Posts Tagged writing

Author Spotlight: Megan E. Bryant

By Melissa Roske on January 2, 2026 / Articles, Author Interviews / Leave a comment

Photo credit: Kris Fulk Photography

Today, let’s give a warm Mixed-Up Files welcome to Megan E. Bryant, author of Abby in Between: Face Forward, the second installment in the Abby in Between series. Praised by Kirkus as “a winning sequel that sees the welcome return of a flawed yet big-hearted protagonist,” the novel is available now from Penguin Workshop.

But first…

Abby in Between: Face Forward – A Summary

Big things are heading Abby McAdams’ way: her eleventh birthday, fifth-grade graduation, and the end of elementary school. There’s also the end-of-year overnight camping trip, and she can’t wait to practice her science skills. Oh, and there’s another thing. Abby suspects she’s going to get her period any day now, but after a few false alarms she’s not quite sure. Can Abby navigate new emotions, friendship dynamics, and her changing body, all while figuring out what kind of person she wants to be?

Q&A with Megan E. Bryant

MR: Welcome to the Mixed-Up Files, Megan. Huge congratulations on the publication of Abby in Between: Face Forward!

MEB: Thank you so much! I’m so excited to chat with you about Abby and all things middle grade!

MR: What was your inspiration behind Abby McAdams? I know she’s a lot like your daughter, Clara, and a lot like you when you were a preteen. Can you elaborate?

MEB: I always envisioned Abby as an “every girl” character, hoping to write about her early puberty experience in a way that would be relatable and reassuring for girls embarking on their own puberty journeys. One of the things I love most about Abby is how deeply she feels emotions. There’s an intensity to the way Abby experiences the world—from her excitement about big milestones in her life to her compassion for animals, the environment, and people in need—that has endeared her to me.

Abby McAdams vs. Margaret Simon

MR: Abby has a very distinctive voice, reminiscent of another preteen protagonist, Margaret Simon, in Judy Blume’s groundbreaking 1974 novel, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. How are the two girls similar? In which ways are they different?

MEB: I think both Abby and Margaret are curious about puberty and how their bodies are changing, and they express this curiosity in very natural and normal ways. Margaret is older than Abby—part of the inspiration for writing the Abby books is that puberty tends to start earlier now—and as a result, I think that Margaret grapples with more mature topics. I also think both characters’ puberty experiences are affected by the times in which they live and cultural norms.

That’s SOOOO (NOT) Awkward

MR: Speaking Judy Blume, you write about puberty in a similar, straightforward way, without shame or embarrassment (yay!). What’s the secret to handling potentially awkward topics, from pubic hair and body odor to vaginal discharge and periods, in such a no-nonsense way? I’m sure your readers are beyond grateful! (I know I would have been as a tween. 🙂)

MEB: From the start, I knew I needed to write these books with unflinching honesty—or I shouldn’t bother writing them at all. So anything that made me feel squeamish or cringey was something I needed to work through on my own. It became an opportunity to examine any negative messages I’d absorbed about girls’ and women’s bodies and overcome them, while remembering that the whole range of emotions and reactions to puberty are completely normal. I figured that if a topic were embarrassing for me, an adult woman, to write about, then there would probably be readers who were embarrassed to be experiencing it, and I owed it to them to face it with honesty and compassion.

Dear 11-year-old Megan…

MR: As a follow-up, what advice would you give to 11-year-old Megan?

MEB: While I was deep in the process of writing Face Forward, something remarkable happened: my husband developed an old roll of film from my childhood, and there was a picture of me at my 11^th birthday on it—the same age as Abby. I looked at the image of my younger self with so much tenderness. Incredibly, I wasn’t nearly as ugly, awkward, or messy as I’d felt at the time. So I think I’d tell 11-year-old Megan, “Go easy on yourself. You’re doing just fine.”

Writing about Climate Change

MR: In addition to stressing over the onset of her period, Abby is concerned about the state of the environment, including climate change and global

warming. This is a topic on many middle graders’ minds. What’s your approach to making such a weighty, often confusing subject palatable for young readers?

MEB: Many years ago, I attended a talk by Joyce Carol Oates, who was asked about writing for young people. She said, “You’ve got to give them hope,” which resonated deeply with me. It’s a message that imbues all of my writing. I found the global warming sections of this book to be perhaps even more challenging to write than the puberty ones, because the problem is grave, and young people will inherit a crisis worsened by the inactivity of prior generations. But there is hope, which can inspire us to work toward a solution.

