Marcia Thornton Jones's Blog, page 46
July 8, 2022
MY BELOVED PEN -- by Jane Kelley
What does it mean to write? I’m not talking about the implications of crafting stories to inspire or inform or amuse. I mean to make words show up on what was originally a blank space. In order to WRITE, an idea somewhere in my brain acquires language. Then a different part of my brain sends a signal along my nerves to my fingers. They tap the keys of this laptop. And then – by an even more mysterious process – those keys signal the word-processing program and letters appear on the screen. These words seem professional. They are tidy. They are uniformly shaped. My bad spelling has been magically corrected. My lines are straight. I appreciate all this help in making my ideas look good, no matter how incomplete.
Writing is different when I use my cartridge pen. The line from my brain down my arm to the ink feels continuous – almost as if my blood were being spilled on the paper. All my first drafts are written in that way. So are my notes on my projects, my comments, my maps of fictional places, and my emotings.
This method has drawbacks. Penmanship is a problem. There are times when I cannot read my writing. I'm not exaggerating. I cannot. So I think of something better.
The pen will run out of ink at the worst of all possible moments. Sometimes when my brain is struggling with a thought, I watch the words grow fainter and fainter – a literal manifestation of what’s happening in my brain. I insert a new cartridge. I return to the page – the sentence broken – and I can’t remember what I was trying to write. So I think of something better.
Or the smears – the blots, the blobs, the times when I pressed too hard on the poor nib and something illegible gushed onto the page. Or when I have neglected my pen. Been busy. Been typing not writing. If I pick it up after a long absence, nothing flows. Dried up inside. So I take it apart. I flush it with water. I put in a new cartridge. I start to write. At first, the words are pale. Watery. Eventually the ink is flowing as it should. Because I have thought of something better.
I love my pen. It forces me to think. To take my time. It enables my words to be more than a string of discrete letters. I would never for a moment think of writing with anything else. Except maybe this?
Miraculous Writing Machine made by Friedrich von Knaus 1760Jane Kelley writes middle-grade novels in notebooks with a cartridge pen.
@font-face {font-family:"Cambria Math"; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}@font-face {font-family:Calibri; panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}p.Prose, li.Prose, div.Prose {mso-style-name:Prose; mso-style-unhide:no; margin:0cm; text-indent:36.0pt; line-height:200%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}.MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;}
July 7, 2022
Crafting Middle Grade Mysteries (Melanie Conklin)
When I started writing middle grade, I didn’t set out to write mysteries. I just enjoy books that keep me guessing. I always have, ever since I was a child. Straight-forward stories didn’t fascinate me as much as the ones that surprised me. I was (and still am) a little know-it-all, so even at age eight, I was captivated by intellect and absolutely adored it when an author fooled me so well that I was stunned by the outcome of the story. Fool me once, and you had my respect. Fool me twice, and I was a fan for life.
One of my favorite series of all time was Alfred Hitchcock’s THE THREE INVESTIGATORS. I showed up dutifully at the library every week hoping for a new story, despite the fact that Alfred Hitchcock had passed away in 1980. Those were pre-internet days, and I had no idea there would be no further books, but that didn’t keep me from re-reading the ones that existed over and over again. I loved that the three boys worked as a team. I loved the plot twists. The sometimes-scary settings and stakes. The way the boys subverted the adults in their lives to figure things out, and their awesome junk-yard style clubhouse. Those books had my entire heart, and I still remember the plot to many of them.
I think there’s a very specific connection to mystery for younger readers. Children are in the process of slowly discovering the reality of the world around them. As adults, we’ve seen a lot. It’s harder to surprise us. For middle schoolers, the entire adult world is a mystery—one they are slowly pulling back the veil on, bit by bit.
If you’re an avid mystery reader, you might recognize that reference to what I think is arguably the best middle grade mystery ever: Rebecca Stead’s WHEN YOU REACH ME. In that story, a girl named Miranda is trying to figure out the source of a series of mysterious notes. Each message references something that no one in Miranda’s life could possibly know, which is both terrifying and captivating to her. The novel is slim, the chapters compact, and the twist? It’s the best one I’ve ever read. If you haven’t read it, do so ASAP! And no spoilers.
As an author, I aspire to surprise my readers as much as possible. I think that’s why my books keep getting more and more mysterious. All stories have a mystery thread to them, but in my stories, the external plot tends to revolve around a central mystery—though the reveals often turn out to be more a matter of perspective than science fiction. If you’re looking at a cylinder from the side, it appears to be a rectangle. As soon as you turn it, the truth is revealed, changing your previous preconceptions about the rectangle you saw.
