Despite ongoing debates, funding and pedagogical initiatives, why do many children and adults continue to miss out on learning literacy? Might it be that we have given too little attention to a vital determinant in the learning process? This book introduces the concept of learning care - the emotional and affective attitudes and actions at home, school and in wider society, that support and encourage learning.

American writer Samuel Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain has given us some literary gems with Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and his travel adventures in nineteenth-century Europe and to Australia and New Zealand. In this book, Twain discusses the art of telling--as opposed to writing--a story. Humour, Twain says, is American while comic is English and witty is French. He follows this typically brilliant essay with examples of story telling and some intriguing experiences of mental telegraphy. Mark Twain devotees will want to add this slim volume to their collection.

HOW TO WRITE YOUR MEMOIRS A WORKBOOK AND GUIDE by JOHNNY RAY Award Winning Novelist And Professional Memoir Ghostwriter Do you have a legacy that needs to be preserved? Would you like to see your life told in the form of a novel? Or made into a movie? Making you both rich and Famous What words of wisdom do you want to leave for your family? Would you like to have your life's work validated? Or the record set straight? In Reality When will you write your memoirs? Tomorrow, or the next or . . . Written by master storyteller JOHNNY RAY this guide and workbook will lead you through the process of telling the story that must be told and can only be told by you. A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF WHAT YOU WILL RECEIVE 1) An introduction to what is a memoir 2) How to get started 3) How to recall the memories that make up the pages of your life 4) Determining the main turning points in your life 5) How to stay focused on the main story 6) Deciding which characters to include or exclude 7) Doing research and fact checking 8) Determining the author's voice and point of view 9) Determining if the book should be factual or fiction 10) Determining the driving purpose behind writing the memoir 11) Determining who the intended reader is 12) Determining how open the author wishes to be 13) Showing versus telling 14) How to polish the memoir 15) How to find an agent or publisher 16) Other methods of getting published 17) How to hire a ghostwriter 18) A list of questions a ghostwriter will usually ask This guide and workbook will lead you through the steps to create your own memoir. A ghostwriter can cost you as much as $500 for even a short story type memoir to over $100,000 for a full length memoir. The consulting fee alone can run to as much as $500 per hour. This guide will save you money as it shows you how to develop and write your own memoir. if you decide you do need to hire a ghostwriter later the instructions enclosed in the guide and workbook should decrease the cost of hiring a ghostwriter by lowering the amount of time the ghostwriter has to spend in developing the story, saving you thousands of dollars.

"Works on Paper" is a selection by one of today's leading biographers from his lectures, essays, and reviews written over the last quarter of a century--mainly on the craft of biography and autobiography, but also covering what Michael Holroyd describes as his "enthusiasms and alibis."
Opening with a startling attack on biography, which is answered by two essays on the ethics and values of non-fiction writing, the book goes on to examine the work of several contemporary biographers, the place of biography in fiction and of fiction in biography, and the revelations of some extravagant autobiographers, from Osbert Sitwell to Quentin Crisp--to which he adds some adventures of his own, in particular an important and unpublished piece The Making of GBS, a riveting story of internecine literary warfare.
The book ends with a series of satires, celebrations, apologias and polemics which throw light not only on Michael Holroyd's progress as a biographer, but also his record as an embattled campaigner in the field of present-day literary politics.

Writing and selling nonfiction magazine articles for children and teenagers can be rewarding and lucrative. The tools of the trade I discuss in this book will enable you to snare article assignments and sell articles whether or not you have been published. If you are not a published writer, writing nonfiction for children and teens is an accessible and ideal method of breaking into print. It also provides a reliable, ongoing source of assignments and markets for experienced, widely published authors. Children and teen magazine editors are hungry for well-researched, well-written nonfiction, and the chances of selling magazine nonfiction are far greater than those of selling fiction. Selling nonfiction magazine articles is also far easier than selling nonfiction or fiction books. The fact that most magazines are published monthly gives magazine editors a greater ongoing need for new material. The need for children's magazine nonfiction one of the best kept secrets in the trade. At the risk of divulging well-kept secrets and tips for succeeding in this market, I've written this book to provide a comprehensive guide to planning, researching, writing, and marketing magazine nonfiction for children and teens. There are books out there on writing nonfiction in general and on magazine nonfiction in general, but they offer limited insight into the specifics of writing and selling articles for children and teens. This book will give you the specifics you need to get started in a richly fulfilling and financially rewarding full- or part-time career. Welcome to the exciting world of children's nonfiction articles, and enjoy the journey towards success as you explore this Treasure Trove of Opportunity.

