poetry Archives - Anastasia Suen

One of my writers emailed me over the weekend asking if I was teaching the Intensive Picture Book Workshop any more — so I brought it back for the summer.

I started teaching this workshop at Southern Methodist University in 1999, and it has gone through many iterations over the years. This version has 95 picture book lessons and SIX 30-minute Zoom meetings to develop the story arc of your fiction or nonfiction picture book as you write and revise in poetry or prose.

Q. What are the dates for the Summer 2026 Intensive Picture Book Workshop?
A. Enroll anytime between June 9 and July 10 for this self-paced workshop that ends on Saturday, August 29.

Are you writing a fiction picture book story?
Are you writing a picture book biography?
Are you writing a preschool concept book?
Are you writing an information book?
Are you writing poetry or prose?

There are lessons on the private site for EACH type of picture book, including rhyming picture books! Choose the lessons that match your manuscript.

In 2025, my writers published 172 books! (And most of them took this picture book workshop!)

To see a list of all my writers who published books, visit my former students page.
To see all of the Intensive Picture Book Workshop details, visit the workshops page.

Delivery
by Anastasia Suen (Author) and and Wade Zahares (Illustrator)

Booktalk: I was driving on the 405 freeway one day when I saw a car carrier truck loaded with new cars coming uphill in the slow lane through the Sepulveda Pass, and I realized–everything gets delivered–even cars!

As I drove through the city I saw trucks and trains, ships and planes–making deliveries. That’s where the idea for the 90-word picture book poem, Delivery, began.

Many drafts later, it was published as a picture book by Viking Children’s Books in 1999, but this poem kept making deliveries. Delivery came out again (with another publisher) as a PreK literacy program big book and audio-book. A third publisher used a printed and audio excerpt of Delivery in their first grade reading program.