Kate DiCamillo is author of several wonderful books. Among them: the Mercy Watson series, Because of Winn Dixie, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane and The Tale of Despereaux. She has a new book out called The Magician's Elephant (and she was just at the Seattle Public Library).Cynthia Leitich-Smith interviews her at her blog, Cynsations.... Continue Reading →
A fun way to make your character more annoying
You know, here's a link to a poll that claims nearly half of all Americans find "whatever" to be, like, the most annoying word ever. It is what it is, you know. Anyway, here's the link. Whatever.
Good news for Martha Brockenbrough
She is very happy to announce the sale of her picture book, The Dinosaur Tooth Fairy, to Arthur A. Levine Books. Michael Stearns of Upstart Crow Literary is her agent.Martha feels sort of silly talking about herself in the third person, but she makes everyone else do it so it seems only fair. She's also... Continue Reading →
Stories from the headlines
The New York Times has a piece on a 6-year-old facing a 45-day suspension from school because he brought a fork/spoon/knife combo from Cub Scouts to school. He wanted to use it to eat his lunch, but the school has a "zero-tolerance" weapons policy (apparently it doesn't apply to lunch ladies who need knives to... Continue Reading →
Julia Cameron on The Artist’s Way, creativity and faith
(To our e-mail subscribers, this is an embedded video and you'll need to click through to watch it.)
Another ebook distributor
Publishers Weekly has a piece about iStoryTime, a new company that brings children's books to the iPhone. Books by "new" authors are the only ones available, the company founder said, because he didn't think the big publishers would be willing to distribute their books on this platform. Now that the company is getting more publicity,... Continue Reading →
Good news for Suzanne Selfors
Scholastic Book Club has bought the non-exclusive book club rights to Coffeehouse Angel by Suzanne Selfors. The paperback will appear in book club flyers in January of 2010.
Track your Amazon.com rank
This new site tells you how many books you've sold this month on Amazon (as opposed to just telling you your relative rank, which is sort of unhelpful): Novelrank.com.
Good news for Trudi Trueit
Trudi is the author of a number of adorable middle grade books and she reports that Scholastic Book Clubs just bought the rights to sell Secrets of a Lab Rat #1: No Girls Allowed (Dogs Okay). The book should be featured in the take-home flyers for kids in January, 2010. She's tickled because the next... Continue Reading →
Port Townsend Studio Tour this weekend
Port Townsend Artist Studio Tour has (at least) 2 SCBWI member's studios included this year. This year the tour is Saturday and Sunday, October 10th and 11th from 10am-4pm. Elizabeth Blake and Richard J. Watson's studios are included on the tour. Enjoy a peaceful weekend in Port Townsend and visit as many studios as you... Continue Reading →