This is a practical book. By the time you finish reading it, you will have all the tools you need to write convincing, compelling, and beautiful poetry. Whether someone has asked you to come up with a poem for a special occasion, or you have suddenly been struck by an intense emotion and are looking for a way to articulate it, or you want to express love to your sweetheart on Valentine's day, "How to Write a Poem: A Beginner's Guide" provides all the necessary techniques to enable your poem to be a success.

The Children's Writer's Guide examines how you can get started as a writer, create time and space to pursue your craft and deal with lack of motivation and writers block. Topics covered include where ideas come from and how writers turn them into stories, choosing names for characters that are appropriate to the story, the importance of historical research if your novel is set in a different era, writing science fiction and fantasy, and the use of magic in stories for children. The author examines the role of editing and revision and how to deal with what is often the inevitable process of rejection, at least until good fortune comes your way. The author also recounts some of his experiences with marketing and promotion, such as book launches and in-store signings, websites, blogs, and social media, and discusses presentations, workshops and author-in-residence programs at schools and libraries.

The Elements of Style is a prescriptive American English writing style guide comprising eight "elementary rules of usage," ten "elementary principles of composition," "a few matters of form," a list of forty-nine "words and expressions commonly misused," and a list of fifty-seven "words often misspelled." In 2011, Time magazine listed the writing style-guide as one of the 100 best and most influential books written in English since 1923. Cornell University professor of English William Strunk, Jr., wrote The Elements of Style in 1918, and privately published it in 1919, for in-house use at the university. In The Elements of Style (1918), as a professor of English, William Strunk concentrated on specific questions of usage-and the cultivation of good writing-with the recommendation "Make every word tell"; hence, the 17th principle of composition is the simple instruction: "Omit needless words."

Included in this issue: Shift Happens: The Discourse Shift and Its Implications for Society Sara Mohler, Ursinus College (Collegeville, Pennsylvania) What the Hack?: Communication Dysfunction in Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 Jacqueline Boualavong, Honors College, Towson University (Towson, Maryland) Disobedience, Generational Gaps, and Warren's Court in Andrea Lee's Sarah Phillips Nathan Dize, University of Maryland (College Park, Maryland) Grimm Lessons: Animals and a Child's Vicarious Landscape Christina Elaine Miles, Stevenson University (Stevenson, Maryland) The Shifting Gaze in Stephen Crane's "The Monster" Abigail Wagner, Loyola University Maryland (Baltimore, Maryland) Nausica, Miyazaki's Great Heroine Kelly Thompson, Howard Community College (Columbia, Maryland) Les Morceaux de ma M re (Bits and Pieces of My Mother) Sophia Laurenne Altenor, Goucher College (Towson, Maryland) Tolstoy: An Incomplete Conversion Diana Walsh, University of Baltimore (Baltimore, Maryland)

DO YOU HAVE A BOOK IDEA but just don't what to do next to get those ideas into a book format? Are you are a Blogger desiring to turn your blog into a book? Maybe you are a Speaker, Pastor, or Teacher and desire to turn your recorded presentations into books. This 2nd edition contains additional valuable information on writing fiction and developing your fictional characters, as well as writing in the areas of non-fiction, romance/relationship and vacation/travel. Also included is information on the business of being an author, presenting better media interviews and much more. "Write Your First Book" is written to assist anyone who is interested in writing a book, either for fun or for money. It provides both practical and insightful information. "Write Your First Book, by Peter Biadasz is an excellent book for aspiring authors. The book is filled with informative, reader friendly information presented clearly and enthusiastically." L.R. - Author

The Complete Writer's Guide to Heroes and Heroines reveals the sixteen literary archetypes that have starred in fiction for millennia. This resource offers the building blocks for the creation of memorable characters who will reach out and grab the hearts of readers. Review An invaluable resource for writers working in any genre.... -- Prof. Richard Walter, Screenwriting Chairman, UCLA Dept. of Film and Television, letter to author, 5/4/00 Finally Fiction Archetypes made easy. . . . Stuffed with examples and cleverly organized, this book] earned a spot on my crowded bookshelf. -- Debra Dixon, author GMC: Goal, Motivation & Conflict, 1996; and Sweet Tea and Jesus Shoes, 2000; email to authors 4/00 The Complete Writers Guide to Heroes and Heroines takes the mystery out of creating compelling and memorable characters. Every writer should own a copy. -- Deb Stover, award winning author of nine time travel and historical romances, email to authors. 4/00 The authors have developed a clear and usable system for creating memorable characters. -- Kevin J. Anderson, best-selling co-author of Dune: House Atreides, email to author, 5/25/00.

