Interview with Creative Writing Instructor and Newbery Honor Winner, Veera Hiranandani

Chalk and Ink: The Podcast for Teachers Who Write and Writers Who Teach

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Congratulations to all the Chalk + Ink guests who received 2022 ALA awards. Let’s start with today's guest, Veera Hiranandani! Her book How to Find What You’re Not Looking For won the Sydney Taylor Book Award and the Jane Addams Peace Award. Congratulations to Alicia D. Williams. Her picture book Shirley Chisholm Dared: The Story of the First Black Woman in Congress won the Jane Addams Peace Award for Younger Children. I also want to congratulate Carole Boston Weatherford. Her book, Unspeakable, illustrated by Floyd Cooper, won a Caldecott Honor, a Sibert Honor, a Jane Addams Peace Award Honor, and the Coretta Scott King Book Author Award and the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award. Finally, I want to shower congratulations on Melissa Stewart and Sarah Brannen, the creator of the Chalk + Ink logo, for winning a Sibert Honor for their book Summertime Sleepers. Congratulations everyone! Thank you all for gifting us such wonderful books.

The honest and reflective, Veera Hiranandani, talks about the power of 15 minutes, the importance of respecting one another during the critique process, and how stories help us explore possible ways we can change.
In preparation for our next episode, please be sure to read My Shoes and I (Mis zapatos y yo) and Waiting for Papá (Esperando a Papá) by René Colato Laínez. Both books tell two different immigrant stories. Before I interviewed him, I thought perhaps his own story inspired one book and a student’s story inspired the other book. While that's partially correct, it is not the whole story. If you want to know part of René’s history before listening to the interview, read René’s excerpt in

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