Guest Post & Giveaway: Annette Simon on How a Bookseller by the Sea Influences a Book Maker at Her Desk. And Vice Versa.

Guest Post & Giveaway: Annette Simon on How a Bookseller by the Sea Influences a Book Maker at Her Desk. And Vice Versa.

Visit Annette!

From Cynthia Leitich Smith:


Do you wear more than one hat in the children’s-YA book world? There are a lot of us. Writers who also are teachers or librarians. Illustrators who do promotional design. Retired librarians who work as consultants.

Today we welcome indie bookseller and author-illustrator Annette Simon,

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Laney Nielson Wins Austin SCBWI Cynthia Leitich Smith Writing Mentor Award

Laney Nielson Wins Austin SCBWI Cynthia Leitich Smith Writing Mentor Award

Laney Nielson

By Samantha Clark of Austin SCBWI

Congratulations to Laney Nielson, who won a year’s mentorship with the inaugural Cynthia Leitich Smith Writing Mentor Award, at the Austin SCBWI 2014 Writers & Illustrators Working Conference last month.

Laney was one of eight nominees chosen by the conference’s critiquing faculty for their high-level writing.

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New Voice: Varsha Bajaj on Abby Spencer Goes to Bollywood

New Voice: Varsha Bajaj on Abby Spencer Goes to Bollywood

By Cynthia Leitich Smith

Varsha Bajaj is the debut novelist behind Abby Spencer Goes to Bollywood (Albert Whitman, 2014). From the promotional copy:

What thirteen-year-old Abby wants most is to meet her father. She just never imagined he would be a huge film star—in Bollywood! 

Now she’s traveling to Mumbai to get to know her famous father. 

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Guest Post: Todd Strasser on Water Seeks Its Own Level: Finding the Right Agent

Guest Post: Todd Strasser on Water Seeks Its Own Level: Finding the Right Agent

By Todd Strasser

A number of years ago Twentieth Century Fox went into production on a script based on my novel, How I Created My Perfect Prom Date (Simon Pulse).

This, as I’m sure you can imagine, was pretty exciting stuff, and, I imagined hopefully, possibly even an opportunity to improve my visibility among the Hollywood decision makers of the day.

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New Voice: Peggy Eddleman on Sky Jumpers

New Voice: Peggy Eddleman on Sky Jumpers

Educator Guide

By Cynthia Leitich Smith

Peggy Eddleman is the first-time author of Sky Jumpers (Random House, 2013). From the promotional copy:

Twelve-year-old Hope lives in White Rock, a town of inventors struggling to recover from the green bombs of World War III. 

But Hope is terrible at inventing and would much rather sneak off to cliff dive into the Bomb’s Breath—the deadly band of compressed air that covers the crater left by the bombs—than fail at yet another invention. 

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