Stephani is a former English teacher with an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts, where she earned the Candlewick Picture Book Award and the Marion Dane Bauer Award for middle-grade fiction. She is an active member of NCTE, AWP, and SCBWI. As the managing editor for Cynthia Leitich Smith’s blog, Cynsations, Stephani promotes and lifts up voices in the children’s-YA book community.
When I was in second grade, I wrote a poem about an impending storm that pleased my dad so much that he hung it in his office. It stayed there for years. I recently asked if he remembered what it said, and he rattled off:
“This dark and rainy noon will soon pass the sunset of time.”
I had to laugh at the melodrama of my seven-year-old self. “What on earth does that mean?” I asked my dad.
When I was in second grade, I wrote a poem about an impending storm that pleased my dad so much that he hung it in his office. It stayed there for years. I recently asked if he remembered what it said, and he rattled off:
“This dark and rainy noon will soon pass the sunset of time.”
I had to laugh at the melodrama of my seven-year-old self. “What on earth does that mean?” I asked my dad.
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