Category: Uncategorized

Hi there – and welcome to the World Read Aloud Day author Skype volunteer list for 2017!

If you’re new to this blog, I’m Kate Messner, and I write books like these:

Kate Messner
Bloomsbury/Candlewick/Chronicle/Scholastic
Elementary & Middle School
9am-11am EST
www.katemessner.com
http://katemessner.com/contact-me/

 

Tricia Springstubb

Candlewick Press; HarperCollins Balzer & Bray

Younger and older elementary grades

9am -4pm EST

www.triciaspringstubb.com

tricia.springstubb@gmail.com

 

Julie Segal Walters
Simon and Schuster
Elementary
9:30-11:30 & 1:00-2:30 ET
http://www.juliesegalwalters.com
julie.segal.walters@gmail.com

 

Anne Marie Pace

Disney-Hyperion, Beach Lane Books, Scholastic, Henry Holt

Elementary (especially primary)

9 a.m. to 2 p.m. EST

http://www.annemariepace.com

annemarie@annemariepace.com

 

Jody Jensen Shaffer

Laura Godwin/Henry Holt Children’s Books

Elementary

10-3pm CST

jodyjensenshaffer.com

jodyjensenshaffer@gmail.com

 

Jarrett Lerner
Simon & Schuster/Aladdin
Elementary
7 am-10pm EST
http://www.jarrettlerner.com
Jarrett.Lerner@gmail.com

 

Monica Carnesi

Penguin Random House

Early Elementary

9 am – 4 pm EST

www.monicacarnesi.com

monicacarnesi@mac.com

 

Jodi Kendall

HarperCollins Children’s Books

Upper Elementary

8am-12noon EST

www.jodikendall.com/contact

 

Stacy McAnulty

Random House Books for Younger Readers and Henry Holt/Macmillan

Elementary School

9AM – 3PM EST

www.stacymcanulty.com

author.stacymcanulty@gmail.com

 

Nanci Turner Steveson
HarperCollins
Upper Elementary & Middle School
7:30am to 1:00pm Mountain Time
www.nanciturnersteveson.com
Auntiebook@gmail.com

 

Emma Otheguy

Lee & Low Books

Elementary

8am-4pm EST

www.emmaotheguy.com

emma.otheguy@gmail.com

 

Erin Teagan

American Girl/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Elementary & Middle School

8-5pm EST

www.erinteagan.com

teaganek@hotmail.com

 

Mary Sullivan
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Elementary
10 am- 3pm CST
http://marysullivan.com/
mary@marysullivan.com

 

Madelyn Rosenberg
Scholastic/Albert Whitman/Holiday House
Elementary/Middle School
8:30 am- 2pm EST
http://madelynrosenberg.com
madelynruth@yahoo.com

 

Susan B. Katz

Scholastic/Random House/Barefoot

Lower Elementary

10-2 PST

www.susankatzbooks.com

Susan@connectingauthors.org

 

Lori Richmond
Simon & Schuster, Scholastic, and more
Elementary
9:30 am – 2:00 pm EST
http://www.loridraws.com/
lori@loridraws.com

 

Deborah Freedman

Viking, Atheneum

Elementary

9 am — 4 pm EST

Please use this form: http://www.deborahfreedman.net/wrad

 

Abby Cooper

Sticks & Stones, Bubbles – FSG/Macmillan

Upper Elementary/Middle School

9 – 3 CST

www.AbbyCooperAuthor.com

AbbyRCooper@gmail.com

 

Caroline Starr Rose

Penguin Random House; Albert Whitman

elementary and middle school

10-2 MST

www.carolinestarrrose.com

carolinestarr@yahoo.com

 

Rebecca Rupp

Candlewick Press

Elementary/Middle

8 AM – 2 PM EST

rebeccarupp@gmail.com

 

Marianne Malone

Random House (and Yearling)

Middle Grade

9am-3pm Pacific Standard Time

www.mariannemalone.com

mariannemalonebooks@gmail.com

 

Mike Mullin

Tanglewood Press

High School

12-6 pm EST

mikemullinauthor.com

mike@mikemullinauthor.com

 

Camille Andros
Clarion/HMHKids
Elementary
8 am- 2pm EST
https://www.camilleandros.com

camdros@gmail.com

 

Dianne White

Beach Lane Books/Simon & Schuster

Younger Elementary

7 a.m. to 2 p.m. MST

http://www.diannewrites.com

dianne@diannewrites.com

 

Beth McMullen

Simon & Schuster

Middle Grade

9:00-3:00 PST

Beth@BethMcMullenBooks.com

www.bethmcmullenbooks.com

 

Caela Carter

Harper

Middle School or Upper Elementary

All day Eastern Standard Time

www.caelacarter.com

caela.carter@gmail.com

 

Dana Alison Levy

Delacorte Press/Random House

Upper Elementary/Middle School

8:30 am -3:00 pm EST

www.danaalisonlevy.com

dana@danaalisonlevy.com

 

Jennifer Swanson
National Geographic Kids 
2nd- 8th grade 
9:30 am- 1pm EST
http://jenniferswansonbooks.com/
Jennifer@JenniferSwansonBooks.com 

 

Carole Estby Dagg

Nancy Paulsen/Penguin Young Readers

Elementary

8:30 a.m.- 4 p.m. Pacific Time

Home – Carole Estby Dagg

carole_dagg@yahoo.com

 

Donna Earnhardt

Flashlight Press

Elementary

8am – 3pm EST

https://wordwranglernc.wordpress.com/

Donnawearnhardt@gmail.com

 

Larissa Theule

Lerner, Abrams, and Bloomsbury

Elementary

9 am – 2 pm PST

ltheule@gmail.com

 

Kara LaReau

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Candlewick Press, and Abrams Kids

Elementary

9am to 2:30 pm EST

https://karalareau.com

https://karalareau.com/contact-info/

 

Carmella Van Vleet

Holiday House / Charlesbridge / Nomad Press

Elementary

9:00 am -2:30 pm EST

www.carmellavanvleet.com

carmellavanvleet@yahoo.com

 

Keely Hutton
Farrar, Straus, Giroux – Macmillan
Middle-High School
8 am- 2pm EST
www.keelyhutton.com

khutton1@rochester.rr.com

 

Jessica Petersen

The Innovation Press

Elementary

10 am – 2 pm PST

https://jessica-petersen.com/

jessica@jessica-petersen.com

 

Karen Romano Young
National Geographic Kids/Chronicle
8 am- 3pm EST

http://www.karenromanoyoung.com

wrenyoung@gmail.com

 

Sarah Sullivan

Candlewick Press

Elementary

8 am – 5 pm EST

www.sarahsullivanbooks.com

sarah@sarahsullivanbooks.com

 

Kerri Kokias

Knopf Books for Young Readers

Elementary

9am-2pm PST

https://www.kerrikokias.com

mail@kerrikokias.com

 

Loree Griffin Burns

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Holt, Lerner

Elementary, Middle

9am to 3:40pm EST

http://loreeburns.com/www.loreeburns.com

loreegriffinburns@yahoo.com

 

Gaia Cornwall

Candlewick Press
PreK-Elementary
9:30pm- 2:30pm EST
GaiaCornwall.com

g.cornwall@gmail.com

 

Jenna Grodzicki
Clear Fork Publishing
Elementary
9am- 3pm EST

www.jennagrodzicki.com

jennagrodz@live.com

 

Katey Howes

Ripple Grove Press, Sterling Children’s Books

Elementary

9am-2:30pm EST

www.kateyhowes.com

howes_kathryn@yahoo.com

 

Nancy Castaldo

Houghton Mifflin/Random House

Elementary/Middle School

9 am- 2 pm EST

nancycastaldo.com

nancycastaldo@nancycastaldo.com

 

Megan Wagner Lloyd

Knopf Books for Young Readers
Elementary
10 am- 2pm EST
http://meganwagnerlloyd.com
meg@meganwagnerlloyd.com

 

