The cat on the cover was modeled after Anne’s cat!

By Cynthia Leitich Smith

The 10,000th Try: Rejecting Rejection with Anne Bustard from The Writing Barn. Peek: “That I had a story was the good news. That it was deeply flawed, the bad. And that I must start completely-from-the-very-beginning-over, the scariest.” Note: check out Anne’s newly redesigned official author website.

Reviews: Positive, Negative, and the Big Picture from April Henry. Peek: “…what I think is even more painful is to be told that your book is going to be reviewed in a newspaper or magazine, one with tens or even hundreds of thousands of readers, and then the ‘critic’ decides he or she had better live up to the title.”

How to Survive Writing Through the Holiday Season by Stina Lindenblatt from QueryTracker. Peek: “…as I edit my manuscript and think about the other project I want drafted by the end of the year, I’m slammed by a daunting thought: how the heck am I going to survive?”

It’s Not Just You by Dahlia Adler from The Daily Dahlia. Peek: “It is not just you who feels like you have no idea what’s going on, what you’re supposed to be doing, how best to promote your book, how to write a perfect query, how to form relationships…any of it. It is not even just you who randomly cries about things for no reason.”

Battling Excuses by Sarah Callender from Writer Unboxed. Peek: “Excuse 2: ‘I keep getting rejected.’ Fabulous. You are now one of us.”

Five Questions for Children’s Author Sharon Flake by Kathleen T. Horning from The Horn Book. Peek: “My parents often recalled the fifties with both fondness and frustration. From what people wore, to the jobs African Americans could and couldn’t get, they remembered it all and shared eagerly. My mom has since passed, and the time I spent talking to her, my sister, and my dad about this era means even more to me.”

Prequel e-novella to Killer of Enemies

Native American Heritage Month: 10 Books By Native Authors from Lee and Low. Peek: “For many years, Native people were silenced and their stories were set aside, hidden, or drowned out. That’s why it’s especially important to read stories about Native characters, told in Native voices.”

Reminder! The SCBWI Emerging Voices Award deadline is Nov. 15. Peek: “The grant was created to foster the emergence of diverse voices in children’s books.” See also Diversity in Nonfiction by Hannah Ehrlich from Multicultural Children’s Book Day.

Creating Authentic Characters by Claudia Guadalupe Martinez from Esther Hershenhorn at Teaching Authors. Peek: “The point is to start thinking about how genuine the attempt at integration is. To figure out what this might mean for you, whether writing inside or outside your experience, try this exercise.”

So How’s the Book Doing? by Laurie Ann Thompson from EMU’s Debuts. Peek: “Is how the book is doing a week or a month after its publication date necessarily all the relevant to how it will be doing a year or two from now?”

Author Interview: Rita Williams-Garcia by Elizabeth Pandolfi from Charleston City Paper. Peek: “We are living the effects of history every single day. By the same token, we all play a part in living history by simply being, acting, witnessing, and telling. Each and every one of us makes up those pixels that create some part of that picture of a historical era or event.”

Christine E. Elden Memorial Fellowship for Unpublished Middle Grade Writers. Note: The Eldin Fellowship has two purposes “1. Honor the memory of Chris Eldin. 2. Provide recognition and financial assistance to an unpublished middle grade fiction author whose work-in-progress reveals potential for a successful writing career.” The first year’s award will be $1,000 and a trophy. The judge is author Louise Hawes. Deadline: Dec. 31. There is a $10 entry fee.

Cynsational Screening Room

Great news! The We Need Diverse Books Indiegogo campaign has met our $100,000 fundraising goal! At the time of this posting, we have raised $102,744! Hooray!

The campaign is still ongoing–with 27 days left, and the future donations will allow us to do even more to support diversity in children’s-YA lit!

Thank you to everyone who donated and/or signal boosted! Please keep supporting the campaign!

Authors on Diverse Books from Undercurrent on Vimeo. See also #WeNeedDiverseBooks Chat at 8 PM CST, 9 PM EST via Debbie Reese at American Indian Literature for Youth. #SupportWNDB.

Cynsational Giveaways

Enter to win!

• Jingle Dancer by Cynthia Leitich Smith
• Forbidden by Kimberley Griffiths Little
• Ship of Dolls by Shirely Parenteau
• What Flowers Remember by Shannon Wierbitzky

The winner of the Feral trilogy by Cynthia Leitich Smith was Erin in Michigan.

Enter to win one of five ARCs of Utopia, Iowa by Brian Yansky (Candlewick, 2015) at Goodreads.

See also Three Weeks of Thanks-Giving, Plus a Children’s Writers and Illustrators Market Giveaway from Teaching Authors.

This Week at Cynsations

• 10th Anniversary of Cynsations
• Author-Illustrator Lita Judge on Born In The Wild: Baby Mammals and Their Parents 
• Deanna Roy on Getting By As a Writer With a Little Help from Your Friends
• New Voice Tracy Holczer on The Secret Hum of a Daisy 

More Personally

Wednesday was the 10th anniversary of the founding of Cynsations! Thank you so much for your enthusiasm and support! It’s been an honor, hosting this blog over the past decade, and I have learned so much in the process.

On a related note, thank you to Project Mayhem for recommending Cynsations in its round-up of blogs! I’m a huge fan of what y’all do, too!

With fellow Austin author Jennifer Ziegler at the Austin Public Library Friends Foundation Illumine Benefit

With fellow Austin author Ruth Pennebaker at the Illumine Benefit

Carmen Oliver, holding coffee, with Austin SCBWI ARA Shelley Ann Jackson at BookPeople

Congratulations to Cynsations reporter Karen Rock (half of the J.K. Rock writing team) on hitting the Amazon Top 100 Teen Romance List with Camp Forget Me Not! Readers are invited to download the book, and Karen and her co-author will give you two Camp novellas for free!

Congratulations to fellow Austinites P.J. Hoover, author of Tut: The Story of My Immortal Life (Tor), and Varian Johnson, author of The Great Greene Heist, for being named to the Texas Library Association 2015 Lone Star Reading List!

Personal Links

• Teens Refute Mental Illness Stigma
• Dad Builds Iron Man Costume for Sick Infant 
• Marion Dane Bauer: While I’m Talking About Aging
• “Jurassic Park” Boy’s College Application Essay
• “Big Hero 6” Tops Box Office
• Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid To Ask 
• If You Seek a Full-Time Writing or Publishing Career

Cynsational Events

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. See more information from I Read Banned Books.

Now Available!

Coming Soon!

The SCBWI Austin 2015 Writers and Illustrators Working Conference will take place March 7 and March 8 at Marriott Austin South. Note: Cynthia Leitich Smith will be moderating a panel and offering both critiques and consultations.

Cynthia Leitich Smith will serve as the master class faculty for the VCFA Alumni Mini-Residency from June 19 to 21.

Cynthia Leitich Smith will speak on a We Need Diverse Books panel at the 2015 Annual Conference of the American Library Association from June 25-30 in San Francisco.