Professor and daughter to read at Odyssey
Corinne Demas, Mount Holyoke professor of English, and her coauthor daughter will join other children’s book authors at Odyssey reading.
Corinne Demas, Mount Holyoke College professor of English, is an expert in writing literature for readers of all ages. A prolific author, she has published over 30 books, including novels, children’s books, short stories, poetry collections, and memoirs.
Demas, Roehrig, and their books—Are Pirates Polite? and Does a Fiddler Crab Fiddle?—were recently featured in the Hampshire Daily Gazette and on the Bill Newman Show on WHMP-AM.
Roehrig, who holds a master’s degree in organismic and evolutionary biology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, was inspired by fiddler crabs while doing research on Cape Cod and suggested that her mother write a book. Demas agreed, and asked Roehrig to lend some of her knowledge of the crustaceans and of the violin, which Roehrig plays, to create the rhymes in the book.
Are Pirates Polite? was written to encourage children to learn manners in an easy, amusing, and unconventional way.
The other authors at the reading are Grace Lin, Patricia MacLachlan, Bob Marstall, Jane Yolen, and Heidi Stemple.