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STEM Tuesday– Natural Disasters– Writing Tips & Resources

By on May 20, 2025   /   Natural Disasters, STEM Tuesday  

Preparedness Essentials

When I show my former English teacher wife a new draft of a project, she often responds, “THAT’S A DISASTER!” 

When this occurs, I celebrate that I’ve at least accomplished one of my writing goals of eliciting an emotional response from my reader. 

Goal accomplished? Not really. It’s just a “gentle” reminder from my wife that a draft is a draft and there’s a whole lot of work to be done. 

The disaster comment, however, did trigger a thought. A thought that happened to coincide with my May 2025 STEM Tuesday assignment on Natural Disasters. When I checked the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) website for natural disaster preparedness information, I found a list of four tips they provide to help people get ready. 

  1. Be informed
  2. Make a plan
  3. Assemble a kit
  4. Maintain your plan and kit

As I read the list, the first thought that popped into my head was “Man, this is so simple and so powerful. Why haven’t I done all these steps yet to prepare for tornado season in Kansas?”

The second thing that popped into my head was a realization that these four simple tips for natural disaster preparedness seamlessly mesh with writing and creating. My brain exploded. My thoughts ran wild. My STEM Tuesday Natural Disasters post plan fell into my lap. 

Wow! Listening to my wife actually paid off. 

Who knew?

no, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Be Informed

A pretty straightforward one here, right? Do the work to gather the information and mental power needed to start and finish a project. Whether that’s knowing the inside and outside of a nonfiction manuscript you’re writing, or all the necessary details that make works of fiction jump off the page, the creative brain needs to be loaded. The quality of input directly affects the quality of the output. Just as knowing what media and emergency sources to pay attention to can greatly improve chances of a healthy outcome in a natural disaster, having a creator brain loaded with good information greatly improves the chances of successful creation.

Make a Plan

Yes, even the pantster creator needs a plan. Even if their planning is not as stringent or as deep as the classic plotter, planning provides direction toward achieving the goal. With a plan directing the effort toward the final goal, none of the stockpiled creative currency and energy is wasted. Even when the final product barely resembles the first draft, a creator can reap maximum rewards from their creative currency driven by a plan.

Assemble a Kit

A disaster survival kit might include fresh water, food, flashlights, batteries, and medications. Reliable and necessary things that assist in working through a natural disaster. A creator’s kit is similar. It contains physical tools, like notebooks, pens, brushes, media, computers/tablets, and desk space. The creator’s kit also contains the skills required to create what the creators want to create. Language, grammar, drawing/painting, storytelling, and narrative skills are just a few examples of skills that belong in the creator kit.

Maintain Your Plan & Kit

The disaster kit should be inspected several times a year to ensure the food and water are fresh, the batteries are not dead, the flashlights work, and the radio works despite the kids constantly getting into the kit to play with the “ancient” communications technology. The disaster plan needs to be discussed and rehearsed so everyone knows what to do in an emergency.

Regular maintenance of the creator’s kit is just as vital to ensure it’s ready to create when the creator is ready to create. Practice and repetition are probably the most important things for the creator to maintain or upgrade skills. Being open to learning is always a beneficial path for creators to take in maintaining or upgrading their creator kit.

See? Natural Disaster preparation can provide lessons in building a successful creative practice!

Now that you know, you can go and build your creative preparedness plan, although you might wait until after you take care of your natural disaster preparedness plan.

Stay safe, friends! We need you around to create your wonderful work!

 

Dave Harlow, USGS, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

 

Mike Hays has worked hard from a young age to be a well-rounded individual. A well-rounded, equal-opportunity sports enthusiast, that is. If they keep a score, he’ll either watch it, play it, or coach it. A molecular microbiologist by day, middle-grade author, sports coach, and general good citizen by night, he blogs about sports/life/training-related topics at www.coachhays.com and writer stuff at www.mikehaysbooks.com. Two of his science essays, The Science of Jurassic Park and Zombie Microbiology 101,  are included in the Putting the Science in Fiction collection from Writer’s Digest Books. He can be found roaming Bluesky under the guise of @mikehays64.bsky.social and @MikeHays64 on Instagram.

