For Writers

The Book Called to Me…Again

By Mike Hays on June 26, 2026 / Articles, For Kids, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, For Writers / 6 Comments

I have this thing for rereading books. I like to revisit favorite titles and try to get at least a five-year interval to have another read. The Power of the Reread is a post I wrote a few years ago. The post is about the continuation of the philosophy first heard from Dr. Rachel Schmidt, Professor Emerita of Classics and Religion at the University of Calgary and is still a great source of joy in my reading life. The space and time between readings through older and questionably wiser eyes almost always gives me a new insight into the story.

For the past year, I’ve been into drawing birds. It started as a project I’m working on that grew out of our bird feeder hobby developed during the pandemic. The bird-drawing obsession might be the reason why, whenever I walked past my office bookshelves this spring, one book called out to me, demanding a reread.

Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt

Okay for Now kept calling, and around Memorial Day, I finally listened. I began to read it for at least the third time. Doug Swiateck and his struggles, failures, and successes in his new home of “stupid” Marysville, New York, captured me once again in this National Book Award finalist from 2011. In no time at all, I was delivering groceries in the Spicer’s Deli wagon alongside Doug, navigating a tenuous home life in The Dump, and spending hours studying and drawing from the Marysville Free Library’s display copy of John James Audubon’s The Birds of America under the guidance of library volunteer Mr. Powell. It was a fantastic ride, and I was reminded of two things:

Gary D. Schmidt is a master of his craft.
Okay for Now is a masterpiece.

I highly recommend reading it if you have yet to discover this title.

After finishing Okay for Now, I turned to one of my online library accounts for Okay for Now’s 2007 predecessor, The Wednesday Wars, winner of a Newbery Honor. Holling Hoodhood hilariously navigates school, home, and relationship issues after being forced to study Shakespeare by Mrs. Baker, a teacher who “hates” him. He must endure this horrific duty during his Wednesday afternoon alone time with Mrs. Baker because he is a Presbyterian outcast who must stay while everyone else attends their Catholic or Jewish schools for the afternoon.

These two books… My God, they are good! Shakespeare and Audubon were used as foundations to build two near-perfect works of middle-grade historical fiction.

After finishing The Wednesday Wars, the inspiration hit to keep on a Gary D. Schmidt reading streak, so I returned to the online libraries. While trying to decide between Orbiting Jupiter, The Labors of Hercules Beal, and Pay Attention Carter Jones for the next reread, I ran across a new-to-me title, 2021’s Just Like That. I clicked the cover and read the description. Another Gary D. Schmidt book set in late 1960s New York with a main character named Mary Lee Kowalski. Wait! Mary Lee Kowalski from The Wednesday Wars has her own book? Who knew? Not this guy!

I clicked “BORROW” and started reading. My heart was torn open in the first few pages. If you’ve read Just Like That, you know what I’m talking about. If you have not, put it on your TBR list behind The Wednesday Wars and Okay for Now. Once again, Gary D. Schmidt has me hooked and I’m reading as fast as I can between summer ball games, swim meets, garden/yard work, etc.

My conclusion from this Gary D. Schmidt revisit experience, beyond a reminder of the skill put on the page by one fantastic middle-grade author?

Read an old book. Read a classic. Reread a book you love. Read for the different perspective time and maturity bring. Read for the magic it creates. Read now because summer reading is some of the best reading there is.

The take-home message? When a book beckons, just as Doug Swiateck and the Arctic Tern called out to me, listen. Accept the literary summons and start reading because you never know in what fantastic directions that book might lead you.

Summer Dreaming and Writing Poems

By Ann Angel on June 18, 2026 / For Kids, For Writers / Leave a comment

Hot days, cold poems

Let’s capture “aha” moments

Lazy summer days

— Ann Angel

Summer days are meant for daydreaming on beach blankets, sitting on porches lost in a great piece of fiction, and writing about this very moment we’re in. It’s a great time to pull out a journal and create a poem that captures these special moments. Poetry seems to fit the lazy timeless summer experience and allows writers to capture the thunderstorms that feed our gardens even as they shake us to our toes, or paint the experience of hot sun on our faces, popsicle juice dripping down our hands, and even the moment we dip our faces into clover or lavender and breathe deeply.

But where to start? There are some iconic how-to books including Mary Oliver’s A Poetry Handbook: A Prose Guide to Understanding and Writing Poetry. While this book tends to be a bit dense, there are a few books that speak directly to middle graders. Poetry Play by Amanda Shackelford uses rhyme to encourage writers to play with their experiences.

by JoAnn Early Macken

One of my personal favorites that speaks directly to writers in clear language is JoAnn Early Macken’s Write A Poem Step-by-Step. This how-to walks writers through idea generation to revision.