Wretched writing is the lowest of the low; it is a felonious assault on the English language. Exuberantly excessive, it is a sin committed often by amateurs and all-too-frequently by gifted writers having an off day. In short, it's very bad writing. Truly bad. Appallingly bad.
It's also very funny.
A celebration of the worst writing imaginable, "Wretched Writing "includes inadvertently filthy book titles, ridiculously overwrought passages from novels, bombastic and confusing speeches, moronic oxymorons, hyperactive hyperbole, horribly inappropriate imagery in ostensibly hot sex scenes, mangled cliches, muddled metaphors, and unintended double entendres.
Sit back and enjoy these deliciously dreadful samples, and try not to cringe too much.

Crafting likable, interesting characters is a balancing act, and finding that perfect mix of strengths and weaknesses can be difficult. But the task has become easier thanks to The Negative Trait Thesaurus. Through its flaw-centric exploration of character arc, motivation, emotional wounds, and basic needs, writers will learn which flaws make the most sense for their heroes, villains, and other members of the story's cast. This book's vast collection of flaws will help writers to explore the possible causes, attitudes, behaviors, thoughts, and related emotions behind their characters' weaknesses so they can be written effectively and realistically. Common characterization pitfalls and methods to avoid them are also included, along with invaluable downloadable tools to aid in character creation. Written in list format and fully indexed, this brainstorming resource is perfect for creating deep, flawed characters that readers will relate to.

Free Verse Editions Series Editor: Jon Thompson The poems of THE FOREVER NOTES are canny and lyrical and never a word too long. Many are song-like, repeating the things that are most important to them over and over to make them stay: "You and the trees/ Trees and the night around you." Others tell small stories, utterly clear line by line but elusive, almost elegiac, in their slides of feeling and shifts of thought. They feel like a life you must have lived but can't quite remember, like a dream you try to tell even as it fades behind you. Ethel Rackin's wistful and whimsical "Notes" and "Pictures" and "Songs" are brief glances and glancing blows, each so understated and tantalizing that it seems to call for another and another, until without quite realizing it you've read the book straight through. -JAMES RICHARDSON Plato wrote in the Timaeus of time as the moving image of eternity. In Ethel Rackin's THE FOREVER NOTES each of these terms finds resonance: the fleeting objects of the world are moving, and persons moved; her lyric syntax builds pictures that dissolve into song and then turn back to image again; the eternal endures in its endless transformations. "Leaves are for changing" she observes-an insight just as true of the leaves of her book. -SUSAN STEWART Ethel Rackin's lyrical sound bites have a mysterious hold. In them, the visual and the aural are inextricably linked. "Adrift in internal music," is how she puts it. Her notes are notations that produce pictures of the real world, but those notes also create songs. "Each object has a title," says Rackin; her poems demonstrate that each object has musical depth, too. The result is beautiful: "A song that reaches as far as an eye can see." -DAVID TRINIDAD Everyone should read this book because it is so effective and unique. The book will make you ache, whether or not you're an artist. It will intrigue you. Its objects-trees, chocolate, wheelbarrows, a ship on the sea, nightgowns, rug samples, a garden, a femur bone, cookies, a blind bird, curbs, scotch - have a relationship with the speaker and with us that is personal, moving, isolated, lonely, and longing. In a shattered world we recognize as very close to ours and also see as an exotic destination, there is a song overall as if we were hearing it in a woods, or on the ocean, or in a city, hearing it from somewhere and compelled to find it. It's this new, essential poet. -ARTHUR VOGELSANG ETHEL RACKIN was born in Philadelphia. Her work has appeared in The American Poetry Review, Colorado Review, Court Green, Evergreen Review, Poetry East, Volt, and elsewhere. She earned her MFA from Bard College and her PhD in English Literature from Princeton University. She has taught at Penn State Brandywine, Haverford College, and Bucks County Community College in Pennsylvania, where she is currently an assistant professor.