That’s how a good mystery works, too. You show the reader a world through a specific point of view, and the reader forms assumptions about that world. All it takes is a well-timed reveal to turn those assumptions on their head. And voila! The reader is surprised.
Seeing as middle grade readers are literally re-forming their view of the known world every day, they are the perfect audience for surprising reveals. Children have an innocent gaze. They are just learning about deception. They may be new to the idea that adults have flaws, and that not every adult can be trusted. Middle grade gives us a very special space to explore those themes and show young readers all the ways human beings can surprise us. Sometimes those surprises are good and sometimes they are bad, but they’re always captivating to a young person searching for answers about how the world works.
Mysteries revolve around the notion of truth. Young people crave truth and certainty. They need these building blocks to create a foundation for their understanding of the world, and they are constantly seeking truth in the world around them.
In fiction, the most practical way to create a compelling mystery is to take a rather obvious truth and hide it. This is what happens in the real world, after all. Truths get clouded and buried and misconstrued and stolen. Humans have battled over the ownership of truth since the dawn of time, and I imagine we’ll go out arguing about what’s true as well. If you’re honest about the way people sometimes obfuscate the truth, mysteries almost write themselves. Humans make reliably terrible choices, but we also band together in times of trouble, take risks, think critically, and do our best to uncover the truth, no matter how deeply hidden.
For today’s mystery writers for young readers, my core guidance is to always, always tell the truth. A mystery that rings true, no matter how surprising, is a story that readers will hold in their hearts. They will come back to it again and again, because it’s so satisfying when we figure something out. Answers are the whole point of existence. We’re here to learn as much as we can before we go.
As I approach the release of my latest middle grade mystery, A PERFECT MISTAKE, I’m crossing my fingers that I’ll have a lot of readers fooled, but whether I manage to surprise them or not, hopefully by the end of the story, they’ll feel a little more certain about the world and their place in it.
~
A Perfect Mistake is available July 12.
Visit Melanie Conklin online, or follow on Twitter: @MLConklin
July 3, 2022
A Message from Your Pencil (poem)
This month we're talking about our favorite office supplies.
Goodness, there are so many I love: index cards, paper clips, journals journals journals!
"junk" journal where I keepVery. Important. Thoughts.
And what about post-it notes?? I use them everywhere and for EVERYTHING!
a post-it vision board (of sorts)for a wip!
But the one office supply that has most captured my imagination is the pencil. Please enjoy this poem with a (simple) message. Pencil thanks you for reading. :)
%20Message%20from%20Your%20Pencil.jpg)
--
Irene Latham is a grateful creator of many novels, poetry collections, and picture books, including the coauthored Can I Touch Your Hair?: Poems of Race, Mistakes, and Friendship, which earned a Charlotte Huck Honor, and The Cat Man of Aleppo, which won a Caldecott Honor. Irene lives on a lake in rural Alabama.July 2, 2022
The Idiosyncratic Office
The Idiosyncratic Office
This month, we’re delving into the issue of office supplies and how they affect our writing. So I looked around my generally messy desk to see what I might want to write about.
The first thing that came to mind was my computer. Unlike most people I know, I don’t have a laptop. Instead, I have a 10-year-old desktop computer, an Apple iMac. I love my computer, even though it can be recalcitrant.
For example, let’s say I want to add some photos to a blog post. Occasionally, my computer actually obeys and provides me with the downloaded photo within seconds. But most of the time, it takes several minutes for the photo to appear among my downloads, where it belongs, as I stare, increasingly frustrated, at the colorful beachball circling around and around and around.
Why not get a new computer? After a decade, surely it would make sense. Or, as many people have suggested, get a laptop? So portable! So easy to use! You can take it to Starbucks and write there! You can take it on a trip!
But I’m a creature of habit. A creature of habit with annoyingly finicky eyesight. And this computer is set up exactly how I want it. No eyestrain. No glare. No problems in that regard.
Which brings us to the next item on my desk that affects my writing. Multiple pairs of glasses! First, there are my regular glasses, the ones I wear most of the time. Driving. Eating. Getting on Zoom. But there are lots of reading glasses too! Mild ones for working on the computer (I have those on right now). Medium-level ones for surveying papers and other documents. And then the heavy-duty ones, for irritatingly small print. I’m using those more and more.
And then there’s the elderly battery-powered radio. There are two stations I listen to: the news, on NPR, my backdrop as I work. (Yes, I could listen on my computer, but then the computer slows down even more than it ordinarily would!) And the sports station, so I can run away from the news and listen to the Washington Nationals. They’re so bad right now that it’s not very comforting, but it’s just a game, right?
