68th BREAKFAST WITH THE AUTHORS, Santa Barbara, CA, Pajama Party Zoom Edition

Screen shot of authors and participants at the Santa Barbara 68th Breakfast with the Authors

On Saturday, November 14, I and eighteen other authors participated in the first ever Zoom Breakfast With the Authors in Santa Barbara. There were two sessions. The first was a set of three 20 minute workshops, with authors and illustrators sharing tips with participants. In my session, I worked with students to create a pyramid poem inspired by a photo of an animal. This is a writing project I have often done as a writer's workshop when I do author visits at schools. Using a photo of a mother bear and her cubs as our inspiration, we created the following poem:

Bear

Mother bear

Mother brown bear 

Mother brown bear drinks slowly

Mother brown bear drinks slowly in Alaska.

Mother brown bear looks like a vacuum cleaner as she drinks slowly in Alaska.

If I were a brown bear I would eat all the fish in the river.

In the second half of the mornng, I and each author gave a 3 minute presentation, followed by an informal question and answer session in small groups.

Many thanks to Scott Spector, Rachel Lawton, Matt Zuchowicz and Fred Borchers at the Santa Barbara County Office of Education for organizing the event!