Cynsational News - Cynthia Leitich Smith

2014 Longlist for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature from the National Book Foundation:

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Asking an Editor: Hooking a Reader Early by Stacy Whitman from Lee & Low. Peek: “How do you get your writing to have that “zing” that captivates from the very beginning?” See also Stacy on Nailing the Story.

Intersectionality and Disability by Corrine Duyvis from Disability in Kid Lit. Peek: “Why is it that diversity in young adult, middle grade, and children’s literature is often represented as an either/or, without intersectionality? Characters can either be autistic or gay, for example, or a wheelchair user or Black, but rarely both.”

No Name by Tim Tingle (Seventh Generation, 2014): a recommendation by Debbie Reese from American Indians in Children’s Literature. Peek: “Choose your framework for sharing it: It is a basketball story; it is a realistic story of alcoholism; it is a story about the Choctaw people.”

When It Comes to Creativity, Are Two Heads Better Than One? from NPR Books. Peek: “‘We think of Martin Luther King and Sigmund Freud and Warren Buffett and Steve Jobs as these great solo creators, but in fact, if you look into the details of their life, they are enmeshed in relationships all the way through.'”

Not Enough Willpower to Meet Your Goals? Make Mini-Habits. By Kristi Holl from Writer’s First Aid. Peek: “For me, feeling overwhelmed and getting started has always been the hardest part. Having mini goals in order to create habits is so easy.”

Writers–Be Careful How You Sit from Elizabeth Spann Craig. Peek: “We thought we had the kinds of jobs where injuries might be limited to paper cuts or possibly dropping a laptop on our foot.”

What Nobody Tells You About Publishing Deadlines by Cavan Scott from An Awfully Big Blog Adventure. Peek: “…deadlines can shift when you least expect it, which can have a house of cards effect.”

Blasting the Canon: Teach Stories that Speak to Young Readers by Randy Ribay from The Horn Book. Peek: “Great books are published every year, whether or not they end up on some school’s curriculum or a bestseller list.”

Four Tools for the Writing Parent by Joanna Roddy from Project Mayhem. Peek: “Here are four tools that have helped to ground me and other writers I know in the midst of a life that sometimes feels like it’s been reduced to tantrums, skipped naps, and bleary-eyed late night feedings.”

Giving Up The Giver to Hollywood: A Q&A Interview with Lois Lowry by Jessica Gross from The New York Times. Peek: “…in the book she’s 12, and in the movie she’s 16. I advised them that some of the costumes were too sexy. And so the hem was dropped a little bit.”

Middle Grade & YA: Where to Draw the Line? by Judith Rosen from Publishers Weekly. Peek: “We ask booksellers across the country to weigh in.”

Five Important Ways to Use Symbolism in Your Stories by Becca Puglisi from Writers Helping Writers. Peek: “How do we come up with the right symbols in the first place? What should they be symbolic of? And how do we incorporate them into our stories without making them so obvious we lose all their symbolic value?”

Marketing Tips for Authors and Agents by Elisabeth Weed from Writer Unboxed. Peek: “I’ve come to peace with the fact that there are many facets of the business which I can not control but that there’s power and autonomy in focusing on the things that we can.”

On Giving Feedback by Peter Biello from Burlington Writer’s Workshop. Peek: “I want to focus our attention today on one of the thorniest circumstances, and of course the one with which I have a great deal of experience, and that’s the process of giving feedback to a writer who is working on an early or late draft of an unpublished piece.”

Evil, Insane, Envious and Ethical: The Four Types of Villain by K.M. Weiland from Fiction Notes. Peek: “They’re not simple black-and-white caricatures trying to lure puppies to the dark side by promising cookies. They’re real people. They might be our neighbors. Gasp! They might even be us!”

How to Hook a Literary Agent: 16 Agents Share What Gets Them Reading by Jan Lewis from Adventures in YA Publishing. Peek: “Want to get a literary agent? Tired of getting rejected?”

Soho Teen, June 2015

Diversity 101: Gay in YA by Adam Silvera from CBC Diversity. Peek: “…if you’re not gay but want to write characters who are, don’t simply turn to current gay culture to craft your character. Common mistakes include gay guys being automatically interested in fashion and Lady Gaga, and lesbian girls competing in sports or fighting all the time.”

How to Publicize Your Children’s Book by Paula Yoo from Lee & Low. Peek: “To my shock, this “out of the box” creative publicity idea not only worked… but it went viral.”

Rejection Stamina: How Much Can You Take? by Kristi Holl from Writer’s First Aid. Peek: “She (Meg Cabot) points to her own experience with rejection, and I challenge you to read this without fainting…”

The Surprising Importance of Doing Nothing by Robin LaFevers from Writer Unboxed. Peek: “…in a world where output, production, and speed are the gold standard, it’s important to remind ourselves that fast doesn’t always mean better. For some people, speed gets in the way of producing their richest, deepest, most creative work.”

