Belying her classroom specialty, math and science teacher Linda Egeler had one of her poems chosen in a national contest.
The fourth grade teacher submitted five poems to SRA/McGraw-Hill's What's the Story? Teacher Author Contest. In June, she learned that "Why is it?” won first place for fourth grade poetry. It will be included in the 2008 companion to the publisher's "Imagine It!” pre-K through sixth grade reading and language arts program.
The contest generated 2,500 entries from teachers or retired teachers around the country who entered in either the poetry or short story category. Each category included eight subcategories by grade for pre-K through sixth. The 16 winning poems and short stories will be published in both Spanish and English.
With this contest, Egeler quickly jumped from spare-time writer and seasonal, bi-weekly columnist for the Elk Rapids News to published poet. She hopes her first break is the beginning of a trend and she sees her work fitting best in the school library market.
"The contest was for teachers who have always had a dream of being published,” said Egeler, a teacher with the Traverse City Area Public Schools for 17 years.
"There are a lot of frustrated writers out there,” she added, reflecting on the number of entries.
As with much of her poetry, Egeler tapped her daily experiences as a teacher for inspiration for the winning piece. "Why is it?” began as a lesson she taught a third grade class on how all food could be traced to a plant. Joking around with her students about why is there is no ham in hamburger or pine in pineapple, for example, a poem began taking shape.
"Eventually we went to the computer to some of those lists floating out there and I just turned those ideas into a poem,” recalled Egeler, who loves teaching children in third through fifth grades.
A writer teaching math and science is a no-brainer to Egeler, who finds it much easier to teach a topic she had to work to grasp as a youngster.
"It's actually hard for me to teach writing because writing to me is really fun and it comes somewhat easily and it's hard for me to break down to their level,” she said. "Whereas in math, I had trouble and I know what it's like to hit a glitch, I know what it's like to get around it.”
Before winning the contest, Egeler had already been working on a collection of school poems and hopes to compile them into a book. She also has a book of animal poetry she is submitting around and has a local press considering a non-fiction manual she wrote on the Kirtland's warbler.
"It's a little song bird that doesn't nest anywhere in the world except northern Michigan and so many of my students have never heard of it,” said Egeler.
Busy with her teaching during the school year, Egeler nevertheless carves out time to write, especially after the new-school-year upheaval passes. During the summer she focuses more on her writing while year round she draws on the support of a writer's group she attends in Gaylord.
Meeting monthly with four other writers, she accesses both structured deadlines and incisive critiques.
"Every week they expect me to bring something, they cut me some slack in September,” said Egeler, whose membership in the Society of Children's Book Writers connected her with the other group members.
"For me, it's hard to get started but once I get started it starts to flow,” she added. "I tend to sketch it in and try to get it down and the bulk of my work is through revision.”