Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
It’s crawfish time here in the Deep South swamp. My son-in-law pulled out the boiling pot, bought huge sacks of live crawfish, and invited family and friends for the feast.
If you’ve never had crawfish, you need to put it onto your bucket list of experiences. Crawfish are called “mud bugs” because they create their nesting places in mounds of mud. They are shellfish, so there’s that. Bottom dwellers. I don’t let that bother me while I’m peeling, dipping, and eating.
My grandson Leo created habitats with his friends for their new pets. I think they even named them. I hope he didn’t sleep with them, but it’s harmless fun and a cultural part of being raised in south Louisiana.
Leo and his crawfish pets
Stella holds a crawfish. “I’m not scared!”
Crawfish boils are a tradition around the Easter season. While we are not Catholic, many families in this area are. Catholics don’t eat meat on Fridays in Lent. Many seafood places advertise “Lenten special: All you can eat!” My husband laughs at this because it’s not much of a sacrifice to eat crawfish and drink beer.
I was pleasantly surprised when my illustrator, Drew Beech, added a spread to my board book that showed the family at a crawfish boil.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
The party was slow to get started, one or two guests trickling in. By story time at 5 PM, there were a number of kids around. The Roy House is a renovated house for the Center for Louisiana Studies across the campus from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. There are multiple rooms. One was set up with a bird craft. Ten year old Mathilda led this section with step by step directions that even the smallest of toddlers could follow.
In another room, Julie from For The Birds of Acadiana set up a table of bird nests for kids (and adults) to explore. In this room, I placed a basket of crochet birds for kids to play with.
Another room houses the book shop where I sat on an antique settee and signed books.
For story time, I read aloud What’s that Sound? Birds of the Bayou while the amazingly attentive group of kids echoed the bird sounds and asked intelligent questions like “Why does the mockingbird copy the sounds of other birds?”
“Listen close to the mockingbird”
Then the whole house got quiet. Where did everybody go? I walked outside to see everyone enjoying the spring weather and being together. I’d say that was a good party.
On the right is UL Press’s amazing graphic designer, Mary, while her sweet daughter gives me a hug.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
Poetry Friday is hosted today by Marcie Flinchum Atkins, who has a new book coming out on Tuesday, When Twilight Comes.
For the last Friday of the month, the Poetry Sisters offer a challenge. I wanted to give it a try. The form is Ovillejo, a Spanish form described here.
In Pádraig Ó Tuama’s Substack this week, he posted a poem from Rainer Maria Rilke that began with the line “God speaks to each of us as he makes us.” I love this idea of God, intimate and personal. To get started on the Ovillejo, I borrowed this line. As I worked with the syllable count and rhyme, it changed somewhat.
Belonging
After Rainer Maria Rilke
God speaks fondly to each of us, makes each of us.
Birds respond to God’s call with song— You belong.
Set the paddle deep into water, my daughter.
Stop messing with what doesn’t matter. Sit with God and speak in silence. God knows your peculiar cadence.
Like each of us, you belong, my daughter.
Margaret Simon, draft
Twilight on Lake Lanier, Georgia
Our host, Marcie, asked us to post a favorite picture and poem of twilight to celebrate her new book. When I searched my blog history for a twilight poem, I found last year’s Kidlit Progressive Poem.
April Runs Over
Open an April window let sunlight paint the air stippling every dogwood dappling daffodils with flair
Race to the garden where woodpeckers drum as hummingbirds thrum in the blossoming Sweetgum
Sing as you set up the easels dabble in the paints echo the colors of lilac and phlox commune without constraints
Breathe deeply the gifts of lilacs rejoice in earth’s sweet offerings feel renewed-give thanks at day’s end remember long-ago springs
Bask in a royal spring meadow romp like a golden-doodle pup! startle the sleeping grasshoppers delight in each flowering shrub…
Drinking in orange-blossom twilight relax to the rhythm of stars dotting sky as a passing Whip-poor-will gulps bugs We follow a moonlit path that calls us
Grab your dripping brushes! Our celestial canvas awaits There we swirl, red, white, and blue Behold what magic our montage creates!
Such marvelous palettes the earth bestows When rain greens our hopes, watch them grow, watch them grow!
Yesterday I walked into The Pie Bar carrying my new baby, What’s That Sound? Birds of the Bayou. I was hoping to meet with the owner to ask him to place it in the gift shop. When I came in, there was Tammy from church having a glass of wine on the leather sofa.
Tammy said, “I want to get your book for my new grandbaby.” So the book I had in my hand went to her new baby, Joy.
“To Joy—Listen close!” I drew a little bird emoji, and handed my new baby to Tammy.
I went back out to my car. (Have books, will travel). This time I grabbed two just in case.
I was meeting my friend and fellow picture book writer Mary Beth for a critique session. Mary Beth doesn’t have grandchildren yet, but she works with young kids as an OT.
“Of course I want one,” said Mary Beth. “We have to support each other, and besides, it’s precious.”
