Urban Interlude
If you’ve hung out here even a little you know that I’m a pretty rural gal. I live in and grew up in different rural areas. But that doesn’t mean I don’t like urban areas. I love the energy cities have, I LOVE the restaurants. They’re great fun to visit and they always make me appreciate my rural quiet when I return to it.
I’ve heard people around here complain they hate The City. They are referring to Toronto. I’m grateful my parents took my sisters and I to Toronto starting when we were quite young just so we could experience it. We rode the subway and took in the sights. We browsed the shops and strolled the sidewalks. It was loud, exciting, and confusing. It had rules, it was entirely different from our rural home, but I learned that it could be fun. I ended up working in The City for several years and don’t regret that at all.
So where am I going with all this? Last year was my year of writing for education markets, apparently. The last of those projects is now out. The Learn About Urban Life series looks at life in certain cities. I did Life in an Industrial City about Houston, Texas and Life in a Suburban City about Los Angeles, California.
Thanks to the internet, I could do the research remotely with the help of local experts. I want to thank veteran author Mary D. Wade as well as amazing photographer and author Sara Jane Boyers for their help and feedback on life in their respective cities. Rest assured that any (gulp) errors are not theirs! Hopefully one day I will get to visit these fascinating places.
Check out the other titles in the series from Crabtree Books: Life in a Commercial City by Trudee Romanek and Life in a Residential City by Helene Boudreau. Here’s to helping kids learn about all kinds of places in this wide world.
© Lizann Flatt, www.lizannflatt.com
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
Rural Life from a Rural Gal
Two more of my books came out recently.
They’re part of the Learn About Rural Life series from Crabtree Publishing. Writing these books was a work-for-hire project, which means I was contacted to write these books so they weren’t my own idea. I worked with Bender Richardson White. The books are designed for classroom use in the primary grades.
Life in a Farming Community focuses on Monticello, WI and Life in a Forestry Community looks at Mackenzie, BC. I really enjoyed learning more about these two communities. They remind me of where I grew up and where I live now: in a small rural community. I grew up surrounded by working apple orchards with a feral asparagus field as my backyard, and my in-laws actually are farming in Ontario’s Wellington County today. Forestry hits close to home too since I live in a forested area with the famous Algonquin Provincial Park nearby and the family tree includes a great grandfather who was a lumberman. You can find more detail about them on my website.
Do I think writers have to be personally connected to a topic to write about it? Not necessarily. I think a writer who knows how to ask the right questions and who has strong research skills can write on a lot of things without direct personal experience. But I like to be connected to the topic I’m writing about in some way, either because I have a little personal connection to it or because I just want to learn more about it.
Check out the other two titles in the series: Life in a Mining Community by Natalie Hyde and Life in a Fishing Community by Helene Boudreau.
© Lizann Flatt, www.lizannflatt.com
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
Keeping up with…Myself
Like most writers, I keep an archive of at least one copy of everything of mine that’s been published. So, in a sudden fit of organization the other day, I realized that I’ve not yet seen the Babybug issue with the reprint of my poetic story “Fall Fun” in it.
I poked around the internet (what did we ever do before it?) and think this is the cover of the issue, October 2009. Lovely cover, lovely magazine.
My own kids loved this magazine as babies/toddlers. For now I will enjoy this virtual edition in hopes I’ll get a real copy soon. And yes, that is a friendly hint to the appropriate powers that be. :>
© Lizann Flatt, www.lizannflatt.com
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
Renaissance Books Are Out
One of the great things about doing work for hire is being able to spend time researching topics that fascinate me. The Renaissance is endlessly interesting to me because it was such a pivotal point in history. My two books are part of a whole series, so my topics were
Cities and Statecraft in the Renaissance
and
Religion in the Renaissance.
When I do work for hire I always like to find something within my realm of experience to bring to the project. This doesn’t have to be large, but I find it helps me as a starting point to connect to the topic on a more personal level. I mean, I’m trying to connect kids wtih the topic so hopefully I myself connect to it first.
With this series I spent time remembering my trip to Europe some decades ago. I strolled those streets in Florence, often considered the birthplace of the Renaissance. I visited the cathedrals there and in Rome and many other major cities. This is my photo of the Duomo in Florence. Photos don’t do the detail on it justice. One of the things that fascinated me most while I was pretty much anywhere in Europe was the History, and I do mean that with a capital H. Everywhere there were places or buildings that had existed for centuries, and they were simply a part of the everyday lives of the people who lived there. That’s not something many North Americans experience in the same way.
I remember the marble cathedral steps worn down in the middle by the passage of thousands of feet through time…the bronze polished by hundreds of hands wanting their own little bit of good luck. Yes, that’s me getting some good luck from the boar in the Florence market.
It’s very satisfying to see this project finished. I worked with Bender Richardson White for Crabtree Publishing. I hope these books help to hook some kids onto a small piece of history.
© Lizann Flatt, www.lizannflatt.com
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.