I am having a hard time coming down from the high of NCTE14 in Washington, DC. To begin the weekend, I was honored at the Elementary Get Together for the Donald H. Graves Award for teaching writing. My acceptance speech is here. I was surrounded by notable writers Lester Laminack, Ralph Fletcher, and Georgia Heard. All three of them were kind and easy to talk to.
On Friday, I presented with my colleagues from the National Writing Project Professional Writing Retreat (2004). This was our 10 year reunion, and we talked about what keeps us writing. We created an acronym, STAMP, for Social Media, Time, Audience, Mentors, and Peers. Here is a link to our Emaze presentation.
Another highlight of my weekend was meeting so many authors. I passed Augusta Scattergood standing alone in the lobby, so I stopped and talked to her. She used to attend these events as a librarian and now she is an author. Her second book, The Way to Stay in Destiny, was available as a galley copy. I stood in line and was the last one to receive one. The guards at Scholastic did not want me to get it signed, but when we started waving to each other like silly school girls, they let me through.
Meeting fellow bloggers as long lost friends was a joy. We connected immediately and sought each other out at different sessions. We had dinner together with the Two Writing Teachers team on Saturday night and had a difficult time saying good night. We all wanted to continue the time together. Being in the company of kind, thoughtful teachers who think like I think and struggle like I struggle and love their students like I love mine was inspiring and heart warming. I feel like we have begun a long friendship as well as a strong professional connection.
I made an Animoto video of all my pictures. I took along Jack, the lemur, for some of them. Jack is our class pet that Emily snuck into my school cart. He enjoyed NCTE as much as I did.
Everything about this post makes me smile, Margaret. 🙂
I thought it was great that Jack the Lemur got to be in so many fabulous photos with such amazing people! Congrats again on your award. Ralph Fletcher, Lester Laminack, Georgia Heard…wow! Powerhouse writers and teachers of writing – just like you! 😉 Glad you had a great time!!
Loved meeting you Margaret. And what a collection of pictures you got. This post is a gem. All my favorites are here…including you.
Love hearing about this special time for you, meeting all those (to us) famous people, & then the slicing friends. Happy Thanksgiving, Margaret.
Congratulations, Margaret! You are an inspiration.
So lovely to have spent time with you in person, Margaret. Let’s cook up something together for NCTE 15, so we can do this all over again!
Such great memories from an awesome conference!
Isn’t Augusta awesome? She was doing the Unworkshop at the same time as I did mine in August at Highlights. I am so fond of her and cannot wait to read her new book.
Looking forward to NCTE 15. (And possibly our writing retreat this summer!)
I met so many real and down to earth authors. And loved meeting all of the slicers. We are a special group. I look forward to many more years of connections.
Margaret, I, too, am still coming down from NCTE. What an amazing weekend. It was so nice to finally meet you, and I’m glad I was there to witness your award acceptance. Your speech was beautiful and heartfelt. See you next year, if not sooner!
I was so happy to meet you and all the TWTs. You are a special bunch.
I love your animoto! Jack looks like he got to meet some amazing people. Such an amazing weekend, and meeting you was a highlight, Margaret. I know we will stay in touch.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Margaret, I loved seeing your pics with Jack in them. Maybe he and Percy, our poetry loving penguin, could chat someday. It was fun to meet you at the conference and chat during the Slicer dinner. Do call me the next time you come to Seattle!
Great to meet you too, Ramona. I wish we could back already. Maybe the writing retreat will happen.
Wow! Somehow in all the virtual #NCTE14 following I did I did not read about your award. Congrats. And now I think to myself, “Margaret has commented on my blog, and now she’s a famous award winning celebrity at NCTE.” How very cool–maybe I’m famous, too, because I know you. Maybe one day I’ll meet you slicers–there is always Atlanta in 2 years, and that will be my 20th year teaching–I think that will be a worthy celebration.
This is the kind of famous I like, the kind that makes me friends with so many wonderful people. I look forward to meeting you some day.
Catching up with my blog reading. I am so glad I stopped here. Your post is filled with so much joy!
This cracks me up. I am alarmed if my Scholastic buddies turned away anybody in my line! Especially since I went to another line and had nobody needing my signature.
😉
Great meeting you and congrats on your award!