Giggle-Worthy Poetry Prompts for Kids by Mike Downs and Sandra Athans offers writers six poetic forms and suggests easy ways to generate poems. Writers might use their own names to create acrostic poems, use free flowing ideas like “Purple Pickles” for free verse poems, or create concrete forms from surroundings (think a star-shaped poem about a star or back to lavender, consider that shape in simply describing this plant).

In thinking about writing poetry on timeless summer days, I’d recommend picking up a classic collection that also teaches style such as A Kick in the Head: An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms illustrated by Chris Raschka with poems selected by Paul Janeczeko.

Over 25 poetic forms and examples are provided. (This is the most borrowed book from my personal university library and the one book that I keep having to replace because students forget to return it. I don’t mind because they end up writing a variety of amazing poems).

Of course a summer library visit to choose poetry by Robert Frost, Mary Oliver, Amanda Gorman, and Eve Miriam who offers us the opportunity to bite into poetry with her poem, “How to Eat a Poem” or seeking pictures books by JoAnn Macken, or the above authors of How-to books, mentioned above, as well as so many other favorite picture book writers who write in a variety of verse styles and provide hours of learning enjoyment even as the poems will tickle our spirits and help us lose our creative hearts in our own writing.

Here are a few more possible writing prompts:

Look around you. What color is your world?
Study a blade of grass and look so closely you can see an ant wandering through that jungle, or find cracks in the dirt below. Describe it in a haiku (3 lines, 5 syllables, 7 syllable, 5 syllables).
Write about how timeless summer feels, using free verse let metaphors for timelessness flow.
Consider a more difficult poem like a sestina which requires you to find 6 words that will be ending words that change order to create a 36 line poem. To find the words, look around you and select a few nouns, some verbs, and possible adjectives and adverbs.
Make a list of the best things about summer.
Write a concrete poem about the last thing you ate.
Write a persona poem.
Style copy a classic poem or respond to a classic poem. For example, Mary Oliver’s poem, “At Blackwater Pond” tells the story of the poet’s sensory experiences at this pond. There’s a frog in this poem and I wrote a poem from the frog’s viewpoint. Here’s that response:

A Frog At Blackwater Pond

In Blackwater Pond the lily pads tremble

throughout this night of rain.

I absorb water through green skin. I breathe

oxygen and moisture. The excess slides

down my slimy back and puddles

on the leaf pad. I hear the drumming

of drops, spattering,

insistent reminders that this beautiful

water is my life force.

— Ann Angel

Explore your summer world and see if you can fill a journal with this summer’s “aha” moments. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

GET A CLUE with Author Fleur Bradley

By Lisa Schmid on March 12, 2026 / Articles, For Writers, New Releases, Writing

I’m delighted to welcome award-winning author Fleur Bradley to the blog. I first discovered Fleur when I devoured her middle grade mystery Midnight at the Barclay Hotel. With its clever clues and spectacular twist, it felt very Agatha Christie for kids. I became an instant fan. She followed with Daybreak on Raven Island, another page-turning mystery that kept me guessing right to the very end. Book cover of Midnight at The Barclay Hotel

Now Fleur is sharing her sleuthing secrets in Get a Clue (available April 7th) , a smart, practical guide for anyone ready to crack the code of writing MG and YA mysteries. Packed with clear, actionable advice, the book offers valuable insights for writers at every stage. Even with a couple of books under my belt, I had several “aha” moments that will serve me well moving forward.

Time to follow the clues to Fleur’s success . . .

Lisa: What inspired you to write a craft book specifically about MG and YA mysteries?

Fleur: I had been teaching mystery writing to kidlit authors for years, and kept looking for books to recommend my students. I realized there wasn’t anything out there that speaks specifically to writing MG or YA mysteries, so… I wrote it. It took me a while, but Get a Clue: How to Plot, Write, and Sell Your MG or YA Mystery is out in April. I really hope it helps writers and gets them excited about writing mysteries for kids or teens.

Lisa: You talk about “picking the crime”. What makes a crime appropriate for MG versus YA?

Fleur: For MG, you have to remember that kids as young as seven or eight years old will read your book, so it’s best if the crime happens off-screen or isn’t too gory—like in a cozy mystery. For older MG or YA, anything goes, but you do want to think about your target reader. MG readers (and YA readers often, too) read a mystery to put the clues together and solve the puzzle—that’s the fun. So focus your story on that element of the mystery,
particularly for younger readers.

Lisa: You discuss building an outline using sequences. Can you explain that approach?

