This comes from her blog: Very simple picture books still have a narrative arc, even though the word count is extremely small. Here’s a look at a narrative arc in 80 words (with the help of some illustrations), as it appears in My Friend, Rabbit, by Eric Rohmann, winner of the 2003 Caldecott Award for... Continue Reading →
Quote of the day:
Much wisdom is a hand-me-down. Like all hand-me-downs, it may be too big at the time it is given. – Rachel Naomi Remen M.D.(Swiped from Janet Lee Carey's twitter feed. Follow her!)
What’s wrong with this query letter?
Sheryl Cline (1)Laura Geringer Books (2)557 BroadwayNew York, NY 10012 Dear Sheryl (3),Thanx (4) for talking with me on the phone. When Art (5) said at that conference (6) that he would love to publish my book (7), I was very pleased (8). He said "Wizard Magick High" (9) would be great for you and... Continue Reading →
Lois Brandt talks about historical research
Come join Lois Brandt at the Washington State History Museum on Thursday, Nov. 19 at 6:30 p.m. She’ll be starting off their evening program, “Home Front 1967,” by talking about what she learned about the Vietnam War while doing research for her WIP, Wearing Vietnam.Thursday is a free entrance day at the museum. Come early... Continue Reading →
How Scott Westerfeld imagined Leviathan
Here's a brief excerpt of his bit on John Scalzi's blog:Leviathan is often described as a steampunk series, and fair enough (walking tanks!). But it hews closer to alternate history than most steampunk, with the son of the Archduke Ferdinand a character, and the timeline for the early war matching our own history closely. But... Continue Reading →
SLJ: best kid-lit blogs
Betsy Bird has a School Library Journal piece on the best blogs in our business. Here's a portion:Although there are more wonderful children's literary blogs out there than one can shake a stick at, here is a very small selection of some that are particularly remarkable. For a more complete listing of children's and young... Continue Reading →
Retreat photos on Facebook
Joni Sensel posted some photos from our Weekend on the Water retreat.You can check them out at our chapter's Facebook site (and join, while you're at it).
Nubs! It’s Nubs on the NYT bestseller list!
A huge congratulations to Kirby Larson and Mary Nethery.NUBS just debuted at No. 4 on the NYT list. Arooo!
Some advice on choosing a pen name
If your book is called The Playboy Sheikh's Virgin Stable-Girl, you're going to want to choose a realistic-sounding pen name.Here's advice on such matters from the Baby Name Wizard.Note: I don't think there's a big market for a picture book about a playboy sheikh. Just saying...
Books recommended by Cheryl Klein/Ruta Rimas
Jaime Temairik has the scoop at her book blog, Bound. P.S. Don't anyone tell her about the giant chicken in GRACELING. It will give everything away.