MR: One more Abby question: Abby is desperate for a kitten, and she comes up with a detailed plan to get one. This is relatable to many preteens who ask for pets. Did you have a pet as a child? Do you allow your kids to have one (or maybe more than one 🙂)?

MEB: Goodness, yes! Growing up, I had pet rabbits and cats. We currently have four cats and two dogs. I always say our house is full, but my kids know that if they find an animal that needs a home, I’ll try to make it work—which is how we ended up with six pets, ha!

Advice for Writers

MR: Let’s move on to your writing career. It says in your bio that you’ve written 250 books for children. What is the secret to being so prolific? Also, what advice would you give to new writers? What about to more established ones?

MEB: I’m profoundly grateful for every writing opportunity I’ve had; for every idea that evolved from nebulous thought to printed book; and for every reader who has read my words. I’m not sure if there is a secret to being prolific besides making it a priority to write whenever you can. I often tell my writing students that they are the only ones who can prioritize their writing in a world that makes so many other demands on their time.

I’d tell new writers to persevere above all else—keep dreaming, keep plotting, keep reading, keep learning, keep writing, keep revising, and keep trying! For established writers, I’d encourage them to try mixing up their writing routine. Almost all of my books have been written linearly, but for a variety of reasons, I wrote Face Forward completely out of order, in much shorter writing sessions than I was used to. When it was time to read the manuscript from start to finish, I was really worried that it would be a jumbled mess of disconnected scenes. To my surprise, though, it flowed well, and I learned a good lesson about adapting my established writing process.

The Plot Thickens

MR: What is your writing process like, Megan? Do you have a specific routine or word-count goals? Any writing rituals? Also, are you a plotter or a pantser?

MEB: I am 100% a plotter! I’ll often spend months thinking about a new project before writing a single word. My outlines are usually 10-15 pages or more, and I use them like a roadmap to guide each writing session. As much as I love a detailed outline, though, I also have a notebook close at hand where I write all the new ideas and storylines that pop into my mind as I’m writing.

As for writing rituals, I keep a bottle of nail polish on my desk and when I get stuck on a sentence or paragraph, I’ll paint my nails. So if you see me wearing nail polish—especially if just a few of my nails are polished—chances are I’m working on a manuscript!

MR: What’s next on your writing agenda? More Abby books, I hope…

MEB: I’m always ready to revisit Abby and the McAdams family! Right now, I’m working on two projects—a family comedy focused on the misadventure of two brothers, and a futuristic trilogy. They couldn’t be more different, so no matter what mood I’m in, I have a project that suits it!

Lightning Round!

MR: Last thing: No MUF interview is complete without a lightning round, so…

Preferred writing snack? Chocolate

Coffee or tea? Coffee in the morning, tea in the afternoon

MG authors that inspire you? Madeleine L’Engle, Dana Levy, C.S. Lewis, Raina Telgemeier, Lois Lowry, Katherine Applegate, Jason Reynolds—I could go on and on!

Most cringe-worthy tween moment? Running into my eighth-grade science teacher while I was buying pads—horrors!

Zombie apocalypse: Yea or nay? Hard pass—you’ll find me hiding under the bed with my pets when it happens.

Superpower? Listmaking!

Favorite place on earth? Home is where my heart is.

You’re stranded on a desert island, with only three items in your possession. What are they? Practically: a solar-powered communication device, a water purification system, and sunblock. Whimsically: my knitting, a solar-powered fridge full of chocolate and coffee, and . . . sunblock!

MR: Thank you for chatting with me, Megan—and congratulations on the publication of Abby in Between: Face Forward. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I know MUF readers will too.

MEB: Thank you so much for your kind words! I really enjoyed answering these thought-provoking questions.

All About Megan

Megan E. Bryant has written more than 250 children’s books for ages ranging from babies to teens. Her most recent books include the middle grade novel series, ABBY IN BETWEEN; the CITIZEN BABY board book series, co-authored with her husband, historian Daniel O. Prosterman; the four-book chapter book series THE TINY GENIUSES; and the Kirkus starred and Best Young Adult Book of the Year GLOW. She lives in Winston-Salem, NC with her family.

Melissa Roske is a writer of middle-grade fiction. Before spending her days with imaginary people, she interviewed real ones as a journalist in Europe. In London she landed a job as an advice columnist for Just Seventeen magazine. Upon returning to her native New York, Melissa contributed to several books and magazines and selected jokes for Reader’s Digest. In addition to her debut novel Kat Greene Comes Clean (Charlesbridge), Melissa’s short story “Grandma Merle’s Last Wish” appears in the Jewish middle-grade anthology, Coming of Age: 13 B’Nai Mitzvah Stories (Albert Whitman). Learn more about Melissa on her Website and follow her on Facebook and Instagram.