Picture Book Month Promotion Kit — get ready for November!

Courage and Confidence by Kristi Holl from Writer’s First Aid. Peek: “Sometimes I think we spend too much time analyzing our fears as a way to bolster our courage. Maybe–just maybe–the problem would take care of itself if we planted our seats in our seats and worked harder.”

Tales of Reconciliation Rooted in Judaism by Janni Lee Simner from Arizona Jewish Post.

(Scholastic, 2014)

Join author Sharon G. Flake in Telling the World #IAMUNSTOPPABLE from The Brown Bookshelf. Peek: “On Sept. 30, my new novel, Unstoppable Octobia May, will hit bookstores nationwide. On that day I would love you and/or the young people you influence to join me in shouting out to the world that they too are unstoppable by holding up the following sign, words, image: I AM UNSTOPPABLE #UNSTOPPABLEOCTOBIAMAY.”

Why Does the Opening of John Green’s The Fault In Our Stars Work? by Deborah Halverson from Dear Editor. Peek: “It’s the right time to enter her life even though the action isn’t bold. John Green then startles readers with first lines that defy expectations…”

Transparency is Paramount: Consider the Source by Tanya Lee Stone from School Library Journal. Peek: “…the problem arises when I feel duped or manipulated into thinking I am reading nonfiction and discovering I am not—or worse, not being able to determine whether anything was made up, save writing to the author.”

A Conversation with Norwegian Author-Illustrator Stien Hole by Julie Danielson from Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast. Peek: “I am a collector of bits and pieces that I move around and try to put together. That is what I do for a living. Like in a theater, I have a huge prop stock.” Note: click the link if only to be mesmerized by Hole’s art work–gorgeous and fascinating.

Cynsational Screening Room

This Week at Cynsations

More Personally

Lunch with Sarah Enni of YA Highway and First Draft at Tacos & Tequila.

My most heartfelt and enthusiastic congratulations to my former Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers advanced novel workshop student Yamile Saied Mendez on her admission to the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in Writing for Children & Young Adults program!

Congratulations to Greg Leitich Smith and my many other friends who were selected as 2014 Featured Authors at the Texas Book Festival! Kudos also to Greg on his characters from Little Green Men at the Mercury Inn (Roaring Brook, 2014) making the 2013-2014 Yearbook Superlatives from The Horn Book. Guys Lit Wire says of the novel, “This is a cool book about friendship, about overcoming obstacles and about being open to different possibilities. The laid back first person viewpoint makes it accessible to a wide variety of readers.”

Check out the cover for Things I’ll Never Say: Stories of Our Secret Selves, edited by Ann Angel (Candlewick/Brilliance, 2015), which will include my short story, “Cupid’s Beaux,” which is set in the Tantalize–Feral universe and told from the point of view of the guardian angel Joshua.

From the promotional copy:

Fifteen top young-adult authors let us in on provocative secrets in a fascinating collection that will have readers talking.

A baby no one knows about. A dangerous hidden identity. Off-limits hookups. A parent whose problems your friends won’t understand. Everyone keeps secrets—from themselves, from their families, from their friends—and secrets have a habit of shaping the lives around them.

Acclaimed author Ann Angel brings together some of today’s most gifted YA authors to explore, in a variety of genres, the nature of secrets: Do they make you stronger or weaker? Do they alter your world when revealed? Do they divide your life into what you’ll tell and what you won’t? The one thing these diverse stories share is a glimpse into the secret self we all keep hidden.

With stories by Ann Angel; Kerry Cohen; Louise Hawes; Varian Johnson; erica l. kaufman; Ron Koertge; E. M. Kokie; Chris Lynch; Kekla Magoon; Zoë Marriott; Katy Moran; J. L. Powers; Mary Ann Rodman; Cynthia Leitich Smith; and Ellen Wittlinger.

My fun link of the week: Kidlit Mashups (AKA Merged Children’s Book Sequels).

The smartest one: Why You Don’t Need to Rush Your Writing by Meg Rosoff from Writer Unboxed.

And the one that makes me dream: 20 Writing Residency You Should Apply for This Year.

Personal Links

Marsha Riti, Bethany Hegedus, C.S.Jennings & Amy Farrier at Austin SCBWI

Cynsational Events

P.J. Hoover will speak and sign Tut: The Story of My Immortal Life at 2 p.m. Sept. 20 at The Book Spot.

Divya Srinivasan will speak and sign Little Owl’s Day at 3 p.m. Sept. 20 at BookPeople in Austin.

Lindsey Lane will speak and sign Evidence of Things Not Seen at 2 p.m. Sept. 21 at BookPeople in Austin.

Greg Leitich Smith will speak and sign at Tweens Read Sept. 27 at South Houston High School in Pasadena, Texas.

Cynthia Leitich Smith will speak on a panel “Where Are the Heroes of Color in Fantasy & Sci Fi Lit?” from 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. Nov. 15 at YALSA’s YA Literature Symposium in Austin.

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