An ‘Abbott Elementary’ Writer Who Draws From Her Experience is Teaching Herself to Write, Too
Teddy Abbott, 13, is teaching herself to write. On an early-fall afternoon last week, the self-proclaimed writer and blogger took a break from her duties at her family’s butcher shop to try a new kind of literary experiment: she wrote a poem. It was, she says, the first time she ever made a real attempt at a poem: “I thought, What if I try?”
She’s gotten more comfortable with writing things down, but for the time being she decided to write to the tune of the song “If I Were a Boy I’d Be a Cowboy” from the 1940s musical The Wizard of Oz. That song is now her unofficial theme song. It’s also how she refers to herself.
Teddy, whom we’ll call “Teddy” for the sake of anonymity, has already written several poems, some of which are published on her blog. While she had previously enjoyed blogging, writing for her blog, and even making YouTube videos, those activities came more naturally to her when she started writing poetry.
When she first started writing poetry, she says, she could not really see how it would help her, or others like her, but she kept at it anyway. She says her family’s bookstore was the only place she’d ever spent any real time in, and her mom would often say she preferred children to adults because they’d be more honest with her, more willing to let her in on their problems.
She thought, “I really like to give advice,” and then her mom would remind her that “people don’t always need advice.” And so she kept at it, and eventually she began to write poetry for her blog.
But writing poetry