Let’s capture personal stories

By Ann Angel on December 19, 2025 / Articles

The winter holidays often bring stories to the table. I think this is the perfect time of year to encourage middle graders to capture their family stories. We can draw parents into reminiscing about growing up, encourage grandparents to tell how they or their grandparents migrated to find their own homes, or how they fell in love, created their families, and chose a variety of holidays to celebrate. We can ask about childhood memories that capture a snapshot of history from a personal perspective. In doing so, we’re encouraging middle graders to gain perspective into the struggles and successes that built their communities and families.

My own kids, who were adopted, have a wide range of emotions about these assignments and they embrace these as part of their stories. I love hearing how they hold the stories coming out of their legacies. One of my daughters has two Ancestry trees; her adopted family tree and her birth family tree. A son wants to learn more about his ancestors who were poor farmers from another country. He’s visited the land of his birth. And he was also close to his adopted grandparents and wants to share their stories. Both of my daughters like to share stories of the relationships they have with birth and adopted siblings and parents.

In reality, most of our stories usually only go back one or two generations before we lose sight of why ancestors left their native countries and how they traveled across the country we now live in. I can trace my family back to the Revolution on my maternal side, but I only know my father’s grandfather was a lumberjack buried in the Northwest. I don’t know how or why my Irish ancestors came to the US on that side of the family. That helps me realize that my children’s responses to family histories is often complicated but it’s also rich. Asking a classroom full of diverse kids means some will balk at telling stories because they’re not traditional, or they’re sad, or confusing. How do we tell stories of leaving a country we love while fearing persecution or poverty? What happens when the parents who raised us have no choice but to send us away? Even when we stay together and remain in the land of our birth, we have stories that should be love-filled but also might include frightening, sad, or lonely events that no one wants to talk about.

I sent myself down a rabbit hole of imagining forgotten stories and how kids can fill in lost histories. My search also focused on the need to talk openly about emotions and how we respond to our own stories. What writing prompts can we offer to bring out these stories? What can we offer kids who don’t feel they have sharable memories?

Memoirist and publisher of She Writes Press Brooke Warner focuses on great guidance for finding and sharing memories. While we think of memoir as truth telling, we also recognize that telling a family story doesn’t always mean others see events in the same way we do. Teaching kids to write personal stories means we need our writers to understand that our stories tell our own emotional truth and two family members might not see the story in the same way. We might tell kids that we interpret meaningful moments in the ways they impact us. That is our truth. Warner focuses on this important distinction when she says. “Emotional truth allows you to fill in those blanks with what would have happened based not on what you remember, but on what you know. What you know, for instance, is how your mother would have reacted to your dad not coming home one night, even if you don’t recall the exactness of the scene you’re writing in which that happened.” Brooke's craft of memoir

She suggests writers take advantage of “memory pops” or those small snapshots of life that pop into your head without any context. The writers’ job is to provide a context musing about what led up to that memory pop and what followed.

To find these “memory pops,” we might ask questions such as what is the first time you remember experiencing joy, or sadness, or hunger, or peace? What is your first memory of your grandparents? Can you tell us about a journey you were excited or afraid to take?

For more information on writing memoir, Warner has written a great guide, Breaking Ground on Your Memoir.

There are tons or game-like resources that writers can use to draw family stories out. Tales is one intriguing game that might be brought into a classroom to wake up those memory pops. A game for families

Warner refers to the Disney film Inside Out. While the film focuses on emotions which always provide a flow of writing ideas, it also follows characters into a memory dump, a site where memories are buried. That might be a great motivator for kids to consider what happens when we leave our memories behind and what gold we might find if we help ourselves or our family members to recall buried memories. I’d take it a step further and ask family members to re-describe a scene from their perspectives to capture multiple viewpoints. The film’s concepts have been re-imagined as a series of books that teachers and librarians might add to your shelves. A film about understanding feelings

Family History Novels are also a great way to get middle graders thinking about how stories shape lives. Two of my favorite are Lisa Yee’s Maizy Chen’s Last Chance which used a unique framework of story within story to show Maizy’s history, her mother’s, her grandparents, and her great grandparents’ stories.

Dan Santat’s graphic memoir, A First Time for Everything, provides readers with insights into being an only child and gaining independence.

