by Mary E. Cronin | Jan 19, 2017 | Community connections, Uncategorized
Our children are asking. How do we respond when a man about to be inaugurated as President of the United States would flunk the behavior guidelines of every kindergarten in the country: no name-calling, no touching someone else’s private parts? When the election was...
by Mary E. Cronin | Oct 12, 2016 | LGBTQ+, Uncategorized
Searching for My Sidekick: I wrote that essay three years ago, as I remembered my childhood friend Wilfredo on his October 12 birthday. I’d recently learned that he had died, and I had an unsettled feeling, wondering about the circumstances of his death at age...
by Mary E. Cronin | Oct 4, 2016 | LGBTQ+, Middle-grade fiction, Teaching, Uncategorized
There is nothing like that clean-page feeling of fall! I have been energetically contributing to blogs, writing articles, and revising my middle grade novel ever since I turned that page to September. A few links: My article “Coming Out to My College...
by Mary E. Cronin | Jun 12, 2015 | Conferences-workshops, Uncategorized
Time to unplug and retreat from the hubbub of life for a few days. I am packing the laptop, notebooks and other fun stuff and heading north, for a six-day retreat with writer friends in a house in Vermont. These early days of summer seem like a good time to make...
by Mary E. Cronin | May 21, 2015 | Community connections, Poetry, Teaching, Uncategorized, We Need Diverse Books
I recently received a bundle of letters from the kids at St. Luke’s School in the South Bronx. I delivered a poetry presentation there in the spring, using Jacqueline Woodson’s BROWN GIRL DREAMING and Kwame Alexander’s THE CROSSOVER as mentor texts....
by Mary E. Cronin | May 6, 2015 | Conferences-workshops, LGBTQ+, Middle-grade fiction, SCBWI, Uncategorized, We Need Diverse Books
It’s taken me a while to come down from the clouds after the NESCBWI Conference in Springfield a little over a week ago. The theme of diversity, “Think Outside the Crayon Box,” was delivered in multi-layered and invigorating ways all weekend long....