I also caught the owner, and he said he would stock it in the gift shop. “I always want to support local authors.”
This baby has taken a while to come to life. Now that he’s here, I am pleased to pass him around for others to enjoy.
Signing books at our local independent bookstore, Books Along the Teche.
If you are interested in participating in the Kidlit Progressive Poem in April, please pop over to this post and comment. April is coming soon.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
For years now, we have watched nesting in the wood duck house my husband built for the bayou bank. This time of year beginning in late February a female hen comes to the box to lay a clutch of eggs.
We invested in a Ring doorbell camera, not to watch for criminal activity, but to see the comings and goings of a resident wood duck hen.
View from the camera when another hen came in to gossip.
These days my phone alerts me constantly. “There is motion at the wood duck house.”
The eggs are due at the end of the month. She usually sits for 28-31 days. We had a cool snap, so I’m worried that all the eggs won’t hatch. But that is the nature of nature, right?
Once the eggs hatch, all on the same day, the little ones will jump from the house 24 hours later. It is a wonder to watch. A few years ago we caught it on video.
Last year I released a small chapbook of poems about the wood duck nesting season, Wood Duck Diary. The funds from the sales benefit the Teche Project. This is a book of tanka poems in English and in French.
March 11
Feathering the Clutch
Hen stitches feathers one by one. Woven blanket
clutch-cover of down. Her beak a knitting needle. Eggs safe and snug below.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
Three years ago when my grandson Thomas (Tuffy) was 3 years old, he liked to play a game with me, What’s That Sound? He would make an animal sound, “meow”, and say “What’s that sound? Is it a cow? No! It’s a cat.”
Thomas at age 3
In the middle of the night, I woke up saying to myself “What’s that sound? I ask Mamére. What’s that sound, up in the air?”
I responded to the voice in my head and wrote a short verse that became the draft for a baby board book. I pitched it to UL Press, and they decided to take it on as their very first board book.
My friend and fellow picture book writer Gayle Webre had found illustrator Drew Beech through SCBWI (Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators). I contacted Drew, and she took on the project. I couldn’t be happier with her illustrations. I sent her photos of the characters, me, my grandson, my husband, a neighbor who was nanny to my other grandchildren, and my own mother.
My mother with Maggie, 1986
I’m sad that my mother is not here to see the book. The photo I had of her was with my oldest daughter sitting in a chair hammock.
On the last spread, Drew created a family crawfish boil. That was a complete surprise to me, a happy surprise.
In the fall, I had the chance to hold the dummy copy in my hands. It was like someone handing me a new baby. I cried.
I realize through this process, often long and frustrating, that every picture book you hold in your hands is a labor of love. All of my love is poured into What’s That Sound?
(Book Release Event: Friday, March 27th at The Roy House on UL’s campus from 4:30-6:00 PM.)
I received an advance copy of a new poetry book from Eerdmans Books for Young Readers. Have you ever read a book that just feels good in your hands?
Poems for Every Season: A Year of Haiku, Sonnets, and More by Bette Westera offers a number of different poetry forms translated by David Colmer. Each page is a comforting woodcut design by Henriette Boerendans.
Poems For Every Season, publishing date Feb. 17, 2026Woodcut art by Henriette Boerendans
Each poem is a delight of language, form, imagery, and the miracles of nature.
The final poem is a sonnet for February. Just when you think it’s warm enough to go outside and sow some seeds, winter makes another appearance.
Prompted by Susan Brisson in Laura Shovan’s February Challenge to write a Cento poem, I turned each page of this book to find a poem.
Roaming the Seasons
Pale petals drift down Green buds will soon be showing on trees. Velvety bees Carving a nest Buzz by Among the yellow buttercups Clear I need sun Under a blanket of leaves Gathering growing sheltering All curled up in my cozy bed. We like it here and we stay.
Cento by Margaret Simon from Poems For Every Season by Bette Westera, translated by David Colmer.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
When I heard from Allan Wolf by email that he had been invited to the Louisiana Book Festival, I grabbed at the chance to have him come to our Bayou Teche home.
Allan started coming to South Louisiana in 2007, performing at schools and libraries and leading teacher workshops at the Acadiana Center for the Arts. I became a fan. The first time he visited Jefferson Island and saw a chimney in the lake, he became intrigued by the disaster in Lake Peigneur of 1980.
A brief summary of that disaster: An exploratory drilling rig from Texaco accidentally punctured a salt mine and set off a harrowing series of events. The miraculous thing is all the miners, fishermen, and tug boats escaped and there was no loss of human life. The lake turned into a whirlpool and the Delcambre Canal flowed backward.
This historical disaster happened 45 years ago in my home town of New Iberia, Louisiana. Allan wrote two books based on the event, and no one in my town knew about these books. I set out to change that.
It became my mission to get him here and to organize a book talk at our local Bayou Teche Museum. With the way news media works these days, I advertised mostly by word of mouth (The “Teche Telegraph”) and by email and social media. Allan and I were hopeful that 20 people would show up, even though I ordered 50 chairs.
