By Alex Sanchez
I’ve actually been writing longer than twenty years, but to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of my first novel, Rainbow Boys (Simon & Schuster, 2001)(Woo-hoo!), here are a few life lessons I’ve picked up along the way.
1. Surround yourself with people who believe in you. They don’t need to be other writers,
Continue Reading Guest Post: Author Alex Sanchez Celebrates the 20th Anniversary of Rainbow Boys »
My novel in verse Red, White, and Whole (Quill Tree Books, 2021) is set in 1983. It’s about thirteen-year-old Reha, the child of Indian immigrants, who is torn between the worlds of her parents and her friends at school. Like many teens her age, she wants to wear cool clothes, and go to a middle school dance.
Photo Credit: Laura Billingham
Before my first middle-grade novel with Cordelia Jensen, Every Shiny Thing (Amulet, 2018), was published, I taught middle school for ten years, and those two identities—author and teacher—still feel intertwined. I’d never tried to write fiction until I became a teacher and got inspired by my students and the books I read alongside them.
By Holly Green and Emma Kress
Cynsational Note: Today we are honored to welcome two YA debut authors, Holly Green and Emma Kress, who talk about their debut year and the importance of writing strong, fierce female characters.
Emma: Hi, Holly! I’m so excited we get to chat about our books together for Cynsations!
By Elisa Zied
I recently read Liara Tamani’s All the Things We Never Knew (Greenwillow, 2020)—a 2020 Kirkus Reviews Best YA Book of the Year that’s now out in paperback—and I couldn’t put it down. I laughed, cried, and swooned over the romantic, immersive, and layered story—a perfect YA novel.
As a member of the Courage to Create community, Bethany Hegedus invited me to do a Behind the Book webinar on my picture book It Will Be Okay, illustrated by Jaclyn Sinquett (Sourcebook Kids, 2021).
The Courage to Create is a program run by Bethany,
Continue Reading Guest Post: Lisa Katzenberger: Goes Behind the Book with the Courage to Create »
I have been a fan of Vaunda Micheaux Nelson’s work for decades now. We’ve been together in a writing group since 1997. I can’t imagine letting a manuscript go to my agent without having this amazing writer and friend cast her eyes on it first. I feel so fortunate that she is in my writing circle—my life circle.
Aimee Sicuro’s illustrations for my picture book, Bright Sky, Starry City (Groundwood Books, 2015), blew me away. There were so many elements that just opened up the universe of my story about a girl who loves the sky. When I saw the illustrations, I became convinced that Aimee had read my mind.
Continue Reading Guest Interview: Uma Krishnaswami & Aimee Sicuro Explore Creative Pathways »
Threads of Peace: How Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Changed the World (Caitlyn Dlouhy Books, 2021) took me all of nine years from contract to publication. When I began writing my first draft, I knew I’d need to look for photos.
I had decided to use a combination of archival images and photographs that my husband and I had taken in India and the United States in places important to the lives of both Mahatma Gandhi and Reverend King.
By Chris Barton and Jennifer Ziegler
Time is everything.
We know that’s not quite how the old saying goes. But time — the scarcity of it, the abundance of it, the passage of it, how we choose to fill ours or ask others to spend theirs — has shaped all aspects of our new kidkit video series,