Families Writing

Here is a book that speaks to everyone interested in creative writing experiences that will draw a family together for the moment and across generations. Families should be writing-recollections, whims, stories of love and pain and laughter, the troubling, sad, or silly things that together make your family richly different from all the rest. Family stuff. Important stuff. In this very practical book, Stillman details why and how to record words that go straight to the heart-the simple, vital words that will speak to those you care most about and to their descendants many years from now.

"The real family treasures," writes Stillman, "are those made of words, not dusty artifacts." And he proves it, with example after example of what happens when families write together, along with scores of ideas for activities that will generate your own keepsake writing. The first edition of Families Writing sold widely, and many copies were picked up by teachers who have successfully used the Families Writing approach in the classroom. In this second edition, therefore, Stillman has added an entirely new chapter of suggestions for teachers.

Peter R. Stillman is the author of Write Away!, Families Writing, Planting by the Moon, and Writing Your Way, Second Edition (a classroom edition of Write Away!). He holds an M.A. from the Bread Loaf School of English, Middlebury College, and lives in upstate New York. Peter Stillman January 23, 1934 - February 5, 2011 We are sad to report the passing of Peter Stillman, Editor and then Publisher for Boynton-Cook. Peter cared passionately about writing and the teaching of writing. Working with longtime business partner, Bob Boynton, Peter was responsible for numerous significant contributions to education, including the publication of Nancie Atwell's groundbreaking book, In the Middle. Those of us who knew him personally recall him as a true old-fashioned Publisher - a diligent reader of manuscripts, challenging authors to step up and define new areas of the field. After departing Heinemann/Boynton-Cook, Peter kept a close eye on both us and his authors, visiting the booth regularly at conferences to share a joke or a story. He will be sorely missed by those who knew and worked with him, and by those who have tended his legacy over the ensuing years. Remembering how Peter touched your life »