Vicki Spandel--a writer who is passionate about the teaching of writing--is a former language arts teacher, editor, journalist, and technical writer. She's written a wide range of things (including newspaper columns, college telecourses, journal articles, proposals, advertising--even copy for menus!) but is best known for instructional books that uniquely combine writing process, traits, literature, and writing workshop. Her books are truly conversations with teachers, so she does her best to fill them with practical teaching ideas, humor, and voice. In 1984, Vicki coordinated the 17-member teacher team (in Beaverton, Oregon)that developed the original, nationally recognized 6-trait model for writing assessment and instruction. Since that time, she has taught trait-based writing to thousands of teachers and students (most of whom were willing), and has served as scoring director for numerous state, county, and district writing assessments. Vicki is the author of more than 40 books for teachers and students, including Creating Writers, 6th edition and Creating Young Writers, 3rd edition (Pearson); The Creating Revisers and Editors series (Pearson); The 9 Rights of Every Writer (Heinemann); and (with co-author Jeff Hicks)The Write Traits Classroom Kits and Write Traits Kindergarten (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). Currently, she makes her home in the tiny picturesque town of Sisters, bordering the breathtakingly beautiful Three Sisters Wilderness area of Central Oregon. She lives in a log house designed by her husband Jerry, goes cross country skiing every chance she gets, visits Maui now and again--where she loves to snorkel, and is working on several picture books, all of them about animals. She's also teaching her eight-year-old grandson Jack to ski, and except for those moments when his skis point in different directions, he's doing remarkably well. (Jack thinks Vicki's improving, too.)