 

The O.O.L.F Files

This month on the Out Of Left Field (O.O.L.F.) Files, we take a deep dive into natural disasters through educational materials, current issues, and a blast from the past.  

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) 

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) 

PBS Learning Media

USDA Forest Service

(NOTE: May 18, 2025, was the 45th anniversary of the Mount St. Helens eruption. It doesn’t seem that long ago. A high school friend whose family moved to Washington state just before the eruption brought a sandwich bag of volcanic ash when he returned for a visit to Kansas in the summer of 1981. I still have that bag in storage. It helps me remember the event across 45 years of time and space.)

U.S. Forest Service- Pacific Northwest Region, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Ready

Launched in February 2003, Ready is a National public service campaign designed to educate and empower the American people to prepare for, respond to and mitigate emergencies and disasters. The goal of the campaign is to promote preparedness through public involvement.

 

 

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WNDMG Author Interview with Meg Eden Kuyatt

By on May 19, 2025   /   Author Interviews, Diversity  

WNDMG Author Interview with Meg Eden Kuyatt

When I fell in love with the prose in Meg Eden Kuyatt’s first novel, Good Different, then learned she was writing a ghost story of sorts, I. COULD. NOT. WAIT!
I had the esteemed pleasure of sitting down to interview Meg. Here’s the inside scoop on both the author and her book…

KATE: Our Mixed-Up-Files readers would love the inside scoop on your latest novel-in-verse, The Girl in the Walls. Can you tell us a bit about where the idea for this story came from?

MEG: I tend to start my stories in a feeling. This one started when I saw something very upsetting happen to someone I cared about. I tried to write about it directly, but when that didn’t work and felt a little too real, I knew I needed to try another angle (like Emily Dickinson, to tell it slant). I started asking what if questions, like: what if V could time travel? What if she met a ghost? The ghost helped bring this magic wonderland world of the walls, giving me distance. It also gave me an outlet for me to process all my feelings, giving an option for what I could be like if I held onto them forever and didn’t try to work through them. That warning made me really want to work through my feelings all the more and find healing on the other end.

KATE: I love that you write books which make me cry (I’m looking at you too, Good Different). And by this, I don’t mean you write emotional books, I mean you write books with big emotions. How easy is it for you to tap into a young character’s emotions while creating universal connections to your readers?

MEG: Thank you so much, Kate! That’s the part I feel like is my strength. As an autistic person, I feel things so big, and so channeling those feelings into my characters is easy. I just write what I’m feeling now, and what I felt at that age (often they’re very similar things, just maybe wearing different outfits). When I ask things like: what am I struggling with now? What did I struggle with then?, I try to be as specific as possible, and ironically, the more specific we are, the more universal we get because we’re tapping into the human experience.

KATE: In discussing some of those emotions just a bit further, I think many readers will be able to relate to Valeria, a girl who has been hurt by the actions and comments of others. Afterall, who hasn’t wished someone else a taste of their own medicine? How did you decide this would be her driving force?

MEG: I write what I’m feeling and struggling with in the moment. I knew I needed to write this book when, like V, I was hurt and angry at someone else. I knew I needed to try to see them with more empathy. But to get there, I knew I needed to be honest with where I was in my feelings and let that fuel the story.

KATE: You have two characters giving Valeria art guidance – one who says to draw art as you see it. Another who says to draw art as you feel it. When you write, which advice registers closest for you?

MEG: I think there’s truth to both, for V and for my writing. We need to be informed by what we feel, but also what is true. Sometimes these intersect, but sometimes feelings are unreliable narrators, so we need to open our eyes to get perspective and ask, what is true?

KATE: There’s a great parallel in your novel between ghosting someone and being a ghost oneself. Talk to us about how you wove in the concept of being seen.

