(a new metaphor for our country)
In honor of Juneteenth I hope we can accept each other as one human race, all deserving of admiration and respect. I see America, not as a melting pot, but as a fabulous party dip: yellow corn chips, covered in brown beans, smothered in sour cream, sprinkled with black olives and red salsa…all ingredients crucial to the delicious whole!!
Published by diannemoritz
Hello,
As a child, I loved books, but never dreamed of becoming a children's writer. In sixth grade, my teacher, Miss Jennings, encouraged me to write limericks and from that moment I was hooked on writing. I wrote poems to my mother and other family members, then went on to write limericks for everyone. I sent one to a sports writer for the LA Times (about Marcus Johnson, star basketball player for UCLA in the late 70's), hoping he would publish it in his column. He didn't. So, I began writing my own columns. I've had pieces in Woman's World (my first!), the LA Times, NY times, Romantic Homes and many other publications around the country, as well as poems in poetry journals: Long Island Quarterly, Earth's Daughters, Pudding Press, Adelaide Literary and many others.
In the mid-eighties, I thought I could make it as a freelance writer, so I quit teaching and moved to Southampton. Bad idea. Still, I plugged on....doing menial labor and writing, writing, writing. I sold a few kids' crafts pieces, poems and stories in kids' magazines, worked as a stringer for the East Hampton Star newspaper, created a craft column for a local Hampton's kiddie newspaper and sold a holiday gift book, SANTA LIVES, to Peter Pauper Press in 2004.
My major breakthrough came in 2010, when I sold two children's picture books to Kane Miller.
HUSH, LITTLE BEACHCOMBER is a retelling of "Hush, Little Baby," of folks frolicking, splashing, and swimming at the beach. Kids love this fun, rollicking book of seashore adventures.
1, 2, 3 BY THE SEA, a counting book, follows a boy and his mother on a day at the beach with all the amazing things they encounter. It is in reprints, was on the "best book list of 2014" compiled by Bank Street College in NYC and has sold over 20 thousand copies, as of Dec. 2016. It has its own facebook page. Check it out.
Kids love my books, as I've done many local readings in the Hamptons, at the Children's Museum, Southampton Elementary School, and have participated in the East Hampton Library's Summer Book Fair.
I am a frequent contributor to Hightlights HELLO and HIGH FIVE magazines for babies and pre-schoolers.
I have followed my dream and am living, loving, laughing, and writing in one of the most beautiful places on earth!
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Dianne Moritz, Children's Author 
Sounds so yummy, Dianne. But seriously, it would be so lovely. 🙂
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yes, it would. maybe, some day, with all the inter-racial unions we will be of one.
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