Jennifer Brown

Little, Brow/Katherine Tegen/Bloomsbury

Middle School or High School

9AM – 2PM CST

www.JenniferBrownAuthor.com

JenniferBrownYA@gmail.com

 

Christina Soontornvat

Sourcebooks/Jabberwocky Kids

Elementary

9am-2pm CT

www.soontornvat.com

csoontornvat@gmail.com

 

Maria Gianferrari

HMH; Roaring Brook Press; Aladdin; Boyds Mills Press; Putnam; Little Bee

Elementary

10:15-10:45 AM EST; 1:15-4:30 PM

http://mariagianferrari.com/

http://mariagianferrari.com/contact

 

Denis Markell

Delacorte Press
Middle
8 am- 3:30pm EST
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/534331.Denis_Markell
dmarkell@aol.com

 

Lisa Rose

Kar-Ben Publishing

Elementary

12-3:30 pm EST

www.LisaRoseWrites.com

LisaRoseWrites@gmail.com

 

Robin Yardi

Arbordale Publishing & Carolrhoda

Elementary

6 AM – 2 PM Pacific Standard Time

https://robinyardi.com/2017/10/17/world-read-aloud-day-2018/

robin@blueeggbooks.com

 

Jennifer Thermes
Abrams Books for Young Readers
Elementary
10am- 2pm EST
http://jenniferthermes.com
jennifer@jenniferthermes.com

 

Elana K. Arnold

Harper Collins/Walden Pond Press

Elementary

8am-2pm PST

www.elanakarnold@gmail.com

elanakarnold@gmail.com

 

Debbi Michiko Florence

Farrar Straus Giroux

Elementary (gr 1- 3)

10 am – 1 pm EST

http://debbimichikoflorence.com/

jasminetoguchibooks@gmail.com

 

Kelly Jensen

Algonquin Young Readers

Middle/High School

9 am – noon central time

kellybjensen.com

kellybjensen@gmail.com

 

Kerry O’Malley Cerra
Sky Pony Press
Upper elementary & middle school
8:30 am- 3 pm EST
http://kerryomalleycerra.com
kerryocerra@gmail.com

 

Laurie Wallmark

Sterling Children’s Books and Creston Books

Elementary

8am- – 8pm EST

www.lauriewallmark.com

laurie@lauriewallmark.com

 

Anica Mrose Rissi

Simon & Schuster BFYR / Disney-Hyperion

Younger Elementary: Grades K-4

10am to 6pm EST

anicarissi.com

anicamroserissi@gmail.com

 

Bree Barton

Katherine Tegen Books/HarperCollins*

High School

8 am- 5pm PST

www.breebarton.com

breebarton@gmail.com

 

A.M. Rose

Entangled Teen

Middle or High School

9am – 3:30pm CST

www.amroseauthor.com

annmrose@yahoo.com

 

Allison Singer

DK Publishing

Elementary

9am-5pm EST

https://www.amazon.com/Allison-Singer/e/B01FV1V4EI/

allison.singer@dk.com

 

Peter McCleery
HarperCollins Children Books
Elementary
12pm- 4pm EST
http://www.petermccleery.com/
peter.mccleery@gmail.com

 

Jody Feldman

HarperCollins/Greenwillow

Grades 3-7

8:00am – 4:00pm CST

http://jodyfeldman.com

jody@jodyfeldman.com

 

Miriam Busch

Balzer + Bray / HarperCollins

Elementary

10 am- 2pm CST

http://miriambuschauthor.com

http://miriambuschauthor.com/connect/

 

Rita Antoinette Borg

Horizon publishers/ Bloomsbury UK

Elementary

Rome time

http://ritaborg.us

rita@ritaborg.us

 

Jennifer Hansen Rolli
Penguin Random House 
Elementary
8 am- 2pm EST
https://www.jenniferhansenrolli.com/

jenhansen@earthlink.net

 

Margaret Dilloway

Disney-Hyperion

Elementary/Middle School

7:30 am- 2 pm PST

www.margaretdilloway.com

margaretdilloway@gmail.com

 

Kayla Cagan
Chronicle Books
High School
10am PST – 6pm PST
http://kaylacagan.com
hello@kaylacagan.com

 

Sarah Aronson

Scholastic Press
Elementary
8 am- 5pm Central
http://saraharonson.com
sarah.n.aronson@gmail.com

 

Jaime Questell
Entangled Teen
High School
8 am- 3pm CST

jaimequestell.com

Jquestellauthor@gmail.com

 

Sarah Brannen

Albert A. Whitman, Charlesbridge, Scholastic, etc.

Elementary

10 am – 3 pm EST

http://sarahbrannen.com

ssbrannen@verizon.net

 

Diane Magras

Kathy Dawson Books/Penguin Young Readers

Middle

11:00 am – 2:30 pm EST

https://www.dianemagras.com/

diane@dianemagras.com

 

Carter Higgins
Chronicle Books
Elementary
8:30 am- 10:30 am PST
www.designofthepicturebook.com
carterhiggins@gmail.com

 

Janet Sumner Johnson

Capstone Young Readers

Elementary

9 am- 2pm MST

http://janetsumnerjohnson.com

rjljohnson.janet@gmail.com

 

Beth Ain

Random House and Scholastic

Elementary

9 am- 2 pm EST

https://www.bethain.com/

Bethain@gmail.com

 

Sarah Albee

Random House/National Geographic Kids

Elementary/Middle School

9 am- 2pm EST

www.sarahalbeebooks.com

sarahalbee@taftschool.org

 

Steve Swinburne

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Elementary

8 am – 2 pm EST

http://steveswinburne.com

stephen.swinburne@gmail.com

 

Julia Lynn Rubin

Diversion Books

High School

11 AM – 2PM EST

http://julialynnrubin.com

writejulia@gmail.com

 

Mike Grosso

Clarion Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Upper Elementary, Middle School

8:00am-3:00pm CST

http://mikegrossoauthor.com
me@mikegrossoauthor.com

 

Rebecca Behrens
Simon & Schuster
Elementary, Middle
10 am – 3 pm EST
http://www.rebeccabehrens.com
http://rebeccabehrens.com/contact/

 

M. Romero

Delacorte Press / Penguin Random House

4th and 5th grade, Middle School

8 AM – 2 PM EST

http://rmomero.com

contact@rmromero.com

 

Brenda Rufener

HarperTeen of HarperCollins Publishers

High School

8 AM – 2 PM EST

https://www.brendarufener.com/

brenda.rufener@gmail.com

 

Laura Murray

GP Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers

Elementary

9 am-2pm EST

www.LauraMurrayBooks.com

LauraMurrayBooks@gmail.com

 

Ronni Arno
Simon & Schuster/Aladdin
Late Elementary/Early Middle
9am- 2pm EST
www.ronniarno.com
ronniarno@gmail.com

 

Brian Lies

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Elementary

9 AM – 2 PM EST

www.brianlies.com

blies@earthlink.net

 

Rebecca Caprara

Carolrhoda Books/Lerner Publishing Group

Elementary & Middle School

9am-1pm EST

www.rebeccacaprara.com

rebecca.caprara@gmail.com

 

Michelle Cusolito

Charlesbridge

Elementary

9 am to 4pm EASTERN Time (With breaks for lunch etc).

http://www.michellecusolito.com/

Michelle@michellecusolito.com

 

Deborah Heiligman
Macmillan Childrens Books/ Two Lions/ National Geographic
Elementary, Middle School, High school
9 am to 3:00 p.m. EST
http://deborahheiligman.com/contact/

Deborah@DeborahHeiligman.com

 

Nancy Bo Flood

Charlesbridge and Highlights/BoydsMill Press- Wordsong

elementary  & middle school

www.nancyboflood.com

wflood@hotmail.com

 

Mara Rockliff

Candlewick Press

Elementary

9 am – 4 pm EST

mararockliff.com

mararockliff.com/img/email.bmp

 

Augusta Scattergood

Scholastic Press

Elementary and Middle School (Gr. 3-7)

