Giveaway: First Day on Earth by Cecil Castellucci (Scholastic Canada, November 2011) from Steven R. McEvoy from Book Reviews and More. Deadline: Aug. 1. Note: North America/U.K. readers are eligible; see link for more details.

Barbara Lalicki on Breaking Into Children’s Books from The Gatekeepers Post. Barbara is a senior vice president and editorial director at HarperCollins Children’s Books.

Finding Your Wild and Precious Voice by R.L. LaFevers from Shrinking Violet Promotions. Peek: “…some writers do need to go in search of their true voice; others may only need to excavate or re-discover theirs. I suspect this may be especially true when writing stories for kids—we have to be able to reconnect with our child’s voice.”

Roundup of Children’s Literacy and Reading News by Carol H. Rasco from Rasco from RIF. Includes reading-related events, research, early childhood education and suggestions for growing book worms.

Writing Craft: Tension on the Page or Mico-Tension by Sarah Blake Johnson from Through the Tollbooth. Six techniques to keep readers turning pages.

Interview with Agent Barry Goldblatt from Alice Pope’s SCBWI Children’s Market Blog. Peek: “…children’s publishing over the last ten years has gotten bigger and for the most part better, and it’s meant there are more terrific writers to discover, and more great books to sell and champion!”

What’s in a Name? (When Should You Use a Pseudonym?) by literary agent Miriam Kriss from Chuck Sambuchino from Guide to Literary Agents. Peek: “…what aspiring authors don’t tend to give a lot of thought to is whether they want it to be their real name on that cover and if not who it should be instead.”

Karen Sander‘s Tankborn (Tu Books, 2011)

Thoughts on Post-Apocalyptic World Building from Stacy Whitman’s Grimoire. Peek: “If you include newspaper clippings/stories as metatext to support the main narrative, make sure that it actually sounds like a news clipping.” Note: Stacy is the editor at Tu Books/Lee & Low.

Inkpop: Creative Writing Community for Teens from HarperCollins. Note: read, write, connect!

The Power of “I Can” by Danyelle Leafty from QueryTracker.netBlog. Peek: “…the thing to remember is that you have those rejections because you’re doing something to attain your dream. People who don’t get rejected, haven’t really tried.”

VCFA Guest Post: Props for Emotion: The Objective Correlative Unveiled by C.M. McCarthy from Mary Kole at Kidlit.com. Peek: “As it turns out, the objective correlative is neither a Disney antagonist’s prop nor a phrase created to make fledgling writers feel like fools.”

An Illustration from Rough Sketch to Final Painting by Tom Shefelman from Inside Shefelman Books. Peek: “Here you can see that I changed the perspective angle and brought the farm wagon more into the picture.”

Subplot Basics by Sarah Aronson from Through the Tollbooth. Peek: “It comes from one of two places. It is made of either your main character’s secondary wants—a plot layer or a secondary character’s primary wants.” See also Sarah on Everything Else I Know About Subplots.

Mad Scientist’s Son: Rule-breaking by Brian Yansky from Brian’s Blog: Writer Talk. Peek: “You aren’t supposed to do that. I can remember an instructor I worked with at Vermont College telling me that it was a bad idea when I did it in a manuscript I wrote over ten years ago. She was right then.”

Giveaway: Bestest. Ramadan. Ever. by Medeia Sharif (Flux, 2011), Plus Three Packages of Godiva chocolate and signed bookmarks from Sharifwrites. Deadline: July 15. Note: U.S. readers are eligible; see link for details.

Kristen Lamb on Scene Antagonists and Big Boss Troublemakers from Adventures in Children’s Publishing. Peek: “When helping writers plot, I often suggest that they write their ending first. Many look at me like I just asked them to reverse the earth’s orbit around the sun. Why?” Note: includes a discussion of types of antagonists.

Perspiration: Professional Critiques from Children’s & YA Lit Resources. Note: a listing of private teachers and writing coaches.

The Writing Life: Letting Go, Moving On by Deborah J. Ross from Book View Cafe. Peek: “Part of a writer’s maturation process is accepting that sometimes you hit the mark and sometimes you don’t. You do the best you can with each story, reaching to make each one better.” See also “Come On, Baby, Let’s Start New” — On Getting Back Together with a Manuscript from The Intern. Source: Elizabeth Scott.

