What you’ll read here you probably already know. I have nothing to share about writing that is earth-shattering. and am so thrilled that it will be coming out in just a few short days! In the meantime, here’s Caroline with some awesome advice on making the most of your writing in the new year. Since then, I’ve followed her journey to publishing her novel, May B. I first discovered her blog when she did a Verse Novel Challenge (read at least 5 Verse Novels in 2010) and being a fan of novels in verse, I couldn’t resist. Caroline’s blog was one of the very first I discovered when I first started my journey in the blogsphere and she’s been a great inspiration to me ever since. 9-14), Starred Review,Kirkus Reviews, October 15, 2011: 'If May is a brave, stubborn fighter, the short, free-verse lines are one-two punches in this Laura Ingalls Wilderinspired ode to the human spirit.' Starred Review,Publishers Weekly, December 5, 2011: 'Writing with compassion and a wealth of evocative details, Rose offers a memorable heroine and a testament to the will to survive.Today we have a fabulous guest post by author and blogger Caroline Starr Rose. Oblinger and his wife, a miserable teenager in a flaming red dress, greet her as 'Pa tucks money / inside his shirt pocket.' This sad-enough tale crescendos to a hair-raising survival story when May is inexplicably abandoned and left in complete isolation to starveâ€¦ just until Christmas? Snowed in and way past the last apple, May thinks, 'It is hard to tell what is sun, / what is candle, / what is pure hope.' If May is a brave, stubborn fighter, the short, free-verse lines are one-two punches in this Laura Ingalls Wilderinspired ode to the human spirit. May is bitter: 'I'm helping everyone / except myself.' She has trouble enough at school with her cumbersome reading without missing monthsâ€¦ and how can she live in such close quarters with strangers? A misshapen sod house, Mr. Between May and her brother Hiram, she's the dispensable one: 'Why not Hiram? I think, / but I already know: / boys are necessary.' Ma and Pa, hurting for money, hire out their daughter to the Oblingers, a newlywed couple who've just homesteaded 15 miles west-just until Christmas, Pa promises.

Starred Review,Kirkus Reviews, OctoAs unforgiving as the western Kansas prairies, this extraordinary verse novel-Rose's debut-paints a gritty picture of late-19th-century frontier life from the perspective of a 12-year-old dyslexic girl named Mavis Elizabeth Betterlyâ€¦ May B.

May B. by Caroline Starr Rose