What Is a Friend?

Well, dear blog friends,  Here I am again, rather embarrassed and apologetic for abandoning my blog for SO long! Since my last post months ago, I retired from my university teaching (yippee) and am making the transition to more travel and family time, but still working on tons of poetry projects! I may not be blogging as much, but I am reluctant to "retire" the blog entirely-- especially my "sneak peek" list. So, please be patient with me and I'll try to keep rolling! Meanwhile, I continue to collaborate with the amazing Janet Wong in our PomeloBooks.com venture in creating poetry projects. This year, we've focused on building the poetry community and nurturing new and emerging poets into the world of publishing poetry anthologies and collections. Our first three ventures were alphabet poetry collections organized along a theme: Things We Do, Things We Eat, and Things We Feel. (We're working on Things We Wear right now!) Those are full-color collections for our youngest poetry fans, ages 1-8.  That led us to expand our focus to create poetry collections for older kids, ages 8-12 (and up). Our first venture for that tween reader is out today: What Is a Friend? This is an anthology of ekphrastic poems written to a black-and-white photo prompt-- all related to the theme of friendship. Backwater includes Ways to Share Poems with a Friend, Poetry Books About Friendship, Ekphrastic Poetry Books, Poets Write about Writing, Kinds of Poems, and Web Resources.  We are so pleased to have a wonderful variety of very talented new and established poets featured in this book: All profits from the sale of this book benefit the IBBY Children in Crisis Fund.  The IBBY Children in Crisis Fund provides support for children whose lives have been disrupted through war, civil disorder, or natural disaster. The program gives immediate support and help — and also aims for long-term community impact, aligning with IBBY's goal of giving every child the right to become a reader. For more info:  ibby.org/awards-activities/ibby-children-in-crisis-fund  To donate:  usbby.org/donate.html We're also excited that What Is a Friend? has been selected as a "Hot Off the Press" book for October by Children's Book Press. Check it out here! Janet and I use Zoom to meet with our poets, share information, answer questions, and celebrate together. Here's one pic of our group celebrating each of their poems in What Is a Friend? Enjoy!  It's Poetry Friday too, so head on over to Sarah Grace's place where she is gathering us all together!