MEG: I think as the story progresses, V realizes she’s been holding in feelings, but so has the house—to embody how the family has been holding in hurt from generational trauma and ableism. When we’re ghosted, it hurts, and if we don’t acknowledge those feelings, if we don’t move forward, we can become ghosts in a sense, trapped in a cul de sac of looping feelings. We can also give that as an inheritance to the next generation. And if we don’t acknowledge those feelings, they build and fester and get worse. They wound, and can create really malignant patterns for the generations to come. In a few ways, this becomes a literal threat V has to deal with, because as things escalate, they can become real obstacles. I wanted V to break those generational patterns and pave forward another option.

KATE: We often hear about family curses. How important was it for you to make this story generational?

MEG: That was the main thing I wanted to explore here: generations. What do we inherit from our families? The people who dig at us the most, is it in part because we see ourselves in them? What legacy do we want to leave forward? How can we take the good and oppose the evil in the legacies we inherit?

KATE: It’s often fun to read about the baddies of a book, and your baddie is certainly up there on that list! How fun was it for you to write this antagonist?

MEG: Not fun! 😉 But very healing. Sometimes you have to write very real things, that aren’t necessarily fun, because they hit a little too close to home. But it’s really important. It was fun, in a sense, exploring the complexities of the antagonist: the yes, but what if…?

KATE: You and Valeria share many things in common, I’m sure, one in particular is being neurodivergent. Can you tell MUF readers about neurodivergence and how this connection to Valeria helped you in your story development?

MEG: I’m neurodivergent and I don’t know what it’s like to not be ND. I used to try to write neurotypical leads to satisfy a previous agent, but I learned I’m a bad actor, and don’t know what it’s like to be neurotypical! So I write what I know, and my best writing is what I know. For V, I particularly wanted to channel my insecurities as a neurodivergent person in a neurotypical world, how I have so much joy in who I was created to be until something happens and someone makes me doubt myself.

Especially because in Good Different, Selah grows to love her autism, I wanted to show the other end, because it’s not always that simple. Usually there’s a mix of joy and internalized ableism. I don’t want people to stop at Selah’s story and think we’ve “fixed ableism.” It’s still there, all the more obvious by RFK Jr’s recent disturbing comments. There is joy, but there’s also a lot of hurt, and for kids struggling with that, I wanted them to see themselves in V’s story, and see it doesn’t have to end there.

KATE: Can you describe your writing process and, can you give us an example of something you cut, changed, or reworked from draft to publication?

MEG: Goodness, so much changed. The basic bones of the emotional arc have always been there, but there were pranks that had to get cut, lots of conversations between the ghost and V, a lot of internal poems..I was really challenged by my editor to focus, to escalate, and keep things active, since I can get so lost in my head sometimes.

KATE: Thank you for taking the time to share the inside scoop on The Girl in the Walls. Is there something beyond Valeria’s world you can hint at? Perhaps a new project in the works?

MEG: I’m so excited to have a Good Different companion novel in the works currently called PERFECT ENOUGH, and a YA with two autistic leads (that I’ve been working on for over ten years now, so it’s such a joy to know it’s coming out into the world)! Being undiagnosed for most of my life, I’m really enjoying exploring what it means to be autistic and how to be a healthy autistic person in a neurotypical, often ableist world. So we’ll see where that leads me as I play with future ideas!

KATE: Where can readers best find you if they want to reach out?

MEG: megedenbooks.com! I love hearing from readers!

 

Lightning Round

 

And….no MUF interview is complete without a lightning round, so…

Favorite place to write? – patio, or Chick-fil-a

Dark chocolate or milk chocolate? – dark chocolate all the way

Superpower? – flying! or timetravel.

Rollerblades or bike? – bike!

Dream job when you were a kid? – being an artist or a manga-ka

House pet? – cat

Favorite piece of advice for writers? – persist!

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Summer Camp Capers: 10 Middle Grade Books About Camps

By on May 16, 2025   /   Book Lists, Fiction  
Cover of "Be Prepared" by Vera Brosgol features anxious looking child camper in the woods.

Who could forget their summer camp experience?

For many children, sleep-away camps or day-camps can be both exciting and anxiety-producing. I remember going to a sleep-away camp when I was in middle school. It lasted a week. It felt like two months. Also, someone very close to me once received a disconcerting drawing from an eleven-year-old at a week-long camp:

Child's self portrait and text "Oh! How I want to go home!"