I could go on, but I think I’ve said enough. Now I’ll switch glasses and do some laundry.
--Deborah Kalb
@font-face {font-family:"Cambria Math"; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}@font-face {font-family:Calibri; panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:16.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;}.MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; font-size:16.0pt; mso-ansi-font-size:16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;}div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;}
June 29, 2022
Stop Slumping!
by Charlotte Bennardo
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio/PexelsWe've all been there; a slump in writing, reading, motivation, whatever. For an author a slump can be bad for business, career, and morale. It's easy for people to say, "Oh, you'll be better tomorrow", "You'll think of something", or, "Think of something happy."
That usually doesn't help. It's like telling a person dealing with depression to "Cheer up." It's not only patronizing but could make the person feel worse. If it were as simple as someone saying "Cheer up" then there'd be a lot of doctors and therapists out of work.
If only it was that simple. A lot of authors' careers might have been longer.
So what should an author do?
I have several mechanisms for getting out of a slump. The first is for me to step away. Sitting at a desk trying to force the muse doesn't work. If she's not in the mood to converse and share her creativity, I'll just have to wait her out. Or trick her.
There's nothing like yanking out weeds as I ponder, 'How long should I make him suffer?' or 'Should I take everything away from her?' I gleefully envision pitfalls and perils while pulling bits of clover out by their roots. After an hour or two, I have at least two ideas how to proceed. Of course, if it's midwinter, that's not possible. My next go to- clean like a madwoman. Cleaning out closets or sliding furniture away from the wall to vacuum underneath is mindless. When doing something by rote, my imagination is free to wander. 'What would I do in this character's position?' 'Suppose they never did this?' What if... opens up so many alternate courses for my characters.
Those are two of my avenues for getting out of slump. I have others; riding my bike for a few miles, going on a hike, reading another author's book, or even re-reading my draft from the very beginning. Sometimes I'll ask fellow authors what they suggest.
There are times when even those actions don't work. It may take a few days away from the desk, computer, sentences.
But no more than a week goes by and I find I'm itching to get back to work.
What helps you get through a slump?
Share your secrets!
Charlotte writes MG, YA, NA, and adult novels in sci fi, fantasy, contemporary, and paranormal genres. She is the author of the middle grade Evolution Revolution trilogy, Simple Machines, Simple Plans, and Simple Lessons. She co-authored the YA novels Blonde OPS, Sirenz, and Sirenz Back in Fashion. She has two short stories in the Beware the Little White Rabbit (Alice through the Wormhole) and Scare Me to Sleep (Faces in the Wood) anthologies. Currently she is working on several novels for both children and adults and her MFA. She lives in NJ with her family and two demanding cats. When they trimmed the backyard tree, the crazy squirrel couple had to move out.
June 24, 2022
Writing about the Holocaust for Kids--with an Auschwitz Survivor (Guest Post by Danica Davidson, Author of I Will Protect You)
Eva Kor was elementary school aged when she survived the Nazi death camp Auschwitz as one of the twins a doctor there used for medical experiments. Later, as an adult, she became an educator on the Holocaust. When I met her in 2018 and she discovered I’d written and published 16 children’s books, she exclaimed that she wanted to do a kid’s book about her story.
I’d gone to see Eva speak at a college after experiencing and noticing an increase in antisemitism, starting in 2015. Eva was also grimly aware of this reality, and she told me passionately that the only way we can stop antisemitism — and other forms of hate, for that matter — is to reach kids in an accessible way. Since she was a child who had survived a death camp, this was an extremely rare opportunity to tell a true story about the heart of the Holocaust from a real child’s point-of-view.
Eva complained that Holocaust education in America, if it happens at all in schools, happens at age 12 or later. And then, she said, it’s too late, because the prejudices have already formed. She also talked about how smart kids are, and how so many adults ignore this fact and try to keep kids in the dark.
I knew about the Holocaust since elementary school. How could I not, when members of my own family were murdered? I grew up thinking all kids knew details of the Holocaust, but as time has gone on and surveys have shown a woeful lack of knowledge on the Holocaust, I’ve realized how wrong I was.
Eva Mozes Kor
We began talking about ages, and how to write this book. Eva made it clear to me our book could not be sugarcoated, because sugarcoating or omitting important details of the Holocaust give people a false impression and make them think it’s not as bad as it was. It didn’t need to be graphic detail, but she wanted kids to know the realities, including the Final Solution.
“I think the youngest you can go for those sorts of details would be eight,” I said after thinking about what I had known about the Holocaust and had understood at different ages. I wasn’t sure how to write those details for younger than eight.
