Using successful strategies from her own classroom, Kate teaches how authors use research, brainstorming, and planning as revision tools; how they revise to add detail and make characters stronger; and how students can use those same techniques for all kinds of writing in the classroom. Real Revision features dozens of reproducible “mentor author” pages, with quotes from the authors about their revision processes, and includes related classroom-ready activities.

For any teacher who wants to produce strong real-world writers, Real Revision will infuse the classroom with new energy as students use mentor authors as models for their own revision and writing.

Kate Messner is the author of Stenhouse professional titles Real Revision (2010) and 59 Reasons to Write (2015) as well as more than two dozen award-winning children's books. These include picture book favorites Over and Under the Snow, Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt, Over and Under the Pond, How to Read a Story, and Tree of Wonder from Chronicle, the popular Ranger in Time series and Silver Jaguar Society Mysteries from Scholastic, and middle-grade novels like The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z, Eye of the Storm, Wake Up Missing, All The Answers, and The Seventh Wish from Bloomsbury.

Kate taught middle school English for fifteen years and earned National Board Certification in Early Adolescent English Language Arts. She left the classroom in 2012 to be a full-time writer, speaker, and educational consultant. Kate was a featured presenter at the 2012 TED Conference and is a frequent keynote speaker for state and national library and teaching conferences. She offers full-day staff development sessions in schools as well as author visits and writing workshops for young readers and writers.

When she's not writing or teaching, Kate enjoys spending time outdoors, hiking the Adirondack High Peaks and swimming in Lake Champlain, where she lives with her family.