It should be noted, the child ultimately decided it was “good to get out of my comfort zone.”

How can you help your child or student anticipate or reflect on camp experiences?

1. Journaling

2. Writing stories about camp (whether it be real or imagined)

3. Talking about their feelings

4. Reading books about camps! Whether or not a child plans to attend a summer camp, middle grade books about young protagonists triumphing in challenging, scary or even hilariously over-the-top camp situations can be both inspiring and entertaining.

Listed below are ten wonderful middle grade books that feature summer camps:

Be Prepared by Vera Brosgol

In Be Prepared, all Vera wants to do is fit in—but that’s not easy for a Russian girl in the suburbs. Her friends live in fancy houses and their parents can afford to send them to the best summer camps. Vera’s single mother can’t afford that sort of luxury, but there’s one summer camp in her price range—Russian summer camp.

Vera is sure she’s found the one place she can fit in, but camp is far from what she imagined. And nothing could prepare her for all the “cool girl” drama, endless Russian history lessons, and outhouses straight out of nightmares!

 

 

 

 

Here in the Real World by Sara Pennypacker

Ware can’t wait to spend summer “off in his own world”—dreaming of knights in the Middle Ages and generally being left alone. But then his parents sign him up for dreaded Rec camp, where he must endure Meaningful Social Interaction and whatever activities so-called “normal” kids do.

On his first day Ware meets Jolene, a tough, secretive girl planting a garden in the rubble of an abandoned church next to the camp. Soon he starts skipping Rec, creating a castle-like space of his own in the church lot.

Jolene scoffs, calling him a dreamer—he doesn’t live in the “real world” like she does. As different as Ware and Jolene are, though, they have one thing in common: for them, the lot is a refuge.

But when their sanctuary is threatened, Ware looks to the knights’ Code of Chivalry: Thou shalt do battle against unfairness wherever faced with it. Thou shalt be always the champion of the Right and Good—and vows to save the lot.

But what does a hero look like in real life? And what can two misfit kids do?

 

Holler of the Fireflies by David Barclay Moore

Javari knew that West Virginia would be different from his home in Bushwick, Brooklyn. But his first day at STEM Camp in a little Appalachian town is still a shock. Though run-ins with the police are just the same here. Not good.

Javari will learn a lot about science, tech, engineering, and math at camp. And also about rich people, racism, and hidden agendas. But it’s Cricket, a local boy, budding activist, and occasional thief, who will show him a different side of the holler—and blow his mind wide open.

Javari is about to have that summer. Where everything gets messy and complicated and confusing . . . and you wouldn’t want it any other way.

J + C + summer = ∞

 

Lions and Liars by Kate Beasley

Frederick Frederickson has a food-chain theory about life. There are lions, like the school bully. Gazelles, like the bullied kids. There are meerkats, and the fleas that live on the butts of meerkats. Frederick’s a flea.

Fifth grade is off to a terrible start when Frederick is sent to a disciplinary camp for troublesome boys. His fellow troop mates—Nosebleed, Specs, The Professor, and little-yet-lethal Ant Bite—are terrifying. But in between trust-building exercises and midnight escape attempts, a tenuous friendship grows between them. Which is lucky, because a Category 5 hurricane is coming and everyone will have to work together—lions and fleas alike—to survive!

 

 

Mirror to Mirror by Rajani LaRocca

Maya is the pragmatic twin, but her secret anxiety threatens to overwhelm her.

Chaya is the outgoing twin. When she sees her beloved sister suffering, she wants to tell their parents—which makes Maya feel completely betrayed. With Maya shutting her out, Chaya makes a dramatic change to give her twin the space she seems to need. But that’s the last thing Maya wants, and the girls just drift further apart.

The once-close sisters can’t seem to find their rhythm, so they make a bet: they’ll switch places at their summer camp, and whoever can keep the ruse going longer will get to decide where they both attend high school—the source of frequent arguments. But stepping into each other’s shoes comes with its own difficulties, and the girls don’t know how they’re going to make it.

