Rip the Page!: Adventures in Creative Writing - Paperback

by Karen Benke (Author)

Here are the ideas, experiments, and inspiration to unfold your imagination and get your writing to flow off the page! This is the everything-you-need guide to spark new poems and unstick old stories, including lists of big, small, gross-out, and favorite words; adventurous and zany prompts to leap from; dares and double dares to help you mash up truths and lies into outrageous paragraphs; and letters of encouragement written directly to you from famous authors, including: Annie Barrows, Naomi Shihab Nye, Lemony Snicket, C. M. Mayo, Elizabeth Singer Hunt, Moira Egan, Gary Soto, Lucille Clifton, Avi, Betsy Franco, Carol Edgarian, Karen Cushman, Patricia Polacco, Prartho Sereno, Lewis Buzbee, and C. B. Follett.

Author Biography

Karen (Karena) Benke is the founder of The Writer's Nest, a creative literacy mentorship program for children and teenagers. She writes and publishes The Museletter, with a readership of more than two thousand internationally, and is a former Poet in the Schools. She has presented her creative writing adventures program to thousands of children in hundreds of public and private schools, bookstores, libraries, and conferences, and read for the Library of Congress's Lunchtime Poetry Series. Her poetry has appeared in anthologies and national literary journals (Ploughshares, Poetry Daily, Rattle, Hawaii Pacific Review, Poetry East), and her books have been featured in FamilyFun magazine, San Francisco Book Review, Kids' Book Review, the Toronto Star, Guernica Magazine, and more. The recipient of two teaching grants from Poets & Writers and writing residencies from Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Hedgebrook, Numeroventi Design Center (Italy), and The Moth (Ireland), she is co-author with Matilde Pettini of Lunch at Lola's (Rizzoli, 2027) about the rising star's trattoria, Dalla Lola, that was featured on National Geographic's Tucci in Italy. She divides her time between the San Francisco Bay Area and Florence, Italy, where she is always at work on a creative project. Visit her virtually at www.karenbenke.com.