Giveaway Reminder

Enter to win one of two signed copies of Writing Young Adult Fiction for Dummies by Deborah Halverson (Wiley Publishing, 2011).

To enter, comment on this post (click link and scroll to comment), mention “giveaway entry” and include an email address (formatted like: cynthia at cynthialeitichsmith dot com) or a link to an email address. Or you can email me directly with “Writing Young Adult Fiction for Dummies” in the subject line. Author-sponsored.

Deadline: July 15. This giveaway is for U.S.-Canada readers.

See also Deborah Halverson on Why Perfectly Nice People Make Perfect Bad Guys.

Cynsational Screening Room

Men Running on Tanks and the Truth About Book Editors: YA author John Green on working with editor Julie Strauss-Gabel of Dutton/Penguin. Source: Adventures in Children’s Publishing, which offers several more awesome links regarding craft, critiquing, inspiration, self-editing, the market, social media and more.

Christopher Paolini Delivers the Inheritance Manuscript from Random Books.

Check out the book trailer for Race the Wild Wind: A Story of the Sable Island Horses by Sandra Markle, illustrated by Layne Johnson (Bloomsbury/Walker, 2011).

Check out the book trailer for Traffic Pups by Michelle Meadows, illustrated by Dan Andreasen (Simon & Schuster, 2011).

Check out the book trailer for Beyond Lucky by Sarah Aronson (Dial, 2011). See also an interview with Sarah about the book from Uma Krishnaswami at Writing with a Broken Tusk. Don’t miss part two.

Check out the book trailer for Into the Trap by Craig Moodie (Roaring Brook, 2011). See recommendation by Greg Leitich Smith from GregLSBlog.

Jeff Crosby’s Wiener Wolf Launch Party

 ” will be here handing out information on how you can adopt a darling dachshund yourself – and will be bringing one of those wiener dogs for us to meet!

Jeff Crosby launched Weiner Wolf (Hyperion, 2011) July 2 at BookPeople in Austin.

The event featured hot dogs from Frank.

Granny cupcakes.

Wolf cupcakes.

Granny (AKA Shelley Ann Jackson) with Lindsey Lane and wiener dog.

Mary Kole

• A Blast from Janet Wong by Sylvia Vardell from Poetry for Children.
• Congratulations to Saundra Mitchell on her two-book deal by Jim McCarthy at Dystel & Goderich to Julie Tibbott at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt!
• Meet Miller the Mallard by Wendy Toliver from Boys, Books, Buzz…
• Cute 4th of July Cat Picture from Anna Staniszewski.
• Disneyland Cats! by Tina Ferraro from YA Fresh 
• Anneographies: celebrating picture book biographies from Anne Bustard
• Census estimates show minority babies now outnumber white babies, part of sweeping race change from The Washington Post.
• “Captain America” Keeps the Word “America” in Most of the World’s Theaters from Newsarama.

• Cyptids! 
• Into The Trap by Craig Moodie (Roaring Brook, 2011)(see trailer above).
• The Year We Were Famous by Carole Estby Dagg (Clarion, 2011) .
• Wiener Wolf by Jeff Crosby (Hyperion, 2011).

Jenny Moss will be signing at 2 p.m. July 16 at the Barnes & Noble Arboretum in Austin. Her latest book is Taking Off (Walker, 2011).

Keep Austen Weird Prom! Jennifer Ziegler is hosting a launch party for Sass & Serendipity (Delacorte, 2011) at 2 p.m. July 23 at BookPeople in Austin. Peek: “This modern YA retelling of Sense & Sensibility is a perfect jumping off point for a teenager’s first taste of Jane Austen, but adults well-versed in the world of Austen will love it too! We’ll be doing this book release party prom-style; wear your fanciest duds and get ready to make all your dreams come true. Jennifer will be interviewed by her real-life sister (fingers crossed for some embarrassing stories), plus there will be contests & prizes and yummy refreshments.”

The 2nd Annual Halloween in July will be at 8 p.m. CST, 9 p.m. EST July 27 with Cynthia Leitich Smith, Kim Baccellia and Dawn Metcalf from #yalitchat on Twitter. Follow: @cynleitichsmith @ixtumea @DawnMetcalf. Chat with us for spooky fun, giveaways and more!

See y’all there!