Guest Post: Candace Fleming on The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of Imperial Russia

Guest Post: Candace Fleming on The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of Imperial Russia

By Candace Fleming

I first read Robert K. Massie’s Nicholas and Alexandra (Atheneum, 1967) the summer between my seventh and eighth grade year after pulling it off my mother’s bookshelf.

“You’re not going to like that,” she warned. “It’s pretty dense history.”

She was right.

Continue Reading Guest Post: Candace Fleming on The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of Imperial Russia »

Guest Post & Giveaway: Deborah Halverson on Five Things YA Writers Should Know about New Adult Fiction

Guest Post & Giveaway: Deborah Halverson on Five Things YA Writers Should Know about New Adult Fiction

New Adult Covers

By Deborah Halverson

Just as the difference between a middle grade story and a young adult story is more than the characters’ ages and grades in school, the difference between a young adult story and a new adult story is more than the characters’ ages and their graduation from high school.

Continue Reading Guest Post & Giveaway: Deborah Halverson on Five Things YA Writers Should Know about New Adult Fiction »

Cynsational News & Giveaways

Cynsational News & Giveaways

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.

Continue Reading Cynsational News & Giveaways »

Giveaway: 10th Anniversary of Cynsations

Giveaway: 10th Anniversary of Cynsations

Speaking at KidlitCon 2013

By Cynthia Leitich Smith

Today marks the 10th Anniversary of Cynsations!

The blog launched on Nov. 12, 2004; and featured children’s author Chris Barton, talking about consolidation and marketing.

There was no introductory post and no images–until Blogger introduced that option.

Thanks so much to each of you for reading and sharing your thoughts!

Continue Reading Giveaway: 10th Anniversary of Cynsations »

Author-Illustrator Interview: Lita Judge on Born in the Wild: Baby Mammals and Their Parents

Author-Illustrator Interview: Lita Judge on Born in the Wild: Baby Mammals and Their Parents

By Cynthia Leitich Smith

From the promotional copy of Born To Be Wild: Baby Mammals and Their Parents by Lita Judge (Roaring Brook, 2014):

What do grizzly bear cubs eat? Where do baby raccoons sleep? And how does a baby otter learn to swim? 

Every baby mammal,

Continue Reading Author-Illustrator Interview: Lita Judge on Born in the Wild: Baby Mammals and Their Parents »