‘Tis the season in which folks often focus on family and friends.The Roving I, a mostly light-hearted book that was just released, does just that — focus on family and friends. But its 70 first-person columns also include some that feature serious stuff, and numerous...
Woody’s favorites
My top ten choices from almost 300 blog items.
Whimsical cover embellishes ‘The Roving I’
Artist Joe Marciniak took an idea birthed by Woody Weingarten and turned it into a whimsical cover for the author’s newest book, The Roving I. That cover depicts Weingarten, his real-life head superimposed on a cartoon body replete with pot belly, meandering into the...
Older writer of ‘Grampy…’ lists his favorite parts of the fantasy — and wants to hear about yours
Every time I read a book, I end up savoring particular lines and storylines. That happened again when I re-read “Grampy and His Fairyzona Playmates,” even though it’s a fantasy I actually wrote with my granddaughter, Hannah Schifrin. I especially liked the notion...
GUEST POST by NANCY FOX: Granny watches grandkid, hubby hang out and write together, then produce fantasy book, ‘Grampy…’
I’m happy to present this guest post by Nancy Fox:
I was 16 when I met a skinny guy named Woody in suburban New York.
We ate pizza together.
Later, when I got back home in Detroit, he wrote letters to me. Letters and letters and more letters.
In one of them, he invited me to visit him at his Ivy League-type college. I went.
We fell in love. We got married.
But I didn’t know he’d get old, stop being skinny and still stay lovingly by my side for a lifetime (while I, of course, stayed absolutely just as young and every bit as skinny as I’d been my teens).
GUEST POST by CALLIE RAAB: Whimsical critters build reading skills
I’m happy to present this guest post by Callie Raab:
Years ago I wrote a children’s song about fantastical creatures having a race that included the lyric, “Some had eyes on their fingers and toes, a horn on their chin, or a tail on their nose.” They were such fun to draw that when I set about writing stories to help my dyslexic godson learn to read, I thought, “Why not create a whole world of bizarre flora and fauna?” Perhaps at the back of my mind were the fabulous critters that had piqued my childhood imagination in “If I Ran the Zoo” and other Dr. Seuss books.
Lives of geezer and grandkid in ‘Grampy…’ parallel those of real-life duo
Despite “Grampy and His Fairyzona Playmates” being a fantasy, it contains multiple parallels with the writers’ real lives. Consider, for example, when Lily and Grampy hurry to a pizza parlor where Lily and her bff, Penny, overstuff themselves “so much they had to use...
Grandfather-granddaughter team uses no magic wands, no hocus-pocus to write ‘Grampy…’
Where’d the idea for “Grampy and His Fairyzona Playmates” come from? Well, the mental magic actually started way back when, but without a single hocus-pocus, scepter or flying carpet. No magical tools whatsoever, in fact, just imagination. When was the “when”? Oh,...
Main characters in ‘Grampy…’ are based on three real-life Northern California people
Most writers create characters based on themselves and folks they know. And that’s exactly what Hannah Schifrin and I, Woody Weingarten, her granddad, did. Hannah decided that we’d write about me as Grandpa Graybeard, described in Part One: Mid-Spring of “Grampy and...
Young kids can read ‘Grampy…’ themselves — or be read to
"Grampy and His Fairyzona Playmates" is an imaginative story that kids can read to themselves — silently or aloud — or enjoy while parents, grandparents and/or great-grandparents read to them. Indeed, children from 6 to 10 are likely to enjoy anyone reading it to...
GUEST POST by HANNAH SCHIFRIN: Young ‘Grampy…’ writer remembers funny ideas just popping into her head
I'm happy to present this guest blog by Hannah Schifrin: Most of the scenes I came up with for “Grampy and His Fairyzona Playmates” when I was 8 were a lot of fun to write. They just popped into my head. So did the names Fairyzona and Fairyville. My favorite scene is...