9 AM-4 PM
http://www.augustascattergood.com/
gsgood2@gmail.com

 

Elly Swartz

Farrar Straus and Giroux – Finding Perfect

Scholastic – Smart Cookie

Upper elementary and middle school

10:30am-3pm EST

http://ellyswartz.com/

ellyswartz@outlook.com

 

Linsey Davis

Zondervan

Elementary

9am-3pm EST

www.linseytdavis.com

Linsey.davis@abc.com

 

Melissa Stoller

Clear Fork Publishing

Elementary

9 am-2 pm EST

www.MelissaStoller.com

MLStoller@aol.com

 

Carol Gordon Ekster

Clavis Books

Elementary (K-2)

Available 1:00 p.m.-3:00 EST

www.carolgordonekster.com

cekster@aol.com

 

Brooks Benjamin

Random House

Upper elementary or middle school

8 am – 5 pm (EST)

www.BrooksBenjamin.com

cbrooks.benjamin@gmail.com

 

Jenn Bishop

Alfred A. Knopf / Penguin Random House

Gr. 3-7 (Elementary & Middle)

Available 10-4 pm EDT

jennbishop.com

jenn@jennbishop.com

 

 

Trisha Speed Shaskan

Lerner/HarperCollins

Elementary School

9 a.m. to 3 p.m. CST

http://www.trishaspeedshaskan.com

trishaspeedshaskan@gmail.com

 

Deborah Schaumberg

HarperTeen

High School

8 am – 2 pm EST

www.deborahschaumberg.com
email@deborahschaumberg.com

 

Hannah Dias

Eifrig Publishing

Elementary

8am- 2pm CST

www.hannahcarmonadias.com

authorhcd@gmail.com

 

Lisa Gammon Olson
Eifrig Publishing
Elementary
9 am- 2pm CST
http://lwww.lisagammonolson.com
lisagammonolson@gmail.com

 

Lauren Magaziner

Penguin Books for Young Readers

Elementary

9 am – 6 pm EST

http://laurenmagaziner.com/

lauren@laurenmagaziner.com

 

Elaine Vickers
HarperChildrens
Elementary
9:30-10:30 am, 2-3 pm EST
http://elainevickers.com
elainebvickers@hotmail.com

 

Annie Silvestro

Doubleday Books for Young Readers, Sterling Children’s Books

Elementary

9am – 2pm EST

www.anniesilvestro.com

anniesilvestro@gmail.com

 

Robin Newman 

Creston Books

Elementary 

10 am – 1 pm EST

www.robinnewmanbooks.com 

rnewman504@nyc.rr.com

 

Hayley Barrett
Candlewick/Holiday House/S&S
Elementary

8 am-12pm EST
hayleybarrettwrites@gmail.com

 

Andria Warmflash Rosenbaum

HMH, Scholastic Press

Elementary (K-2)

9 am-11:30 am, EST

andriawarmflashrosenbaum.com

http://www.andriawarmflashrosenbaum.com/contact.htm

 

Lynn Plourde

Nancy Paulsen Books/Penguin

Upper Elementary-Gr. 4-6

8 am – 3 pm EST

http://www.lynnplourde.com

lynn@lynnplourde.com

 

Marcie Colleen

HarperCollins/Macmillan

Elementary

10 – 4pm PCT

www.thisismarciecolleen.com

marciecolleen@gmail.com

 

Shannon Hitchcock

Scholastic

Grade Level 3-7

Hours: 11:00–3:00 EST

http://www.shannonhitchcock.com

http://www.shannonhitchcock.com/contact.html

 

Kathleen Burkinshaw

Sky Pony Press

Middle and High school

10am – 3:00pm EST

www.kathleenburkinshaw.com

klburkinshaw@gmail.com

 

Constance Lombardo

HarperCollins

Upper Elementary

10am – 3pm  EST

http://constancelombardo.com

conlombardo@hotmail.com

 

Jennifer Wolf Kam

Charlesbridge Publishing

Middle School/High School

8 AM- 3:00 PM, EST

http://www.jenniferwolfkam.com

jrwkam@aol.com

 

Erin Soderberg Downing
Random House, Simon & Schuster/Aladdin, Bloomsbury
Elementary/Middle School
10 am- 3pm CST
http://www.erinsoderberg.com
http://www.erindowning.com

erin@erinsoderberg.com

 

Patricia McMahon

Simon and Schuster/Boyds Mills Press/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Elementary

9-4 CST

patriciamcmahonbooks.com

patricia@patriciamcmahonbooks.com

 

Casey Lyall
Sterling Children’s Books
Elementary/Middle School
9 am- 4pm EST
https://www.caseylyall.com/

casey@caseylyall.com

 

Nisha Sharma

Crown Books for Young Readers

High School

8am-11am EST

www.nisha-sharma.com

contact@nisha-sharma.com

 

Leah Henderson
Atheneum/Simon & Schuster
Elementary and Middle School
9:30 am – 2 pm EST
leahhendersonbooks.com
reachme@leahhendersonbooks.com

 

Monica Tesler

Simon & Schuster

Elementary, Middle

9 am – 3 pm EST

monicatesler.com

monicatesler@gmail.com

 

Rebecca Petruck

ABRAMS/Amulet

Middle

8 am – 10p ET

http://www.rebeccapetruck.com

rebecca_petruck@yahoo.com

 

Donna Gephart
Delacorte Press/Penguin Random House
Upper Elementary & Middle School
8:30 am- 3:30pm EST
http://donnagephart.com
donnagephart@bellsouth.net

 

Miranda Paul

Knopf Children’s (Penguin Random House), Lerner, Macmillan Children’s
Elementary
9 am-1pm Central (+Willing to schedule early morn/late night for schools overseas)

www.mirandapaul.com
Mirandapaulbooks@gmail.com

 

Lita Judge
Dial/Roaring Brook/Atheneum
Elementary
12 – 3pm EST
http://litajudge.net

info@litajudge.com

 

Meg Fleming

Simon & Schuster and little bee books

Elementary 

9:00am- 2:00 PST

www.megfleming.net

meg@megfleming.net

 

Linda Vigen Phillips

Eerdmans Books for Young Readers

Middle and up

8 am – 2 pm EST

http://www.lindavigenphillips.com

linda.phillips4866@gmail.com

 

Chana Stiefel

Feiwel & Friends (Macmillan)

Early Childhood & Elementary

8:30-10:30 AM EST

http://chanastiefel.com/

stiefelchana@gmail.com

 

Gina Perry
little bee books
Younger Elementary
9am-2pm EST
http://www.ginaperry.com
ginacarey@comcast.net

 

Lezlie Evans
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Albert Whitman, Disney-Hyperion
Younger Elementary K-3
9:00-5:00 pm EST
LezlieEvans.com
Lezlieevans@gmail.com

Sue Fliess

little bee books, Albert Whitman, Henry Holt

Elementary

9 am – 3 pm EST

www.suefliess.com

sue.fliess@gmail.com or http://www.suefliess.com/contact

 

Judy Dodge Cummings

Nomad Press

Grades 5-7

11-3 Central Time

http://judydodgecummings.com/

judydodgecummings@gmail.com

 

Hillary Homzie
MIX/Aladdin/Simon & Schuster; Swirl/Sky Pony Press
Elementary
8 am- 11:30 am PST
www.hillaryhomzie.com
hillary@hillaryhomzie.com

 

Susan Tan

Roaring Brook Press

Elementary

8am-4pm EST

www.susantanbooks.com

susanshaumingtan@gmail.com

 

Andrea Wang

Albert Whitman & Co.