Kate DiCamillo’s Because of Winn Dixie is a great look at single parent families. Single Parent Families and community

When I consider most middle grade novels, family history finds its way into the script so use your imagination and bring the books you love to your students. Help them discover the family stories and use these as beginning discussions to get them writing.

We don’t have unlimited budgets to bring in books and movies and games, but we have a ton of imaginative ideas for story starters. Here are some writing prompts I’ve used with students from middle grade through college. Feel free to bring them into your classrooms and, please, feel free to share your ideas in comments:

Bring in a recipe that you love. Write about the experience of making this or tasting this for the first time. Or students can write a recipe and talk about how it might make them feel to make this or eat it.
Find an old photo and write about the circumstances you believe surround the snapshot. Better yet, have students bring photos or create illustrations to tell their family stories and turn these into books that students can bring home as family gifts.
Write down a few memory pops and then fill in the story around that pop.
Bring in a grab bag of different smells or flavors and have kids pick them with their eyes closed. Write about any memories that these smells bring to you. Of course, make sure, ahead of time, that you’re not including any allergens.
Define what is old.
Interview a parent or grandparent about their native land. Ask them why they left or stayed.
Interview family members about the best day of their lives, the worst day of their lives.
Write about what makes you happy, sad, fearful, hopeful.
Where do you spend family celebrations?
What do you celebrate in your home?
What do you wish your family could do together?

For more ideas than you could ever hope for, here are a few websites:

Resilient Writers – 100 New Writing Prompts for Memoir Writers

Storii – 70 Question Prompts to Capture Childhood Memories

Writer-ish – 50 Impactful Memoir Writing Prompts to Get You Writing TODAY

STEM Tuesday– Electricity — Writing Tips and Resources

By STEM Tuesday on December 16, 2025 / Electricity, STEM Tuesday

Writing tips & more!

Electricity

Activities with electricity can be dangerous, of course, but there is the old standby – static electricity. While under some circumstances, static electricity can be extremely hazardous, small amounts are fun for kid activities. Many people will remember rubbing a balloon on your head and then watching your hair stand up straight.

Static Electricity

Static electricity is an imbalance of electric charges within or on the surface of a material. The charge remains until it can move away as an electric current or by electrical discharge. The word “static” is used to differentiate it from current electricity, where an electric charge flows through an electrical conductor. (from Wikipedia)

For youngsters, there is nothing like music to make learning a concept exciting. Composer Sherri Boekweg is a singer/songwriter from Utah, and this video gives a great and catchy explanation.

From the Minnesota Children’s Museum comes Three Fun Static Electricity Experiments to Do at Home. Bending water, separating pepper and salt, and can races are like magic – educational and entertaining.

Three Fun Static Electricity Experiments to Do at Home

Etch-A-Sketch

One toy that has been around for 60 years is based on static electricity. According to the Strong National Museum of Play, it was invented in the 1950s by French electrical technician André Cassagnes. The silvery screen is aluminum particles and plastic beads that are removed by a stylus to make marks. Static charges hold the mixture of aluminum powder and tiny plastic beads to the screen and shaking it erases the lines.

Science journal

I am a huge advocate for science journals for all ages. The journals really bring in the STEAM concepts that can include writing, art, and design. Journal keeping involves planning, observation, communication, research and referencing, and much more, especially if children construct their own journals. I have included book making in past posts.

For older students, The California Academy of Sciences offers a step-by-step guide to setting up a science notebook, including Strategies for Reflection and Notebook Stories. Being flexible with content makes it more meaningful to students. Let them express opinions and observations.

https://www.calacademy.org/educators/setting-up-your-science-notebooks

Teacher Lessons

One of my favorite sites for teachers is Teachers Pay Teachers. Here are some offerings.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Bill-Nye-STATIC-ELECTRICITY-Video-Guide-Quiz-Sub-Plan-Worksheets-Lesson-4397449

Designing an electrical safety poster.

Some rules for designing posters. This page is about designing environmental posters but it has practical information about target audience, visuals, and text.

https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/kids/activities/be-a-scientist/design-a-poster

https://www.twinkl.com/resource/design-an-electrical-safety-poster-activity-t-sc-1711982676

Twinkl is a new site for me. The website says:

Experienced educators, professional graphic designers, and market-leading illustrators creating award-winning K-12 resources for use at school and home.

A basic membership is free but you can subscribe to a Premium Account. I don’t know anyone who is a member so I am not recommending, simply making readers aware of its existence. Like anything online, take care.

Margo Lemieux – is an author, illustrator, former art professor, and, even though retired, still does all those things and more.

Posts Tagged writing