Allan was hoping people who had been there that fateful day (Nov. 20, 1980) would come and share their stories.
We had an overflowing crowd of 65 people. Allan paid tribute to the tug boat captain, Ores Menard (age 95), who sat on the front row with his wife and daughter. Allan had interviewed Mr. Menard for hours.
A woman walked in early and shared that she was one of two women in the mine. Allan brightened up. “I knew there had to be women in the mine. I knew about one, but I didn’t know about you!”
Allan Wolf and Myrna Romero, survivor of the 1980 Lake Peigneur disaster.
Myrna brought him her typed story and showed him the jumpsuit that she wore. Allan told her on one of his last interviews, he discovered there was a woman, so he had the artist place her into the graphic novel.
The thing about research that Allan has learned (and I have as well with my biography of Emma Wakefield Paillet) is it’s never finished. Once a story is told, it becomes a living document.
In his presentation, Allan explained that some of the characters in his book are composite characters, more than one person rolled into one. Three dogs became one. Two boats became one. However, the gist of truth is there.
I wrote the book of tanka and haibun poems to capture the miracle that my husband and I have witnessed each year by watching a Ring camera in our wood duck house.
Irene Latham wrote: “Readers of all ages will JUMP at the chance to celebrate the life of wood ducks in this inviting volume. Delightful verse, scientific facts, and striking photographs combine in this heartwarming tale of real-life animal adventure (and the humans that make it happen).”
The humans that made this book happen are my dear friends David Dahlquist and Mary Ubinas, through a donation to the TECHE Project. All proceeds will benefit the TECHE Project. One of the goals of the TECHE Project is to promote the well being of wood ducks along the 135 miles of the Bayou Teche through educational workshops and placement of wood duck houses.
My hope is this small book will inspire others to take the time to notice and wonder about nature and our environment. Wood ducks are beautiful birds that were once considered endangered. When we watch the dozen or more ducklings jump from the house a mere 24 hours after hatching, we do not know their fate. I don’t like to think about all the dangers lurking in the bayou waters, so I write poems about them. I’m sharing a few here. The book is available now on Amazon. I will receive my first shipment in a few weeks, so you can also order from me.
February 24
House Hunting (Haibun)
The hens are showing up! Now that the drake scouts have identified a safe nesting box and area, it is time for the hen’s approval as they begin to inspect the boxes for themselves.
Dawn, when sunbeams stream, an expectant glow invites a wood duck couple—
Female shimmies through the hole, Chatter-chipper to her mate.
la maison de chasse L’aube, quand les rayons du soleil coulent, une lueur d’attente invite
un couple de branchus— La femelle se trémousse dans le trou, Chatter-chipper à son compagnon.
Margaret Simon, from Wood Duck Diary
New Chicks
Gentle peeps echo. Jumping onto mother hen, New chicks jitterbug.
Like petals on a pinwheel fluffy down spins together.
Nouveaux poussins
Doux piaulements résonnent. Sautant sur maman canne, Nouveaux poussins font le jitterbug.
Comme des pétales sur un moulinet duvet moelleux tourne en rond.
A new release from Laura Purdue Salas, Flurry, Float, and Fly!
On this hot, humid southern day when the temperature rises above 90 degrees, I received this cool to the touch advanced copy of Laura Purdie Salas’s next picture book all about the poetry and science of a snowstorm.
Without January, 2025, I’d have believed I would never see a snowstorm; however, we had one here along the gulf with enough snow to do all the fun things a good snow brings.
New Iberia, LA covered in snow, January 2025.
I look forward to sharing this book with my grandchildren who are just beginning to read. The text delights with rhyme: “From the north, a polar freeze…from the south, a humid breeze. All winds advance. They mix and dance.”
In addition to lively text, this book includes science that can be easily understood by our youngest readers. Did you know “each cloud’s type—how cold?—how wet? shapes each crystal’s silhouette.”?
Chiara Fedele’s illustrations show how white can be colorful and peaceful.
Illustrations by Chiara Fedele
Laura always has on her teacher hat when she creates a book. There is back matter including intricate photographs by Dr. Kenneth G. Libbrecht of the variations of a snowflake. Teachers can also find resources on Laura’s website here. If you click fast, you can enter a giveaway for a 30 minute classroom visit with Laura.
I highly recommend her for class visits. A few years ago, my students loved learning the back story of how Laura researches and plans her picture books. Author visits help students to see all the work that goes into creating a book as well as experience the passion the author feels about her topic.
Laura lives in Minnesota, so she probably sees snow every year, but her special book “Flurry, Float, and Fly!” took this southern girl back to a cool experience with a rare snowstorm. Relive your own snowstorm stories and share them with young readers. Publication date is November 11, 2025.
Margaret Simon lives on the Bayou Teche in New Iberia, Louisiana. She is a retired elementary gifted teacher who writes poetry and children's books. Welcome to a space of peace, poetry, and personal reflection. Walk in kindness.
Reflections on the Teche 