She thought about this for a while, then called me up and said she agreed. A little later, she told me she wanted the book to be for ages eight through twelve.
I couldn’t stop smiling when I heard that, because I’d published 16 books, and most of them were in this age range. In other words, I felt very comfortable writing in this voice.
“That’s called middle grade,” I told her.
“Middle grade,” Eva mused to herself, as if trying out the term. It seemed a little foreign to her, but also as if she liked the sound of it.
We threw ourselves into work. After interviewing Eva and telling her ideas I had, I began writing the book and emailing her chapters at a time. I tell the details of the Holocaust the way my father taught me in elementary school — with simplified language, enough straightforward context for them to understand, without sugarcoating details but also without going into nitty gritty detail on everything. Also, because it is a middle grade book, I didn’t end it right after the Holocaust, but ended it years later when Eva found healing as an adult. Eva hoped our book could help abused kids find healing, and know that you can heal after trauma.
Danica Davidson
Our book, I Will Protect You, was finished in early 2019, and Eva and I accepted Little, Brown’s offer for it in June 2019. Fifteen days later, Eva passed away unexpectedly while on an education trip to Auschwitz, knowing our book would be published, but not here to see it actually happen.
Grab a copy of I Will Protect You or add it to your shelves on Goodreads.
June 23, 2022
Something I’ve Never Heard a Kid Say. Smack Dab in the Imagination by Dia Calhoun
What I’ve heard kids say:
I hate math.
I hate P.E.
I hate art class.
I hate writing stories.
Often this is followed by:
It’s too hard.
Or,
I don’t know how.
Have you ever heard a kid say,
I hate my imagination?
I’ve never heard anyone say that.
Imagine why not.
June 16, 2022
Life Slump?
At Smack-Dab, we're talking about slumps this month. There are all kinds of slumps you can have. Reading slump? Nah, I'm doing alright there. I read all the time and listen to audiobooks when I drive or walk. (Although I am 13 books behind on my Goodreads goal! Gasp!) But gosh, the rest of my life feels like one big slump.
I shouldn't feel that way. It's summer, when I don't have to work and have lots of free time. It's been warm and windy. My garden is all planted. I've built a temporary fence around it to protect it from the neighbors' two rowdy puppies and mine as well. I've staked up the raspberries, even built chicken tunnels so my chickens can free-range a bit and be safe from the afore-mentioned puppies. Since my brother and his wife are visiting from New Zealand, my house is pretty clean inside. But all I seem to be able to focus on are the things I'm not getting done, the areas where I'm failing. The 16-year old who needs to go to summer school but is refusing to. The 13-year old who needs some guidance in developing self-control and self-reliance. The 30 extra pounds I'm packing around that's leading me to have foot problems. The long list of projects awaiting me. In fact, before my summer vacation even started I found myself pre-emptively stressing out over all the things I know I'm not going to get done.
And writing? Well, I'm writing this. And I'm thinking a lot about writing. But I'm doing very little actual writing. I have this mindset that I can only write first thing in the morning, and in the summer, that doesn't work for me, because it's also the time when I walk the dogs. When it comes to writing, I need to be more flexible and willing to write at other times of the day.
But what's to be done about slumps in general? How do you get out of the slump and back in the groove? It's a very simple, if not foolproof solution, but I find lists to be a great way to organize my thoughts and prioritize projects. Here are some big lists I have posted on the laundry room wall for the whole family to see. I also keep smaller lists on my phone where I keep track of short-term to-do items. As a visual person, these help me to see the big picture, and I get great satisfaction out of checking the box or crossing the item off the list.But I think the most important thing I, and you, can do, is to accept that you won't get everything done. It's simply impossible. Also, please, leave some time for yourself, and time for fun. Step away from say, reorganizing the attic, and go have a cocktail with a friend. Choose to go for a hike or to the public garden rather than cleaning the house. If it's sunny out, take the kids to the lake instead of grocery shopping.
Remember, slumps are temporary. Those books we want to read, those stories we want to write, even those attics we want to organize, well, they're not going anywhere. They will be waiting for us when we find ourselves in a better place mentally. I always try to be kind and gentle to others, and I'm sure you, dear reader, are no different. Let us not forget to be kind and gentle with ourselves too. Enjoy the summer!
June 15, 2022
It's Possible
It was bound to happen. My old computer burned out. (Translation: I wore it out.)
Got a new computer, and Personal Computer Wizard set it up. I started working on my draft. (Translation: 180 pages of revisions.)
