writer of children's literature. (RS)

Offers an interview with poet X. J. Kennedy, winner of the prestigious National Council of Teachers of English Award for Poetry for Children for the year 2000. Outlines how he began writing poetry, his work writing poetry for adults, and how he began writing poems for children. Offers an overview of his work. (SR)

Explores the creation of "An Extraordinary Life: The Story of a Monarch Butterfly." Selects this book because of the unprecedented decision to give the 1998 Orbis Pictus Award to both the author and the illustrator for a work in which text and illustration melded together. Develops an event model, revealing the creation of this…

Describes how, when a working writer visited a sixth-grade classroom on an ongoing basis to interact with students, the language and activities of the writing community changed in interesting and positive ways. (SR)

Discusses student responses to and interactions with a professional children's writer who visited a fifth grade writing workshop. Describes the emerging confidence as writers of the children and the classroom teacher as a result of the author's visits. (HTH)

Explores (from the point of view of the writer, a children's author) one aspect of learning about language that is present in the picture books he writes: the relation between sound and sense. (SR)

Describes a two-day residence in a fifth- and sixth-grade classroom of poet Arnold Adoff. Presents his interaction with five students as they struggle with their poetry writing. (HTH)