By 2022 I was ready to write for my youngest readers. That summer I published my first children’s book, A Lesson a Day: A Child’s Way — a collection of fables in verse, where a proud skunk, a fearful duckling, a disobeying bear, and a rude alligator each learn something about kindness, courage, and being themselves.
Books across borders
To celebrate, I held a poetry reading and birthday celebration at Belmont Lake State Park, and I began donating A Lesson a Day to libraries and families across the USA, Canada, and the Caribbean. Some of those books went to parent reading groups, where children read along, shared their videos, and were celebrated on social media.
A season of loss
Not every part of this journey has been easy. In December 2022 I was scheduled to read at a local coffee house, but I couldn’t make it — my brother was very ill, and he passed away the following day. Poetry has always been how I move through grief, and that season was no exception.
Bringing poetry to the next generation
2023 became a year of workshops and readings. In March I led a poetry writing workshop for the Girl Scouts of Suffolk County to help them earn their scribe badge, where they wrote and read their own poems. Throughout the year I read at the North Babylon Public Library, Walt Whitman Birthplace, local cafes, and “around the parks.” That August, poems from both of my books were even featured in a back-to-school segment in Seasons magazine.
Writing for children reminded me why I started: to plant seeds of confidence and kindness in the most impressionable minds.
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