Except new computer has all these buttons. Newfangled whatsit buttons with squiggles and wiggles and loopy designs. But I’m trying to finish this revision. I’m happily working along with these revisions, scene shifts, chapter realignments, line-edits, thinking I’m ahead of the game. (Foreshadow: You just know what’s coming.)
Yep. I forgot to push a squiggle to save. I lost 80 pages of line edits. The situation is all the more dire because I tend to handwrite everything. Notes on scene changes, contexts, line-edits. And I had already thrown away my handwritten notes and previous printouts.
Y ep. Loudest beslubbering hell-hated rude-growing PoopIt ever!
So, I dug my notes out of the stinky garbage, except apparently the garbage pick-up is more efficient than I am. Most of my notes had already gone to trash haven. So. What. Do. I. Do. Now.
Where do I begin?
The topic for this round of blogposts is Looking for Motivation. Every writer without exception, no matter where they are in their careers, faces those days when their motivation wanes. In looking for inspiration, it becomes easy for a writer to lose themselves in the thousands of books and articles that offers writerly advice.
Nick DiLallo offers an interesting take in his article, The Best Writing Advice I Ever Ignored, in which he “devoured and internalized every piece of writing advice available. Every tip, trick, tidbit, factoid, and helpful hint. Every “do” and every “don’t…None of it has made me a better writer.” Do whatever works for you, he concludes.
Hannah Mary McKinnon, at Curtis Brown, highlights TenAuthors Share Their Best Writing Advice offers that, “Most authors will tell you; writing is hard. It’s a solitary occupation, often filled with self-doubt and trepidation. Hours are spent drafting, editing and polishing before feedback arrives and you start all over again.” She wondered what tips her author friends – including Samantha M. Bailey, author of Woman on the Edge; Kimberly Belle, author of The Marriage Lie, Dear Wife and Stranger in the Lake; and, Laurie Petrou, author of Sister or Mine and Love, Heather, among others—might offer. It turns out, there’s no one-size-fits-all strategy.
Tim Denning at Writing Cooperative offers “The Best WritingAdvice I’ve Ever Been Given” from one of the most underrated writers in the world.” As he states, “Good writing advice is hard to find. Most writing advice I read doesn’t help me write better. The writing tips are turds clogging up my brain. I desperately want to write better. My grammar skills need work. I need to expand my vocabulary. I need to get better at getting to the point.” His ultimate discovery: “Simplicity does a lot more for a reader’s brain than writers care to admit. Simplicity drains less of a reader’s energy.” In other words, keep it simple.
Perhaps the very best writing advice I’ve read comes from Shaunta Grimes article, “The Best Writing Advice Ever.” She remembers that as “an 11-year-old sixth grader sitting in the auditorium…I was just one little girl in a sea of thousands over the decades.” The speaker that day was the indomitable Tomie dePaola. “He advised me that regular people write books” she states. “The best writing advice I’ve ever had was just that it’s possible.”
It's possible.
Like getting back to this revision.
-- Bobbi Miller
June 14, 2022
Battling Reading Slumps :) By: Jennifer Mitchell
For me reading slumps are very real. When I find a book I like I usually can’t put it down, but when I finish it I struggle at times to get the same energy finding a new book. When I was growing up I don’t think my teachers ever gave students “permission” to abandon books, so that meant once you picked it you struggled through until the end. So at times as an adult I revert back to that habit, and that slows my reading down. As a teacher, I try to impress upon my students that there are so many book choices that you should only stick with a book if it is something you are excited to pick up.
Even though reading at school wasn’t always riveting, I was lucky enough to have a mom that took me to the library frequently and relatives that would give me books as presents, and that truly was a gift! One of my favorite book series growing up was Anne of Green Gables, and that was gifted to me on one of my birthdays. I spent the summer with my head stuck in the books living in Avonlea. That was not a series I would have probably ever tried had it not been given to me . As a teacher, I really try to read a variety of books for read- aloud so that hopefully one of the genres I pick excites a kid enough to want to read more on their own
As an adult when I am in a slump I try to use my circle of friends who read frequently for suggestions. I also like to use Goodreads when I am trying to find new things too. I have found, to change things up, that I like to read children’s books in the summer so that I can bring new books to light for my students in the fall. I am also lucky enough to still get books as gifts, my daughter has started giving me books for occasions, and I love being gifted books that I might not have researched and picked out on my own. Finally, you can never underestimate the power of taking a stroll through your local library, I always come out with more books than I can possibly read. There is just something about picking up books and reading about them that gets me excited to read!
My latest summer read :)Jennifer Mitchell 2nd/ 3rd grade lopping teacher in the Kansas City area :)