Elementary, Grades K-3

8:30 AM – 4:30 PM Mountain Time

http://andreaywang.com

andrea@andreaywang.com or contact page at http://andreaywang.com/contact/

 

Bridget Hodder

Macmillan/ Farrar, Straus & Giroux

Grades 4 – 8

1:00 – 5:00 EST

www.BridgetHodder.com

http://www.bridgethodder.com/contact-bridget-hodder/

 

Laura Shovan
Wendy Lamb Books/Random House
Elementary & Middle (3-8)
9-5 pm EST
www.laurashovan.com
laurashovan@gmail.com

 

E. Conran

Gosling Press, Goosebottom Books

Elementary (4-6)

8am-3pm PST

http://aeconran.com

aeconran@gmail.com

 

Shari Green

Pajama Press

upper elementary

9am – 12noon PST

http://www.sharigreen.com

sharigreenbooks@gmail.com

 

Jill Diamond
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Elementary
9:30 am – 2:30 pm PST
https://www.jilldiamondbooks.com/
jilldiamond78@gmail.com

 

Karina Yan Glaser

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers

Elementary and Middle

10am – 2pm EST

www.karinaglaser.com

http://www.karinaglaser.com/contact/

 

Dana Middleton

Feiwel & Friends/Macmillan

Elementary

9am-3pm PST

http://www.danamiddletonbooks.com/

dana@danamiddletonbooks.com

 

S.A. Larsen

Leap Books, LLC & Ellysian Press

Upper Elementary, Middle Grade, & High School)

9am – 2pm EST

https://www.salarsenbooks.com/

sheri@salarsenbooks.com

 

Sarah Cannon
Feiwel and Friends/Macmillan
Middle
9 am- 3pm EST
http://sarahcannonbooks.com
hellosarahcannon@gmail.com

 

Wendy BooydeGraaff

Ripple Grove Press

Elementary

10 am – 3pm EST

wendybooydegraaff.com

http://www.wendybooydegraaff.com/contact-form/

 

Shelly Becker

Sterling Publishing

Elementary

10am-3pm EST

http://shellybeckerbooks.com

Shellybecker@gmail.com

 

Darcey Rosenblatt

Henry Holt/MacMillian

Middle Grade

7am – 2pm PST

https://www.darceyr.com

darceyr@comcast.net

 

Cynthia Reeg

Jolly Fish Press/ North Star Editions

Elementary

10-2 EST

https://www.cynthiareeg.com

cynthiareeg@ymail.com

 

Matthew Swanson

Macmillan Children’s

Elementary

9:00am – 3:00pm EST

www.robbiandmatthew.com

matthew@robbiandmatthew.com

 

Jodi McKay

Albert Whitman & Co

Elementary

9:00-2:00 est

www.jodimckaybooks.com

Jodi@jodimckaybooks.com

 

Tricia Clasen

Sky Pony Press

Elementary (4-6th grade)

10-4 Central

http://www.triciaclasen.com

triciaclasen@gmail.com

 

Lee Gjertsen Malone

Aladdin/Simon & Schuster

4th through 8th grades

9am – 4pm EST

leegjertsenmalone.com

leegjertsenmalone@gmail.com

 

Courtney Pippin-Mathur

 

Katey Howes
Ripple Grove Press, Sterling Children’s Books, Carolrhoda
Younger Elementary
9am-3pm EST, 7:30-9pm EST
www.kateyhowes.com
Howes_kathryn@yahoo.com

 

 

Lindsay Currie
Simon & Schuster
Middle Grade
8 am- 2pm CST
www.lindsaycurrie.com

lindsayncurrie@gmail.com 

 

Stephanie Robinson
Delacorte Press
Middle Grade (upper elementary/early middle school
8:30 am – 3:15pm EST
https://www.fairdaysfiles.com/
robinsonstef@yahoo.com

 

Claire Lordon

Authors & Illustrators: If your schedule is full & you need to be crossed off the list, please email to let me know. If you’d like to be added to the list, directions are here. Please note that this particular list is limited to traditionally published authors/illustrators, only to limit its size and scope. I’m one person with limited time. However, if someone else would like to compile and share a list of self-published, magazine, and ebook author/illustrator volunteers, I think that would be absolutely great, and I’ll happily link to it here. Just let me know!

Happy reading, everyone!

“World Read Aloud Day is about taking action to show the world that the right to read and write belongs to all people. World Read Aloud Day motivates children, teens, and adults worldwide to celebrate the power of words, especially those words that are shared from one person to another, and creates a community of readers advocating for every child’s right to a safe education and access to books and technology.”              ~from the LitWorld website

LitWorld’s magical World Read Aloud Day is February 1, 2018 – and one of the fun traditions of this day of sharing stories is for authors around the world to Skype into classrooms & libraries for short read-alouds. For the past few years, I’ve helped out by compiling a list of author volunteers so that teachers & librarians can connect with them to schedule Skype sessions on that day.

Teachers & librarians: Please hold tight for right now… the list will be coming soon!

Authors & Illustrators: Are you a traditionally published* author or illustrator who would like to be listed as a WRAD Skype volunteer? Please read the information & follow the directions below…

WRAD SKYPE VISITS AREN’T LONG OR FANCY PRESENTATIONS. USUALLY, THEY LAST 10-15 MINUTES AND GO SOMETHING LIKE THIS:

• 1-2 minutes: Author gives a quick introduction & talks a little about their books.
• 3-5 minutes: Author reads aloud a short picture book, or a short excerpt from a chapter book/novel
• 5-10 minutes: Author answers some questions from students about reading/writing
• 1-2 minutes: Author book-talks a couple books they love (but didn’t write!) as recommendations for the kids

Interested in volunteering? If you’re a traditionally published* author or illustrator, here’s how to sign up:

1. Send an email to worldreadaloudskype@gmail.com. (Please do not try to send your info in a comment, Twitter DM, or any other way. It won’t be included unless it’s sent via this WRADSkype email address.)
2. In the subject line, write WRAD Skype volunteer.
3. In the body of the email, please share your name, publisher, grade level for which your books are most appropriate (Elementary, Middle, or High School), hours you’ll be available and your time zone, your website, and your email or contact page on your website.

 

Here’s a sample, showing what the body of your email should look like. Please use this exact format so your entry can be copied & pasted into the list.

Laurel Snyder
Random House Books for Young Readers
Elementary
8 am- 2pm EST
http://laurelsnyder.com
laurel’semail@gmail.com

Thanks for using this exact format. It saves so much time. Once I have all of your information in this format, I’ll add you to the list, which will be shared in November.

IMPORTANT: Whenever your schedule for WRAD is full, please send another email to worldreadaloudskype@gmail.com to let me know that. As soon as I can, I’ll cross your name off the list so you don’t keep getting requests.

*This list is limited to traditionally published authors/illustrators to limit its size and scope because I’m one person with limited time. However, if someone else would like to compile and share a list of self-published and ebook author/illustrator volunteers, I think that would be absolutely great, and I’ll happily link to it here. Just let me know! 

I have two books to talk about today – one that will feel very familiar to my readers & one that’s different from anything I’ve ever written!

First… today is book release day for THE EXACT LOCATION OF HOME!  It’s about geocaching, absent parents, great blue herons, homelessness, and friendship. It’s also a companion novel to my 2009 debut THE BRILLIANT FALL OF GIANNA Z. This book has been a long time coming. I wrote a draft of it before Gianna Z. even came out, but at that time, Bloomsbury wanted me to wait a while on another book set in the same world. By the time GIANNA Z. won the E.B. White Read Aloud Award in 2010, I’d moved on to other projects, and it was just last year that my editor let me know that she wanted to revisit that Zig book. I revised a bunch more to get it ready for today’s hardcover publication. In some ways, this book feels like a collaboration between the writer I was nine years ago and the writer I am today, so I was thrilled when it earned two starred reviews. SLJ called it “A gentle but truthful look at poverty and homelessness for fans of realistic middle grade novels, such as Gary Schmidt’s Okay for Now and Messner’s The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z., in which Zig is a secondary character,” and Kirkus sums it up with: “Middle school worries and social issues skillfully woven into a moving, hopeful, STEM-related tale.” (I didn’t link to the SLJ review because it’s loaded with spoilers. You can google it if you don’t mind having all your surprises ruined. 🙂 

Hundreds of Texas classrooms and libraries lost books in Hurricane Harvey and related flooding, and some have started reaching out to ask for help to make sure kids have books when they return to school. Please note that the best way to help is by donating money, either to individual libraries or to the Texas Library Association Disaster Relief fund, which will be assisting for many weeks to come. Many authors, illustrators, & publishing professionals have also asked about donating new books to some of those schools & libraries. This New Books for Hurricane Harvey Schools & Libraries project aims to connect schools in need with those who have new books to donate.

