T.A. Barron grew up in Colorado ranch country and traveled widely as a Rhodes Scholar. He is the winner of the 2011 de Grummond Medallion for “lifetime contribution to the field of children’s and young adult literature” and many other awards.
T. A. Barron is the author of more than 25 highly acclaimed books,
Continue Reading Author Interview & Giveaway: T.A. Barron on Writing & the Atlantis Saga »
By Mari Mancusi
Ten years ago, when I began my publishing journey, I was under the assumption that if you wrote it (and it was good) it would sell.
Sell to a New York publisher.
Be stocked at Barnes and Noble and (sniff!) Borders.
Be discovered by readers.
Carolyn & Lupe AKA “Team Flores”
By Carolyn Dee Flores & Lupe Ruiz-Flores
LR: We call ourselves “Team Flores.”
Although my daughter, illustrator Carolyn Dee Flores, and I have never worked together on a book, we hope to someday.
We team together when we make joint presentations and provide the moral support for each other.
When I wrote Hung Up (Simon Pulse, 2014), I knew before I typed the first word that the entire book would be written in phone conversations.
No traditional scenes. No chapters.
No physical descriptions, besides what I could work naturally into dialogue.
It was my tenth novel–the first I’d written in that format–and it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
Continue Reading Guest Post & Giveaway: Kristen Tracy on Can You Hear Me Now? & Writing Dialogue »
Paint Me! (Sky Pony Press, 2014) is about a little girl who begins the day painting a portrait of her dog, but she quickly discovers the joy of colors and lots of messy paint.
At the end of the day, all is well after a bath and goodnight kiss.
Continue Reading Guest Post & Giveaway: Sarah Frances Hardy on Paint Me! »
Greg at Hogwarts
Congratulations on the release of my favorite of your books, Little Green Men at the Mercury Inn (Roaring Brook, 2014)! What was your initial inspiration for the novel?
Broadly speaking, I drew on my childhood experiences of summer vacations in Florida.
Varsha (taller girl) with her mother and sister.
By Varsha Bajaj
I grew up reading cross culturally because I didn’t have a choice. In the late ’60s and ’70s, British and American authors wrote the children’s literature available in India.
While I had not seen anyone with red hair like Anne Shirley in Anne of the Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery (1908),
Continue Reading Guest Post & Giveaway: Varsha Bajaj on Reading Across Borders & Cultures »
Naked! is a new picture book written by Michael Ian Black and illustrated by yours truly, published by Simon & Schuster at the end of April 2014.
This was my second picture book project and second collaboration with Michael.
While some aspects of the process stayed the same,
By Stefan Bachmann, Katherine Catmull, Claire Legrand & Emma Trevayne
The Cabinet of Curiosities began in January 2013 as a spooky-stories website devised by Emma Trevayne, who invited Stefan Bachmann, Katherine Catmull, and Claire Legrand to join her.
By Mysterious Anonymous Interviewer
An anonymous interviewer sat down this week with Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell to ask some “unusual” questions…
Is Poetry Month a good idea? I mean, by the end of April, aren’t a lot of people sick of poetry?
JW: For many people, having something—anything—every day for a month is too much.
