Megan E. Freeman attended an elementary school where poets visited her classroom every week to teach poetry, and she has been a writer ever since. Her bestselling novel in verse, ALONE, won the Colorado Book Award, the Massachusetts, Maine, and Vermont children's book awards, is an NCTE Notable Verse Novel, and is included on over two dozen "best of" and state reading lists. Megan is also a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet, and her poetry chapbook, Lessons on Sleeping Alone, was published by Liquid Light Press.
An award-winning teacher with decades of classroom experience, Megan taught multiple subjects across the arts and humanities to students K-16, and she is nationally recognized for presenting workshops and speaking to audiences across the country. She studied theater and dramatic literature for many years, earning degrees from Occidental College and the Ohio State University.
Megan is a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, Northern Colorado Writers, Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, Columbine Poets of Colorado, and Lighthouse Writers Workshop. She is an Impact on Education Award winner, a fellow with the Colorado State University Writing Project, a Fund for Teachers fellow, and a member of the Colorado Poets Center. She used to live in northeast Los Angeles, central Ohio, northern Norway, and on Caribbean cruise ships. Now she divides her time between northern Colorado and the Texas Gulf Coast. Learn more at www.MeganEFreeman.com.
Popular presentations include:
Rethinking Rejection: Revising Our Relationship to "No"
Does fear of rejections feel like an obstacle in your quest to becoming traditionally published? Do you find yourself procrastinating submissions or suffering painfully when a rejection comes in? In this workshop, we will redefine the premise through which we think about rejection and come away with a new perspective on how to see rejection as a gift in the process of finding the right home for our work.
The Possibility of Poetry: Considering Verse in Middle Grade and YA Novels
Are you intrigued by all the novels in verse that are finding their way into the marketplace? Have you experimented with poetry or contemplated writing a verse novel? In this workshop, we will explore differences between writing in verse and prose, look at a variety of middle grade and young adult mentor texts, and play with possibilities for using poetry in your own work.
Think like a Poet: Revision Strategies for Verse Novelists
Verse novels marry the narrative arc of traditional fiction with the literary devices of poetry. But what are those devices and how can aspiring verse novelists employ all that poetry has to offer? In this workshop, attendees will sample from the buffet of delicacies poetry offers the famished fiction writer, and will provide participants with concrete and accessible tools for revising their own work. Attendees are invited (but not required) to bring a few poems from a draft they are working on, and everyone will leave with a plethora of resources, including craft exercises and an annotated bibliography of further reading.