If you are a teacher, librarian, or principal whose school or library lost books, you can fill out this form to request new book donations. 

If you are an author, illustrator, or publishing professional and you’d like to donate a box of new books, here’s information on how to do that.

(Photo above is by Danelle Anderson via fb: Kingwood Library losses) 

I’ve been collecting requests from teachers, librarians, and principals and now have a list of dozens of Texas schools that were impacted by Hurricane Harvey and are ready (or almost ready) to receive new book donations. They have all specifically requested this sort of donation. If you are an author, illustrator, or publishing professional who would like to help, please email me (kate messner books at gmail) or DM me on Facebook or Twitter (@katemessner), to request access to the spreadsheet. This link may NOT be shared publicly because it includes many educators’ personal contact information. Please do not post it anywhere.

The spreadsheet has a list of teachers, schools, and needs, along with addresses for sending new books and dates when books can be accepted. I’d like to keep track of what’s been sent to whom so we can make sure everyone gets books. To “adopt” a classroom or library in need, you’ll go to column J on the spreadsheet in the row for the school/library you’d like to adopt. Enter your name, where you’re from if you work at a publisher, and what you are sending. Examples of this: “Kate Messner – 15 of my books” or “Paige Turner from Bloomsbury – 1 case of mixed titles.”

Please note that this effort is for new book donations. While some impacted classrooms might welcome gently used book donations, people who have experienced this sort of catastrophic flooding in the past say that can lead to a flood of unusable materials which then create another job for people who are already overwhelmed. If you were thinking of organizing a used book drive, one idea is to have a used book sale at your school instead and donate the proceeds to the Texas Library Association Disaster Relief Effort. https://squareup.com/store/txla

 

Welcome to KidLit Cares, an online talent auction to benefit the Red Cross relief effort to help communities recover from Hurricane Harvey and related flooding. Agents, editors, authors, and illustrators have donated various services to be auctioned off to the highest bidder, with donations being made directly to the Red Cross disaster relief fund. You can read more about KidLit Cares here. Now, on to the auction!

Any bids submitted in comments after that time will be void. (Please note: bidding at the last second isn’t a good idea. Websites get overloaded & there’s always a chance that your bid might not post on time. So please bid your best offer with plenty of time to spare.)

If you’d like to bid on this auction, check the current high bid and place a higher bid by leaving your name and bid amount in the comments, along with some way to contact you (email, FB or Twitter…I’m not fussy.) Winners will be notified when the auction ends and should be prepared to make an online donation to the Red Cross Hurricane Harvey Disaster Relief fund in the amount of the high bid at that time.  After you’ve made your donation, you’ll forward your receipt to me, and I’ll put you in touch with the person who donated the service you won so that the two of you can work out the details about how and when.   All services will be provided at the convenience of both the person making the donation and the auction winner, but this should happen within three months of the auction’s end unless something else is agreed upon by both parties.

Good luck, and thanks for bidding!

Welcome to KidLit Cares, an online talent auction to benefit the Red Cross relief effort to help communities recover from Hurricane Harvey and related flooding. Agents, editors, authors, and illustrators have donated various services to be auctioned off to the highest bidder, with donations being made directly to the Red Cross disaster relief fund. You can read more about KidLit Cares here. Now, on to the auction!

Any bids submitted in comments after that time will be void. (Please note: bidding at the last second isn’t a good idea. Websites get overloaded & there’s always a chance that your bid might not post on time. So please bid your best offer with plenty of time to spare.)

If you’d like to bid on this auction, check the current high bid and place a higher bid by leaving your name and bid amount in the comments, along with some way to contact you (email, FB or Twitter…I’m not fussy.) Winners will be notified when the auction ends and should be prepared to make an online donation to the Red Cross Hurricane Harvey Disaster Relief fund in the amount of the high bid at that time.  After you’ve made your donation, you’ll forward your receipt to me, and I’ll put you in touch with the person who donated the service you won so that the two of you can work out the details about how and when.   All services will be provided at the convenience of both the person making the donation and the auction winner, but this should happen within three months of the auction’s end unless something else is agreed upon by both parties.

Good luck, and thanks for bidding!

TIME TO WRITE REVISION RETREAT with Linda Urban & Kate Messner

November 3-5, 2017

The What:
The 2017 Time to Write Revision Retreat will include daily craft lectures from Linda and Kate, mentor-facilitated small-group critique sessions, lively community meals, and quiet work time.  Cost: $480 (or $455 for early registration by August 1st) includes all lectures & workshops, snacks and meals from Friday dinner through Sunday lunch. Lodging is not included. See below for options.

The When:
November 3-5, 2017.  Arrive any time after noon on November 3rd (first session begins at 4pm) and depart after lunch on November 5th.

The Where:
Valcour Inn and Conference Center is located on beautiful Lake Champlain, just south of Plattsburgh, NY. You can read about the inn here:
  http://www.plattsburghcas.com/valcour-conference-center

The Valcour Inn has nine bedrooms with different nightly rates depending on the level of accommodation and occupancy. Some are large with lake views, porch access, and private bathrooms. Some are smaller with a shared bathroom. Most rooms can accommodate 2-3 people, if you’d like to have a roommate or two to reduce lodging costs. There are also larger hotels in Plattsburgh, just a few miles away, and of course, if you live nearby, you are welcome to sleep in your own bed and commute.  Valcour room options and rates are here:

http://www.plattsburghcas.com/valcour-inn-and-boathouse/main-house-guest-rooms

Additional nearby lodging options include the Hampton Inn & Suites and Microtel Inn &  Suites, both about a 10 minute drive.

The Who:  

Linda Urban and Kate Messner are award winning children’s authors and friends who love to teach and mentor other writers. Between the two of them, they’ve written more than thirty books, presented at over a dozen state and national conferences, and consumed approximately four hundred mocha lattes.

Who should attend?
This is a retreat for experienced novelists, both published and not-yet published.  The workshop will be aimed at writers who are working to revise a completed (or mostly completed) draft of a middle grade or young adult novel or chapter book.  We’ll be asking for writing samples – just your first few pages – when it’s time to register, so that we know you’re in a place where what we’re offering will be useful and relevant.  We can accommodate up to twenty-two writers in this lovely, intimate setting and will cap the retreat at that number. We’ll have the option for returning writers to repeat a craft session from years past or break off into a smaller group workshop.

The How:
Valcour Conference Center is on Lake Champlain in Northeastern NY, 1.5 hours from Burlington, VT, 2.5 hours from Albany, 4 hours from Syracuse, 4.5 hours from Boston, and 5 hours from New York & Rochester.
http://www.plattsburghcas.com/valcour-conference-center/directions
You’ll see that the website gives driving directions from Plattsburgh International Airport, but this is not an airport that services many places. The nearest full-service airport is in Burlington, Vermont a little over an hour away (including a ferry ride). If you fly, it will probably be necessary to rent a car or find a friend who’s passing through Vermont to pick you up at the airport.

How to sign up: 

Send an email to timetowriteretreat at gmail dot com with your name, address, email, and phone number. Please include a quick note about what you hope to be working on and share a short writing sample (700 words or less) if you’re not a returning writer. Don’t worry about this being a tryout or application; our goal is to make sure the workshop will be useful to you, and this will help us to plan our sessions. If you’re hoping to room with someone at the retreat, please let us know that as well. As soon as we receive your email, we’ll send you more information, including directions for mailing your deposit.

