AMANDA NOWLIN
Started in 2011 in Huntsville, TX, BookUpTexas is one of our longest running BookUp sites, facilitated by writer and educator Amanda Nowlin-O’Banion. Amanda took the time to chat with BookUp about how the program has helped the community, the books her students loved, and the success they’ve had as readers. BookUp: What drew you to the BookUp program? Started in 2011 in Huntsville, TX, BookUpTexas is one of our longest running BookUp sites, facilitated by writer and educator Amanda Nowlin-O’Banion. Amanda took the time to chat with BookUp about how the program has helped the community, the books her students loved, and the success they’ve had as readers. BookUp: What drew you to the BookUp program? Amanda Nowlin-O’Banion: I had a difficult time reading in middle school. A program like BookUp would have introduced me to a wider variety of books, and maybe I would have fallen in love with one. The fastest way to turn a struggling reader into a fluent reader is to give that person a book s/he can’t put down, even when the process of moving from sentence to sentence is excruciatingly slow.
National Book Review Interview with Amanda Nowlin-O’Banion, Writer, Educator, and BookUP Texas Instructor
Retribution by Amanda Nowlin
Published in Whiskey Paper
Becky yanks one of my pigtails. I haven’t pigtailed it in years but we’re camping in Yellowstone. Her two and my Davy are with us. “You said you didn’t bring anything!” Her tone says she means drugs. Seriously? Like I’d fly with my third grader and a dime bag. First she’s mad then cautiously elated. “I didn’t!” I don’t smoke anymore. “No bullshit,” she grabs my arm like she’s hauling me to jail.
Boxing Day by Amanda Nowlin
Published in Liars League NYC
You don’t know what Boxing Day in England is all about but guess it has something to do with knocking out your mother-in-law because she’s been in your house six days and there’s nothing left to do but throw down. At the Split Creek Ranch, December 26th is a day of figurative boxing. It’s the day your family makes sausage. That means you, your husband, Jay, his mama and daddy. You’ve got kiddos now to add to the merriment; four-year-old Grace, who can move a shovel like a ditch digger and the baby who stares and makes snot. Neither are help with the sausage, but you love them, and they keep you from diving onto your mother-in-law, limbs flapping like an endangered bird chewing off a tracking band.