3 Things You May Not Know about TeachingAuthors and a Trimeric Poem

Happy New Year to all our TeachingAuthors followers! In this, our first post of 2022, I'll announce a change coming to our blog and kick off a new topic. At the end of the post, I'll share my first attempt at a trimeric and a link to this week's Poetry Friday round-up.  

NOTE: after publishing this post, I added info about a free webinar I'm presenting later this month--see my P.S. below.

Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash

First, the announcement: we've decided to revise our posting schedule. Some of you long-time followers may recall that when we first started blogging, we posted three days a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. We later cut back to Mondays and Fridays only, with an occasional Wednesday Writing Workout. In 2018, we dropped our Monday posts and switched to blogging regularly on Fridays only, but still with the occasional Wednesday Writing Workout and other special posts. 

Believe it or not, in 2022, we will be celebrating our THIRTEENTH blogiversary! Two months ago, the TeachingAuthors team met virtually to discuss whether we still have something of value to share with our blog readers. Our conclusion: we do! But we decided we need not post quite so frequently. Effective today, we're reducing our regular posts to twice a month, on the first and third Fridays. As before, we'll still share an occasional Wednesday Writing Workout. We may also include a post on a second or fourth Friday of the month, if something important comes up. 

As it turns out, last week my fellow TeachingAuthor April received a lovely email from a TeachingAuthors follower thanking her for a post on trimeric poems. The reader also wrote that TeachingAuthors is "one of the very few blogs I rarely miss reading." The message affirmed our decision to continue posting! 

Now for our new topic: We thought it would be fun to kick off the New Year by sharing tidbits about us and our blog that many of you may not know. I'll begin with 3 Things You May Not Know about TeachingAuthors:

1. Our site now includes a Calendar link under the heading at the top of the page. Clicking on the link will display our TeachingAuthors Google calendar from November, 2021 on. If you think you may have missed a post or you'd like to see the upcoming posting dates or topics, you can find the info in the Calendar.
2. Another handy feature on the site is the list of links to all the Poetry Friday roundups for the current six-month period. You'll find the list in our right sidebar, under the Poetry Friday logo. (HUGE thanks to Mary Lee Hahn at A(nother) Year of Reading for coordinating the roundup hosts and providing us with the code to display the list.) 
3. Several of the current TeachingAuthors have never met each other "in real life." When we started the blog back in 2009, I knew everyone on the original team in person, with the exception of April Halprin Wayland. April and I later connected several times, even presenting at conferences together. But over the years, there have been several TeachingAuthors I've never met, including one current member. In fact, I don't believe any TeachingAuthor personally knows all the other current team members. I hope that will change when we're able to attend conferences together again.     

Five of the six TAs presenting together at a 2010 conference, left to right:
Mary Ann Rodman, Esther Hershenhorn, JoAnn Early Macken,
Carmela Martino, and April Halprin Wayland

The reader email about trimerics prompted me to re-read April's last trimeric post. And that post inspired me try my hand at writing my own trimeric:

                              TeachingAuthors
        It doesn’t matter that we’ve never met—
        we’re friends, bound together
        by our writing and our teaching.
        We don’t let physical distance separate us.

        We’re friends, bound together.
        Common goals and virtual connections
        help sustain our solidarity.

        Our writing and our teaching
        interlace to form a growing tapestry
        we could never weave alone.

        We don’t let physical distance separate us
        from each other or our blog readers—
        or our students.

   © 2022 Carmela A. Martino. All rights reserved.

I really enjoyed writing this trimeric. Hope you enjoyed reading it! For more poetry, be sure to check out today's Poetry Friday roundup hosted by Carol at Beyond LiteracyLink.

Posted by Carmela

P.S. I forgot to mention that I'll be presenting a free webinar called SMALL PRESS, BIG DECISION for SCBWI-IL on Thursday, January 27, 2022 at 7 pm Central Time. For details, see this page.