September 8

Birthdays: Frederic Mistral (1830), Siegfried Sassoon (1886), Jane Arbor (1903), Grace Metalious (1924), Michael Frayn (1933), Jack Prelutsky (1940), Jon Scieszka (1945), Marianne Wiggins (1947), Ann Beattie (1947), Michael Shemer (1954), Terry Tempest Williams (1955), Christopher Kim (1962)

Frederic Mistral won the 1904 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Grace Metalious is best known for her controversial novel “Peyton Place”

Jack Prelutsky was the American Children’s Poet Laureate.

Jon Scieszka (rhymes with “Fresca”) is best known for his children’s books like “The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairy Stupid Tales”

Quote: “If every man, …ceased to hate and blame every other man for his own failures and shortcomings, we would see the end of every evil in the world, from war to backbiting.” ― Grace Metalious, Peyton Place

“My ideas come from all different things: my kids, kids I’ve taught, kids I’ve learned from, watching movies, playing with my cat, talking to my wife, staring out the window, and about a million other places. But what turns the ideas into stories and books is sitting down and writing and re-writing and throwing away writing and writing some more. That’s the hard part.” – Jon Scieszka

“You know that you are a writer if you are imaginative. You know that you are a writer if you are curious. You know that you are a writer if you are interested in the things and people of the world. You know that you are a writer if you hold a minie ball in your hand and wonder about its story. You know that you are a writer if you like the sound of rain on the roof. And if you want to tell someone else about your heart and how waiting for the thunder sometimes makes you feel, if you work to find the words to do that, then you are a writer. –Maureen O’Toople in the short story “Your Question for Author Here”

Tip: Avoid indirect negatives. For instance: He wasn’t very nice to us. Vs. He was rude to us. (The second one is better.)

Jumpstart: “The only way to keep a secret between two people is if one of them is dead,” she said as she pulled a gun from her pocket…