Deadlines: 

August 1st for Early Registration Discount ($455) 

October 1st Regular Registration Deadline ($480) 

To reserve a spot at the retreat, participants must submit a $50 nonrefundable deposit at the time of registration, with the balance due by October 1st.  It’s also fine to pay the full amount when you pay your deposit. After October 1st, retreat registration fees are not refundable unless we’re able to find someone to fill your spot.

Questions? Email us at timetowriteretreat at gmail dot com.

FERGUS AND ZEKE, the first book in my new easy reader series with Candlewick is out today!

I’m excited about some great news we’ve already gotten about this book. It’s a Junior Library Guild selection. There’s a lovely review from Kirkus that ends with “Here’s to more adventures for Fergus and Zeke!”

The Wall Street Journal just featured FERGUS AND ZEKE in a roundup of the best new children’s books:

“A dapper fellow with lavender fur, Fergus loves following the rules of Miss Maxwell’s class. ‘When the students solved math problems, Fergus solved them, too,’ we read; ‘he always kept his eyes on his own work.’ But when teacher and children prepare to visit the natural-history museum without him, Fergus embraces his inner outlaw and stows away in a backpack. He soon falls in with Zeke, a gray mouse of insouciant temperament who scoffs at the idea of following ‘people rules.’ Cheery illustrations by Heather Ross add zip to this educational excursion for 5- to 8-year-olds.”

And Publishers Weekly had this to say:

“In a high-spirited series opener set over four chapters, Messner (the Ranger in Time books) lets readers live out their Night at the Museum fantasies through Fergus and Zeke’s explorations, as they clamber over lion and dinosaur exhibits and generally disregard any “no touching” rules (“Those are people rules!” crows Zeke). Ross’s (Grimelda: The Very Messy Witch) energetic full-color cartoons run wild with the museum-as-playground theme, and Zeke’s decision to join Fergus in the classroom neatly sets up their next adventure.”

 

But what those reviews don’t tell you is the story behind this story…and how the seed for this book was planted years ago at the Rochester Children’s Book Festival.

One of my favorite things about festivals is the way young readers approach an author’s table. “Do you have any mysteries?” they’ll say, or “Have you written any books about dogs? Because I really love dogs.” Five or six years ago, a little girl walked up to my table, looked at me with big eyes, and said, “I just learned to read! Do you have a book I can read all by myself?” I didn’t at the time, and I felt bad about that…like I’d let her down.  When I got home, I couldn’t stop thinking about that reader, so I went to my library and signed out a stack of books – the best stories I could find, published with very new readers in mind. I read piles and piles of them and started experimenting. After a towering heap of failures, I wrote FERGUS AND ZEKE.

Fergus is a classroom mouse who’s enthusiastic about everything from music class to story hour. How could he possibly stay behind when it’s time for the big field trip to the natural history museum?  So Fergus stows away on his class trip to the natural history museum, has some adventures and misadventures among the butterflies, lions, and dinosaur bones, and ultimately brings home a friend.

I love research, so it’s probably no surprise that my first step in writing FERGUS AND ZEKE was planning a field trip for myself. I’d been to the American Museum of Natural History in New York, but I’d never imagined it from the point of view of a mouse. So with my notebook and my camera, I set off to spend a day at the museum, imagining what it would all look like from a small rodent’s perspective.

When I arrived, the coat check room was bustling – a mouse would have to be careful not to be stepped on there. I’ve always been in awe of the museum’s enormous blue whale model. Imagine how much more colossal it would seem if you were only a few inches tall! It was so much fun to see how our amazing series illustrator Heather Ross created these scenes…

Writing about Fergus and Zeke’s adventures behind the scenes at NMAH allowed me to live vicariously. Who hasn’t always wanted to get inside those glass cases in the mammal hall to play with the elephants or pet the lions?

And wouldn’t it be fun to climb on those dinosaur skeletons?

As a kid, I found that I learned best when I was doing something out of my seat. As a teacher, I always connected with fidgety students who couldn’t quite sit still during a lecture. I did my best to get us all up out of our seats – and out of the building – as often as possible. Those are the kinds of adventures that Fergus and Zeke have, not just in this first installment, but throughout the series. (They’ll be experimenting at the school science fair in book two!)

I’m so excited to share Fergus & Zeke’s adventures with readers – kids who love school, kids who live to explore, kids who don’t like to sit still, and kids like that little girl at my book festival table – who want books they can read all by themselves.

UPCOMING EVENT: I’ll be signing copies of FERGUS AND ZEKE on Saturday, June 17th from 3-5pm at The Bookstore Plus in Lake Placid. If you don’t live nearby but would like personalized, signed copies of any of my books, you can call The Bookstore Plus at 518-523-2950 or order online here, using the comment section to share the name of the person or family to whom you’d like it signed.

One of of the things I love to do in my author visits to schools is share the research behind my books with student writers. Kids love seeing photos of the real places where Ranger in Time stories takes place, and it’s fun to share how a tiny detail I might notice on a research trip – a feather on a grassy trail, a line in a letter from an earthquake survivor – turns into a plot thread in the story.

Today is book release day for RANGER IN TIME #5: JOURNEY THROUGH ASH AND SMOKE, so I thought I’d do a mini-author-visit here on my blog for the readers I won’t see in person this week. This book is set in Viking Age Iceland and features a Viking girl named Helga as the main human character.

My research for the Ranger in Time books always begins with a big pile of books from the library, so that I can get a solid overview of the time period in which I’m writing. I start reading with a list of basic questions. What was happening in my particular setting and in the larger world at this time? What were the details of the historical event taking place in the book? What was the social structure of the society in which my characters live? Who had power and who didn’t? What did people believe? How did they live? What did their homes look like? What jobs had to happen on a day to day basis? Who did those jobs and how did they get done? What did they eat/wear/do for fun?

From there, I branch out to articles and websites written by archaeologists and historians. This is important because even though we often think of history as a subject that’s literally set in stone, we’re constantly making new discoveries. Sometimes, that happens via archaeology, as in this recent case where a team in Poland was working at the site of a Nazi death camp and found a pendant believed to have ties to Anne Frank.  Sometimes, historians find documents that shed new light on old stories from history. And sometimes, newly developed technology lets us learn more about artifacts that we found a long time ago. That’s how scientists and historians working together found out that many of the bright white marble statues we see in museum exhibits about Ancient Greece and Rome were once painted in bright, colorful hues. 

After this part of my research, I often still have questions, so for almost every Ranger in Time book, I also plan a trip to the setting where the story takes place. That allows me to visit more museums, talk with historians and archaeologists who live and work in the place they’re studying, and see the settings my character would have inhabited.

Two summers ago, I spent a week in Iceland, doing research for RANGER IN TIME: JOURNEY THROUGH ASH AND SMOKE. Before I take a research trip like this, I already have a lot of notes and a rough idea for how the story might go. But there are always details I haven’t discovered yet and settings I can’t quite picture yet in my mind, and that’s where the site visits come in.

My first stop in Iceland was The Settlement Exhibition in Reykjavik, a fantastic museum that was literally built around the archaeological discovery of one of Iceland’s first farms.

This museum, along with the National Museum of Iceland, gave me great insight as to how Helga and her family might have lived. Here’s a conjectural image from the National Museum of Iceland, showing how a Viking longhouse was constructed.

In this new Ranger book, you’ll read about a woman who works for Helga’s family making cloth on a loom. It would have looked like this one, on display at the National Museum of Iceland.

In every Ranger in Time book, the historical character gives Ranger a small token of remembrance when it’s time for him to go home. As I research each book, I’m looking for ideas for what that item might be, and sometimes, I find it on my research trip. Here’s a broken brooch from a display at the Settlement Exhibition. You’ll see it again in the story.

Iceland’s geography is largely formed by geothermal activity, and there are amazing lava caves in parts of the country. I knew this would be one of the settings for Helga’s story, so I spent some time exploring those areas and taking reference photos for Ranger in Time illustrator Kelley McMorris.

