Deborah Halverson
We work hard to get to know our characters.
Creating bios, interviewing them, giving them personality tests. One discovery tool often overlooked in this great pursuit are the small actions tucked into the narrative beats.
Narrative beats are those little breathers in dialogue, sometimes filled simply with speaking tags like he said,
Lawrence Schimel, photo by Nieves Guerra
September is #WorldKidLit Month, a time to notice if world literature is reaching kids in the form of translations.
Read a Cynsations interview with co-organizer Marcia Lynx Qualey.
By Karen Kane
How you use feedback can make or break your story.
Which feedback do you follow?
Which feedback do you ignore?
Most importantly, how can you make sure the feedback you do use deepens your writing, and not derails it?
Here’s what I know about feedback: you are in charge.
Continue Reading Guest Post: Karen Kane on Analyzing Feedback »
Tim Tingle (right) with his son, Dr. Jacob Tingle,
photo courtesy Oklahoma Center for the Book.
By Traci Sorell
On April 7, 2018, author Tim Tingle received the Arrell Gibson Lifetime Achievement Award.
Named in honor of an author who served as Oklahoma Center for the Book‘s first president,
Continue Reading Author Interview: Tim Tingle, Choctaw Storyteller & Author »
After years of writing you finally have your very first book deal! Now what? How do you promote your debut novel? I talked to four Maryland debut authors from the Electric Eighteens to get the inside scoop on how debut groups for young adult and middle grade authors work.
Deborah Schaumberg, Continue Reading New Voices: Inside Scoop on Debut Author Groups with J.H. Diehl, Lauren Abbey Greenberg, Jonathan Roth & Deborah Schaumberg »
Kim Ventrella is the debut author of Skeleton Tree (Scholastic, 2017). From the promotional copy:
Twelve-year-old Stanly knows the bone growing in his yard is a little weird, but that’s okay, because now he’ll have the perfect photo to submit to the Young Discoverer’s Competition. Continue Reading New Voice: Kim Ventrella on Improving Your Writing Skills & Skeleton Tree »
Jen Petro-Roy is the debut author of P.S. I Miss You (Feiwel & Friends, 2018). From the promotional copy:
Evie is heartbroken when her strict Catholic parents send her pregnant sister, Cilla, away to stay with a distant great aunt. All Evie wants is for her older sister to come back.
Continue Reading New Voice: Jen Petro-Roy on Epistolary Novels & P.S. I Miss You »
Jessie Janowitz is the debut author of The Doughnut Fix (Sourcebooks, April 2018). From the promotional copy:
Tristan isn’t Gifted or Talented like his sister Jeanine, and he’s always been okay with that because he can make a perfect chocolate chip cookie and he lives in the greatest city in the world.
Continue Reading New Voice: Jessie Janowitz on Finding a Literary Agent & The Doughnut Fix »
Lindsey Stoddard is a Vermont College of Fine Arts alum and our time there overlapped, so I jumped at the chance to interview her about her debut middle grade novel, Just Like Jackie (HarperCollins, 2018). From the promotional copy:
For as long as Robinson Hart can remember,
Continue Reading New Voice: Lindsey Stoddard on Just Like Jackie »
Laney Nielson is the debut author of Peppermint Cocoa Crushes (Skypony, 2017). From the promotional copy:
Sasha is so excited for her school’s Winter Variety Show! She and her best friends, twins Karly and Kevin, have been working on a song and dance routine for it,
Continue Reading New Voice: Laney Nielson on Peppermint Cocoa Crushes »
