I want to help someone like that.

Ellen Hopkins on hope. (The Commonplace Book Project)

You can find all the posts in The Commonplace Book Project here:

“What I really, really love is when people read my books and say: “I want to help someone like that. I want to be a psychologist, I want to be a social worker. Your books have really shown me that I want to help people like that.” Because at heart, humans are like that. We want love, we want to give love.” — Ellen Hopkins, Interveiw at The Young Folks.

Here is my strongest memory of Ellen Hopkins.

The first year I lived in Reno, Ellen hosted a Christmas party at her house in the Carson Valley for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. I was invited, and my friend Brian Rowe was as well.

I had just sold my first book, Viral Nation, to Penguin and it would be published the next summer.

Ellen sat with me, at a party she was hosting, and talked me through all my questions about being a first time author.

Years later, when I had the opportunity to start an MFA program, it was Ellen Hopkins as the visiting author for the residency that first semester — and knowing that I’d be able to spend ten days learning from her — that helped me to make the decision.

Ellen spends so much time visiting schools, talking with teenagers. She is one of the most generous people I know.

My favorite of her books is the first one, Crank. Like most of her books, it’s told in free verse. It’s loosely based on the story of her daughter’s addiction to drugs. I’ve heard her talk many times about how what she was really telling was her story. Her family’s story. Addiction never belongs to just one person.

Ellen has advice for writers on her website.

I enjoyed this interview with Ellen.

If you haven’t read Crank, I highly recommend it.

I’ve added her new book, People Kill People, to my reading list.

And I am beyond excited to hold a live chat Q and A session with her, for you guys this spring. You can read more about that here. I hope you’ll join us.

Today’s Poem:

Rain by Ellen Hopkins

rain, silence your song, your pewter

dirge against my windows. My patience for puddles

has long since gone, melted into the ether

of childhood, like contrails into a bite of blue.

My desert holds no place for you, your incessant

chiseling away at impressionable sand,

evening breath thick with spirits of sage.

Lift your gray skirts, reveal your star-embroidered

slip, a flash of platinum moon in velveteen

sky. Silence your song. Whisper a wet goodbye.

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Shaunta Grimes is a writer and teacher. She is an out-of-place Nevadan living in Northwestern PA with her husband, three superstar kids, two dementia patients, a good friend, Alfred the cat, and a yellow rescue dog named Maybelline Scout. She’s on Twitter @shauntagrimes and is the author of Viral Nation and Rebel Nation and the upcoming novel The Astonishing Maybe. She is the original Ninja Writer.