At one point in the story, Helga climbs out of one of the lava caves, and when I saw that Scholastic had chosen that scene for Kelley to illustrate, I sent her this photo of my daughter in case it was helpful. Here’s my daughter climbing…

And here’s Helga…

Another big scene in the story takes place at Thingvellir, the site of Iceland’s first parliament, where chieftains would come from all over the island for two weeks each summer, to make laws, talk about issues that affected everyone, and settle disputes. Here’s a speculative painting from the National Museum of Iceland showing what that might have looked like in Helga’s time.

And here’s what Thingvellir looks like today.

I’d been searching on this trip for a place where the story’s climax could take place, and I found it in these crumbly, hazardous cliffs.

On a different rocky cliff near the ocean, I got to see Iceland’s puffins. They’re an important part of Helga’s story and also amazing to watch. I stood here for hours taking photos.

But probably my favorite part of each Ranger in Time research trip is the part I’m not expecting – the tiny detail that I wasn’t looking for but can’t imagine leaving out of the story once I find it. In Iceland, that detail was Funi.

When my family was hiking near an extinct volcano in the interior, we met this tiny arctic fox pup near the base camp. Local guides told us his mother had been shot by a hunter, so they’d sort of adopted him. He was curious and adorable, and I was smitten, as both an animal lover and a writer.

A quick check of Iceland’s natural history told me that the arctic fox was indeed around when the Vikings arrived, so if you read RANGER IN TIME: JOURNEY THROUGH ASH AND SMOKE, you’ll discover that in addition to looking after Helga, Ranger finds himself babysitting a mischievous arctic fox pup as well.

Iceland is a beautiful, rugged place, and visiting pushed me to think more about Helga’s character. What would it be like for a girl who left her home in Norway to live in a rocky land so far away?

I’ll wrap up this post with some tiny purple and yellow flowers that seemed to answer that question for me. They grow everywhere in Iceland — on the most windswept, rockiest stretches of land. You’ll find these in the story, too. They’re defiant and tough, and they seemed to embody Helga’s spirit. I thought she might find inspiration in them, just as I did when I was working on her story.

To Share or Not to Share: Evaluating News & Other Online Content

If you’re on social media, you’ve likely had the experience of scrolling through your feed and seeing something you thought was so great, so important, or so awful that you wanted to share it far and wide.

 

Recently, I watched a fake graphic about a protest inauguration-day concert go viral among many smart people in my news feed.

The same week, I saw someone else share a Breitbart piece about Obama ignoring the fact that violent crime in America is way up, even though real statistics actually show the violent crime rate is way down.

We tend to get excited when we see things that a) align with our ideas, or b) outrage us, and sometimes, we share those things without checking as well as we should.

Who cares? Well, it’s important to realize that whatever political side you’re on, sharing things that are unconfirmed or just plain wrong tends to weaken your positions, rather than strengthen them. If you’re interested in curating a social media feed that’s respected and thoughtful – and not just in the eyes of people who agree with everything you believe – here are some questions to ask yourself before you hit that Share button.

What’s the source for this information?

With links, that’s fairly easy to determine. Is the website hosting the information a reputable news source? Real news outlets employ trained professionals with journalism degrees. They’re trained in investigative reporting as well as legal issues relating to journalism, and ethics. (That doesn’t mean they don’t make mistakes from time to time, but when a real journalist does report something in error, you’ll see a timely correction and/or apology rather than a doubling down on the incorrect information.)

Which news sources are trusted by most people in America? This chart based on a 2014 study from the Pew Research Center and published in Business Insider offers some guidelines.

If your hope is to have people across the political spectrum view your social media feed as reliable and reasonable, you’ll probably want to stick to sharing information from sources that are more maroon than yellow.

You might also choose to make a special note of that source. Donalyn Miller, an author & educator I respect a lot, has taken to posting something like this each time she shares a piece on Facebook:

**Please read the article before commenting or sharing. PBS is a legitimate, credible news source.

I think this is a great idea. It’s helpful to identify what you’re sharing, whether that’s news, a persuasive piece written to promote one point of view, or something intended to be humorous. (More on that when we talk about satire…)

Is this particular piece NEWS or OPINION/COMMENTARY?

Reputable news sources such as those identified above offer both objective news and opinion or commentary pieces. Sometimes, they’re labeled clearly in the headline, but often they’re not. You may need to take a close look at the piece to determine what you’re reading.

How can I check to verify the information shared here?

Google is your friend, especially if you really want to share something being reported on a less consistently reliable source like BuzzFeed or HuffPost. Find out if similar information is also being shared via some of the more reputable, trusted new sources listed above.

Sometimes, there may be other ways to check out information, too. If the piece is about what someone said on Twitter or on a website, go directly to the source. But also realize that tweets can be deleted, so the fact that something isn’t there now doesn’t mean it never was. Sometimes people have screen shots of these deleted tweets, and you can look for that as well. It’s important to look very carefully at the Twitter account, too. There are many, many fake Donald Trump accounts, with the same profile picture and very similar Twitter handles. Go to the person’s actual Twitter home page to check the account name and look for the “verified” checkmark in their profile in situations like this.

For example, this is a real tweet from Trump:

This is not:

Sometimes it’s difficult to tell the difference between real tweets & the parody tweets, so checking the profile is helpful.

One more note about Twitter: Keep in mind that unless an account is verified or you know the person who owns it, you have no way of knowing who’s tweeting. The fact that a Twitter account is named “Democrats for Trump” or “Conservatives Against Trump” doesn’t mean that the account is run by people who fit that description.  Since KellyAnne Conway’s “alternative facts” interview on Meet the Press and bans on social media from government agencies like the EPA and National Parks Service, several apparently subversive Twitter accounts have sprung up with names like AltUSEPA and RogueNASA. While it makes good sense that someone defying a gag order would need to protect themselves with an anonymous account, there’s no way to guarantee that those accounts are run by people from those agencies. Even if they are, before long, we’ll probably see similar accounts that are not. So follow & read if you’d like, but be wary.

It’s also important to look carefully and use tools to evaluate websites.  One example:  Since the inauguration, I’ve seen shared articles about the WhiteHouse.gov website, including some that criticized Melania Trump’s biography for promoting her jewelry line’s availability on QVC. 

In situations like this, it’s important to visit the website to check the article’s accuracy. It’s also important to remember that websites get updated all the time. It’s common for someone who receives criticism to edit in response to that criticism. If all you see is the “right now” version of the website, it might look like the criticism was based on “fake news.”

An Internet Archive tool called the Wayback Machine allows interested citizens to check on things like this. It’s an online archive that allows you to paste in the website’s URL and look at what was posted there at specific times on specific dates. As an example, here’s what the Melania Trump bio paragraph in question looked like Friday afternoon after the inauguration (on the top) vs. Sunday, after the critical articles were published (on the bottom).

Regardless of whether you care about Melania’s jewelry line, this is a helpful tool for evaluating information about what was or wasn’t on any website. It’s also interesting for students to see how websites change over time.

Be careful with photos.

If you want to share a photo that’s not connected to a legitimate news article, find the ORIGINAL source to determine its origin. Photos get repurposed sometimes, and pictures being shared on social media don’t always show what the caption says they show or what is implied. During the campaign (September 2016), Eric Trump tweeted this.

Whether or not you agree with Eric Trump’s sentiment, this photo wasn’t taken at the Pensacola rally. It was a year-old photo of a larger crowd from a Trump rally in Dallas. (Note the Texas flag to the bottom-left of the big screen. That might have been a clue for careful photo sharers.)

Just after the November election, another photo circulated on social media showed hooded Ku Klux Klan members marching with a caption saying it was KKK members celebrating. This wasn’t true either. The Klan did hold a victory parade in North Carolina, but the particular photo being shared in this case was an old one that had nothing to do with the election. Unless you check the original source of the photo, you have no way of knowing where it came from, who took it, or when it was taken.

Check the date for news articles and tweets

And highlight it in your post if you choose to share something that’s not current.  This is an easy mistake to make when sharing everything from politics to astronomical events. Just yesterday, this tweet from Vice President Mike Pence was making the rounds.

