The following is a list of my favorite resources for creativity, writing, teaching, and living that I return to on the daily. I settled on seven as the lucky number because I was born in ’77, my birthday falls on the seventh month, and five just wasn’t enough.

7 Favorite Podcasts (current as of 2025)

Joanna Penn is, in my opinion, the smartest creative writer and entrepreneur delivering the most informative and entertaining podcast for authors in the world! There are over 800 episodes about the craft of writing, marketing, and author business. She does it all!

Wish I’d Known Then…

Jami Albright and Sara Rosett are two writers that interview other writers about the things they wish they had known when they got started writing. The two of them are fun and relatable, and I love their interview style. They also attract guests that are a lot like them. Again, two people I just really like hanging out with and learning from!

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Modern Classrooms Project

This podcast is new this year, but the ideas and models for learning are not. The hosts of this show do a great job of getting to the foundational elements of instruction. They have a model for learning that puts the student in the driver’s seat, frees up the teacher to confer with students rather than give direct instruction, and is highly individualized. This is the future of education!

The Balance

Dr. Tucker is an author an blended learning coach who provides practical tips and resources for bringing your classroom into the intelligence age. Her books are filled with easy to understand ideas about getting students to lead the way and stop being passive participants in learning. I’ve read many of her books, and am consistently working to support teachers to try her station rotation model!

Strong Sense of Place

This podcast is a must listen every week! Make some room, ok lots of room, on your TBR list. Traveling the world is a dream for me, and I may only be able to actually do it by reading. The hosts do a great job of selecting five books, fiction or non, that share a setting. From libraries, to countries, to holidays, the podcast includes a wonderful mix of location information, trivia, and books, explaining exactly what makes them great reads.

Armchair Anonymous

Sometimes, I need a break from education or writing related topics. This podcast is a favorite because it feels like you are sitting in the attic with Dax and Monica just having a great time. I need this on long drives when I just want to laugh, and the stories are always great. Guests call in to respond anonymously to prompts such as: amusement park disasters, babysitting gone wrong, and many more.

The Modern Math Teacher

To be honest, I have just discovered this podcast. However, based on the episode titles alone, I have a pretty good feeling the host’s values and pedagogy are closely aligned to my own. Math can be complicated and emotional. I’ll take all the ideas and advice I can get from someone who has tried all kinds of different things!

7 Favorite Books for Teachers

Big Magic

Big Magic is a book about creativity, but truthfully, it was written for me specifically. If you know me, you know that I believe magic is everywhere. You just have to have special glasses to see it. Gilbert is giving us the glasses in this book. Most importantly, she reminds us that all of us have magic within us, and it is our responsibility to share it. I can’t think of a better message to believe for ourselves and to share with our students.

Wonderous Words

Learning how to read and write all over again as an adult is a gift I will forever thank becoming a teacher for. Wondrous Words teaches us how to look at writing like we would look at any other piece of art, but also shows us how to do it ourselves. It is written for teachers, but challenges all of our own beliefs about writing in ways that are encouraging and inspiring.

Bird by Bird

Ann Lamott names all of our negative thoughts about writing and even life, and then tells you to do it anyway. She reminds us that books are “as important as almost anything else on earth, because they help us understand who we are and how we are to behave.” I will always love this book for teaching me to trust myself, write awful first drafts, and not take myself too seriously.

Building Thinking Classrooms

Knowledge mobility. Ever heard of it? Neither had I until I read this book. “We need to give groups the autonomy to make use of the knowledge in the room.” This book does a great service to teachers to remind them that mimicking is not thinking. From what types of thinking tasks our students need to where and how they will engage in those tasks is covered in this fun to read teaching book!

That Workshop Book

Classrooms are workshops. Listening to teach involves knowing your students as people. People who already have great ideas and love to learn. This book uses actual models of classrooms that are changing what teaching and learning looks like. It looks like making something, cooperatively, and valuing what all the people are bringing to the table.

The Inside Guide to the Reading-Writing Classroom

When I first started teaching, I was terrified. I wished to have a mentor, who valued the things that I did, encourage me when I was lost, and remind me why I wanted to do this work. After my first couple of years, I was given this incredible gift and followed it almost day by day, lesson by lesson. This method of teaching values student thinking and creates communities of people who listen to each other.

Learnership

“We don’t have a teaching problem, we have a learning problem.” This book changed my thinking about education more than any other book in the last several years. Our culture has been so focused on “fixing the teaching” that we have missed the point. What are the learners doing? Learning happens as a result of the activity of learners, it is not the product of teaching. This book is revolutionary in that it outlines for us how to shift our focus to supporting students to develop their relationship to learning and their ability to create the skill of learning.

Favorite Picture Books

Check out this blog post for a list of my favorite picture books. I couldn’t decide on just seven, so I made myself write a whole post on them! I probably love picture books more than anything else!