Amy Ludwig VanDerwater is author of several poetry books for children including Forest Has a Song, With My Hands, Read! Read! Read!, With My Hands, Write! Write! Write!, and If This Bird Had Pockets: A Poem in Your Pocket Day Celebration. In addition, she is author of picture books Every Day Birds, Dreaming of You, That Missing Feeling, poems in many anthologies, and popular classroom blogs The Poem Farm and Sharing Our Notebooks. Her newest book is The Sound of Kindness (August 2023).

Having studied and worked at the Teachers College Writing Project at Columbia University, Amy has been an elementary school teacher (years ago and again during COVID) and is author of the Heinemann professional book Poems Are Teachers: How Studying Poetry Strengthens Writing in All Genres and co-author, with Lucy Calkins and Stephanie Parsons, of Poetry: Big Thoughts in Small Packages. For 23 years, she has led writing workshops and has taught lessons celebrating the power and joy of words.

Amy lives on an old farm in Holland, NY with her husband, sometimes a child or two, and a handful of sweet pets. You can find her knitting, baking, or picking blackberries. Find her online at https://linktr.ee/amylvpoemfarm,