Fleur: When I got my start writing mysteries, I mainly wrote short stories. I struggled with keeping track of my plot and character ARC for the length of a novel. I learned that script writers often use sequences to build their story—eight to ten of them, forming the building blocks for a screenplay. You can use that same approach to plot or revise your novel; it makes an entire novel’s worth of words more manageable. One sequence builds upon the next, in a classic story arc. It’s very practical way to plot, but not so restrictive that it takes the fun out of drafting the story.

Lisa: How do you avoid info-dumping while still giving readers enough evidence?

Fleur: This sequence method I use makes it a lot easier: I simply make sure that there’s a clue (or usually more than one) in each sequence, so I’m playing fair with the reader. By the end of the story, you want to make sure that there’s only one conclusion to the mystery (the aha! whodunit). The reader should be able to go back and put together the puzzle—this is not easy to accomplish as writer. A lot of this careful revelation and pacing is done in revision. So don’t be too hard on yourself if it takes a while to get it right.

Lisa: Do you recommend outlining before drafting, or can discovery writers succeed in mystery?

Fleur: You can take either approach; sometimes people think that writing a mystery means you have to outline in detail, and that’s not the case at all. I use the sequence method to create a rough framework, but then I discover the story as I write. For my MG mystery Midnight at the Barclay Hotel, I had no idea who had murdered Mr. Barclay—I simply investigated the mystery along with the kids in the story (it was so much fun, y’all…). Once I finished writing the rough draft and uncovered whodunit, I simply revised and placed clues so it became the only natural conclusion.

On the flipside, you can outline in detail, which means there’s less editing to be done after… I just struggle with outlining, so I use a mixed approach of broad outlining and fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants writing.

Lisa: How do you plant clues without making them too obvious—or too invisible?

Fleur: I use that sequence method of outlining to sprinkle clues like breadcrumbs, leading the reader to solve the mystery. It’s very much like a game. You can use beta readers to check if your clue revelation is too obvious or not obvious enough. This is definitely a balancing act—some readers will catch on quickly, while others might not ‘get’ the mystery until the reveal.

Lisa: What is the most common pitfall you see in mystery manuscripts?

Fleur: I often see writers start slow, or have character moments that go on a bit too long and drag the pace. Mysteries do need a certain amount of tension surrounding the clue hunt, and characters who are going places and doing stuff. You still want three-dimensional characters and depth, but those moments must be woven into plot in mysteries. So have your characters in conversation while they’re following a lead, rather than slowing the plot down.

Lisa: If a writer wants to start writing their mystery this week, what is their first step?

Fleur: Find your crime, character, and setting, and just test the waters with a scene or two. See if you like where it’s going enough to make a book out of it. You can then work on an outline, a character arc, your whodunit, etc. But remember that this is supposed to be fun. Mysteries really are the best.

Lightning Round:

Lisa: One must-read MG mystery?

Fleur: No fair, I can’t pick just one…! Adrianna Cuevas’s The Ghost of Rancho Espanto. Chris Grabenstein’s Lemoncello
series. Varian Johnson’s The Parker Inheritance. Hart & Souls by Lisa Schmid. I could go on for a while…

Lisa: Favorite mystery trope?

Fleur: The gathering of all suspects (in the library) while the detective does their spiel to reveal whodunit. Classic fun.

Lisa: One word that defines a great mystery.

Fleur: Aha!

Lisa: What great answers! This has been informative and inspiring. Thank you so much for visiting From the Mixed-Up Files to chat about your new book. I truly appreciate your time and expertise. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a most intriguing crime to plot—strictly on the page, of course.

Pre-Order GET A CLUE

Goodreads

About Fleur Bradley:

Fleur Bradley is the author of award-winning middle-grade mysteries Daybreak on Raven Island and Midnight at the Barclay Hotel (Viking/PRH), and the Double Vision trilogy (HarperCollins), as well as numerous non-fiction titles for the educational market. Recently, she compiled her
process for writing mysteries for tweens in Get a Clue: How to Plot, Write, and Sell Your MG or YA Mystery (2026).

Fleur’s short stories have appeared in the MWA anthology Super-Puzzletastic Mysteries, SCBWI’s The Haunted States of America (a story representing Colorado). How to Teach Yourself to Swim, originally published in Dark Yonder, was chosen for The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2024. Fleur’s work has been nominated for the Agatha and Anthony Award and has won the Colorado Book Award and Colorado Authors League Book Award, among others.

A reluctant reader herself, Fleur is also a literacy advocate and speaks at events on how to reach reluctant readers. Originally from the Netherlands, she now lives in a small cottage in the foothills of the Colorado Rockies where she fosters rescue animals.

For more information about Fleur visit fleurbradley.com.

Listen to an in-depth interview with Fleur on Writers With Wrinkles.

For Writers

The Book Called to Me…Again

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