Written by a teacher, for teachers, since 1989

How it started

I started Teacher’s Pet Publications in 1989. I had moved to a town with no teaching jobs, we had our first son, and I wanted to earn a living without putting our toddler into daycare. So I took the lesson plans I had written for my own English classes, reworked them so another teacher could pick them up and use them, and Teacher’s Pet Publications was born — in a spare bedroom, with a 286 PC, a Xerox copier and a hand-cranked comb binder.

What a LitPlan is

After a few years of selling those first plans and listening to customers, I rewrote all 74 of the original titles in a more complete format: daily lesson plans, study questions, vocabulary, quizzes, writing assignments, unit tests and answer keys, all in one unit. That format is still what a LitPlan is today. There are now 175 titles, and every one of them was written by me or by an experienced classroom teacher I trust — never by A.I.

Where things are now

I sold the company in 2009, missed it terribly, and bought it back in 2013. These days I work from home doing the two things I like best: writing and talking with teachers. We are working through updated editions of every title — every word on every page read and proofread — and the membership is the next step: one place where you can open any LitPlan you need, whenever you need it.

— Mary Collins