This came as the Trump administration was reportedly preparing to issue an executive order banning immigration from a list of mostly Muslim countries.  This Pence tweet could give the impression that the Vice President is critical of that policy. But check the date. This was Mike Pence of December 2015, before Trump had won the Republican nomination and tapped Pence to be his VP. The current order is also expected to modify the ban so it’s no longer “a complete and total ban on Muslims” as Trump promised during his campaign but a ban that lists mostly Muslim countries the administration says are “terror prone.”

This “old news” situation also happens sometimes with articles about bills urgently described as “currently being voted on.” Check the date so you’re not sharing bad information that results in a flood of calls to a politician’s office about something that happened a month ago.

Checking the date doesn’t just apply to political articles. A while back, I saw a Facebook post about a meteor shower that would be “Lighting Up the Skies Tonight.”  I love meteor showers! My first impulse was to share, but before I did, I wanted to find out the exact date & time. When I clicked through to the article, I found out that it was old – about a meteor shower that had happened a couple years earlier. If I’d shared, I’d have been that person who sent 4500 of her closest friends out into their yards in the cold to stare at an empty, dark sky.

Check to see if the piece is satire.

Satire is defined by Merriam Webster as “a literary work holding up human vices and follies to ridicule or scorn.” If the piece you’re sharing is satire, you might want to consider making that clear in your post. The Onion is a well-known satire site that posts pieces like this.

 

Most people know that The Onion is a satire site, in which all of the articles are made up, including the details, the quotes…everything. Still, you’ll sometimes see a piece like this shared with a heartfelt comment about how upset the person is that the Vice President would be so sexist in his language. That happens even more often when the piece comes from a magazine like The New Yorker, which offers both real, in-depth news articles and satirical pieces, often by the writer Andy Borowitz.

 

These pieces, if you look closely, are labeled as “Satire from the Borowitz Report.” It’s helpful if you label them in your social media feeds, too. This is especially important in our current climate where some real news may feel like satire to readers, given the unprecedented nature of some things being tweeted or said by those in power.

Pay extra attention before sharing something that you feel passionate about, either way.

Propaganda is designed to produce strong emotions – patriotism, fear, love, disgust, identity. When something you read gives you a surge of one of those feelings, that doesn’t mean it’s automatically not true or worth sharing, but it does mean that you’ll need to be diligent to make sure you’re sharing news and not propaganda that will cause others to view all of your posts as less trustworthy. Strong, emotional language in a headline is another clue that what you’re reading might be written to influence more than to inform.

Don’t make assumptions.

I participated in the March for Civil Rights and Women in Atlanta recently and saw this when the march passed by the Ferris wheel by Centennial Park.

 

I immediately connected it with the tens of thousands of people demonstrating, and I shared this photo along with some other march pictures on social media. I was just visiting Atlanta and am not a football fan, so I didn’t know that aside from being a beloved and revolutionary line from the musical Hamilton, Rise Up! is also a rallying cry for the Atlanta Falcons, who were about to play the game that ended up sending them to the Super Bowl. It was an excellent lesson for me on how we all see things through our own lenses, and I appreciated the people online who kindly let me know that I’d misinterpreted the message. The people who jumped into my Twitter mentions to call me names and make thinly veiled misogynistic threats were another story. Which brings me to the next topic…

How to Help a Friend Who’s Shared Something Untrue or Unreliable 

I appreciated the friends & strangers alike who replied to me on Twitter, saying things like “Hey, not to be a bummer, but I’m pretty sure that sign is for the Falcons,”  or even “That awkward moment when you think the Falcons sign is for your demonstration…”  Those posts allowed me to realize my mistake and make a note on the photo so other people weren’t under the false impression that the Ferris wheel was lit up for the march. I got other replies, too – the usual, misogynistic, name-calling tweets that appears in most women’s social media feeds when they’ve said something a man doesn’t like. Those just make the person tweeting look like a jerk.

If a friend posts something on social media that’s just plain false and you can find the reliable information that shows that, it’s often helpful to share a link to a reliable, trusted news source with a friendly note that says, “Hey…just so you know, I think this might be inaccurate. Look what (source xyz) has today.”

If your friend posts something that’s circulating but that you can’t find confirmed anywhere, a question might be helpful. “Were you able to confirm this anywhere else? I read this piece with interest but haven’t been able to find the information anywhere else, so I’m wondering how accurate it is. Thanks!”  That’s a kind way to ask the question and is likely to result in a good conversation in which your friend either shares more sources or realizes that the information might not be confirmed.

What Happens When You Make a Mistake

If you discover that you’ve posted something that turns out to be inaccurate, unconfirmed, or badly dated, you might feel embarrassed. But the reality is, mistakes happen. Try to be open to listening and researching, rather than feeling defensive. Read what people are saying, whether they agree with your position or not (this is admittedly easier with meteor showers than it is with politics) and then defer to common-sense guidelines and decide if what you shared is really news or not. If you’ve posted satire that people thought was real, that’s easy to fix with a quick edit identifying it as such. Same story if you’ve posted an opinion piece that people are taking as fact. But I’d advocate for a different approach if you come to realize that what you’ve posted is just incorrect or misleading.

Standard social media protocol is often not to delete tweets/posts that have become controversial because it can look like you’re trying to cover up your mistake. But personally, I think sharing bad information should be an exception to that rule. If you share an article that turns out to be false or misleading, it’s not enough to add a note at the bottom of the comments thread saying, “Please note: This is not confirmed and is from a questionable source.” Those articles – especially the emotionally charged ones – get shared at lightning speed with one click, so it’s probably best to delete the bad information entirely and offer a new, separate post that says something like “Earlier today, I posted an article about a meteor shower that I then deleted because it was brought to my attention that the article was from two years ago. I apologize for the mistake & appreciate the friends who pointed out the date.”

Why is all of this important?

We’re living in an age where facts are under attack and where information spreads more quickly than it ever has, whether it’s reliable information or not. Being part of the solution means doubling down on our efforts to make sure what we share on social media is clear. I’ve decided that for me, that means sharing news that comes from reliable sources, double checking those sources, and clearly identifying essays and satirical pieces I choose to share so that they’re not mistaken as news.

Here are some great resources for reading, thinking about, and sharing with students.

Politifact is a nonpartisan, Pulitzer Prize winning fact check website for political issues.

http://www.politifact.com/

 

Snopes is a reliable website for determining the validity of almost anything going viral on social media, from politics to warnings about going to your car at the mall.

http://www.snopes.com/

 

Snopes gets attacked sometimes by people who don’t like their ideas challenged. Here’s an article about who runs it & its background so you can make your own decisions about that.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/25/technology/for-fact-checking-website-snopes-a-bigger-role-brings-more-attacks.html

 

Here’s the Business Insider article on trusted news sources in America:

http://www.businessinsider.com/here-are-the-most-and-least-trusted-news-outlets-in-america-2014-10

 

A Finders Guide to Facts from NPR has another good list of questions to ask yourself before hitting that Share button.

http://www.npr.org/2016/12/11/505154631/a-finders-guide-to-facts

 

The News Literacy Project is a nonpartisan national education nonprofit working with educators & journalists to teach students about information literacy.

http://www.thenewsliteracyproject.org/

 

An article from the NY Times on How Fake News Spreads

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/business/media/how-fake-news-spreads.html?_r=0

 

A piece from the journal Psychology Today on the manipulation tactic known as gaslighting

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/here-there-and-everywhere/201701/gaslighting-know-it-and-identify-it-protect-yourself

 

Blogger’s note: Given that this post is all about checking and evaluating sources, here’s some information about me. Aside from being a children’s author, I spent fifteen years teaching middle school English and earned National Board Certification in Early Adolescent English Language Arts in 2006. Before that, I worked in television newsrooms for seven years and have a degree in Broadcast Journalism from Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication. The common ground with all three of these jobs is that facts matter.