 

 

Stella Díaz Never Gives Up by Angela Dominguez


Stella gets a big surprise when her mom plans a trip to visit their family in Mexico! Stella loves marine animals, and she can’t wait to see the ocean for the first time . . . until she arrives and learns that the sea and its life forms are in danger due to pollution.

Stella wants to save the ocean, but she knows she can’t do it alone. It’s going to take a lot of work and help from old and new friends to make a difference, but Stella Díaz never gives up!

 

 

Summer at Squee by Andrea Wang

Phoenny Fang plans to have the best summer ever. She’s returning to Summertime Chinese Culture, Wellness, and Enrichment Experience (SCCWEE for short and “Squee” to campers in the know), and this year she’s a senior camper. That means she; her best friend, Lyrica Chu; and her whole Squad will have the most influence. It almost doesn’t matter that her brother is a CIT (counselor-in-training) and that her mom and auntie are the camp directors. Time spent at Squee is sacred, glorious, and free.

On the day Phoenny arrives, though, she learns that the Squad has been split up, and there’s an influx of new campers this year. Phoenny is determined to be welcoming and to share all the things she loves about camp—who doesn’t love spending hours talking about and engaging in cultural activities? But she quickly learns how out of touch she is with others’ experiences, particularly of the campers who are adoptees. The same things that make her feel connected to her culture and community make some of the other campers feel excluded.

Summer at Squee turns out to be even more transformative than Phoenny could’ve imagined, with new friendships, her first crush, an epic show, and a bigger love for and understanding of her community.

 

Summer Vamp by Violet Chan Karim

After a lackluster school year, Maya anticipates an even more disappointing summer. The only thing she’s looking forward to is cooking and mixing ingredients in the kitchen, which these days brings her more joy than mingling with her peers . . . that is until her dad’s girlfriend registers her for culinary summer camp! Maya’s summer is saved! . . . or not.

What was meant to be a summer filled with baking pastries and cooking pasta is suddenly looking a lot . . . paler?! Why do all of the kids have pointy fangs? And hate garlic? Turns out that Maya isn’t at culinary camp—she’s at a camp for VAMPIRES! Maya has a lot to learn if she’s going to survive this summer . . . and if she’s lucky, she might even make some friends along the way.

 

Teen Canteen: Rocky Road by Amalie Jahn

On the final night of summer camp, Tasha, Raelynn, Claire, and Billie get busted stuffing themselves with ice cream in the mess hall’s walk-in freezer. But when they slip away without being punished, they’re convinced the pink feather boa Billie put on to stay warm is magic.

Back at home, each member of Team Canteen tests the boa’s powers as they face their own challenges. When her little cousin moves in with her destructive dog, Tasha struggles to find her place inside her adoptive family. Claire’s scared the kids at school will find out how hard life’s gotten since her dad lost his job. Raelynn longs to be someone other than her sister’s twin. And with a hockey-obsessed family charting his every move, Billie’s worried he’ll never be able share his dream of becoming a figure skater.

It’s going to be a rocky road from the start of the school year back to Camp Happy Hollow. Will the boa continue to protect Team Canteen, or will their friendship end up being the most magical find of all?

Alternating among the friends, Rocky Road is a smart, soaring celebration of the highs and lows of middle school, and the unbreakable friendships that see you through, no matter what comes next.

 

Twelfth by Janet Key

Twelve-year-old Maren is sure theater camp isn’t for her. Theater camp is for loud, confident, artsy people: people like her older sister, Hadley–the last person Maren wants to think about–and her cinema-obsessed, nonbinary bunkmate, Theo. But when a prank goes wrong, Maren gets drawn into the hunt for a diamond ring that, legend has it, is linked to the camp’s namesake, Charlotte “Charlie” Goodman, a promising director in Blacklist Era Hollywood.

When Maren connects the clues to Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, she and her new friends are off searching through lighting booths, orchestra pits and costume storages, discovering the trail and dodging camp counselors. But they’re not the only ones searching for the ring, and with the growing threat of camp closing forever, they’re almost out of time.

 

Let me know below other great middle grade reads that feature summer camp!

 

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