SCBWI

Free Workshop for Children’s Writers

December 6, 2015 by lynncoulter

Come join us! The Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators (SCBWI) is sponsoring our FREE program in the Atlanta area. We’ll talk about writing, answer your questions, and share tips and ideas. Refreshments will be served.

WHAT: The Ups and Downs of Writing Children’s Books:  A Workshop For Children’s Authors (And Everyone Else)

 WHEN: Dec. 12, 2015, 1 to 3 p.m.

 WHERE: Stonecrest Library, 3123 Klondike Rd, Lithonia, GA 30038  Phone: (770) 482-3828

WORKSHOP SPEAKERS: Connie Fleming, Nancy Craddock, Lynn Coulter and TK Read

SPEAKER/TOPIC: Connie Fleming: Walking on the Edge: Conflict in Children’s Writing

ABOUT CONNIE:  A former UCR Crime Analyst with Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Connie now spends her days and nights writing, illustrating, and speaking at schools, libraries and churches. Into every life must come some conflict, and no story is complete without it. Learn how to insert the right amount of tension to move your story forward.

As a very health-conscious senior adult she also writes about wiping out obesity, with a healthy dose of her own brand of humor and Christian wisdom. Her website is Connie Fleming and her weight-loss blog can be found at The Acceptable Sin.

SPEAKER/TOPIC: Nancy Craddock: Warnings from a Self-Pubbed Author  If you’re thinking about self-publishing, you can save yourself a lot of angst (and money) from someone who did it all wrong!

ABOUT NANCY:  Feeling as if she’s always been peering over the top of an open book, Nancy is a keen observer of life. Each chapter of her own life has been centered around books, schools and libraries. As a child, Nancy’s happiest days were either playing “school” or “library” with a neighborhood friend. As an adult, she’s diligently worked to foster a life-long love of books in elementary students from Baton Rouge, LA and Houston, TX, to Atlanta, GA.

Whether her students were a diverse group in a inner-city school, wealthy children of cattle barons or the sons and daughters of hard-working middle class parents in the suburbs, Nancy learned that shared laughter is always a unifying factor in any classroom and a humorous children’s book was never far from her reach. Writing contests, magazine articles and hand-written notes, emails and long distant phone calls from editors will always be a thrill but Nancy is quick to say that she gauges her success by timid youngsters who’s whose eyes barely meet hers when they say “I like your book” at various book events. That is all the proof she needs to know her life has been, and continues to be, the most fabulous fairy tale she could ever imagine. Her website is Nancy Craddock.

SPEAKER/TOPIC: Lynn Coulter: Make Money By Writing Nonfiction

Even if your goal is to publish a novel, you can earn money writing nonfiction books and articles while you work on it. The Web, for example, consumes enormous amounts of information, and someone has to write that content. Why shouldn’t it be you? Learn how to break into print and digital publications for children and adults with freelancer and author Lynn Coulter.

ABOUT LYNN:  Lynn Coulter writes for HGTVGardens.com. She’s also a freelancer with a B.A. in Journalism and the author of 3 books: Gardening with Heirloom Seeds; Mustard Seeds (Publisher’s Weekly starred review); and Little Mercies. Lynn has served as a contributing editor for Delta Sky and U.S. Airways Magazines, and she’s written for Ranger Rick, Southern Living, Jack and Jill, Delta’s Sky 4 Kids, Pockets, The Home Depot Garden Club, Southern Living, AAA Traveler and other publications. Currently she’s writing a novel for middle-grade readers with the help of her loyal office assistants/rescue dogs, Miss Paws and Molly. This is her website.

SPEAKER/TOPIC: TK Read: Light Fires Beneath Your Book Sales

Whether you’re self-pubbed, indie-pubbed, or traditionally pubbed, you need to market your book to make sure your sales soar! Learn promotion tips and tricks, and the best place to put your marketing efforts and dollars from TK. We’ll go over promotion ideas for small, medium, and large budgets!

ABOUT TK:  TK is an attorney by day and a writer in the wee hours of the morning. She downs coffee and chocolate, and pens young adult thrillers and middle grade fantasies. A life-long student, she also signs up for every class she can fit in her schedule – that way when her teens are going on-and-on about their tough courses, she can match them moan-for-moan. TK co-authored the book, 100 Small Fires to Make Your Book Sales Blaze! with her marketing whiz sister, Kathleen Vrona. Visit TK at TKRead.
**THIS EVENT IS SPONSORED BY THE SOCIETY OF CHILDREN’S BOOK WRITERS AND ILLUSTRATORS (SCBWI.ORG)

Filed Under: Miss Paws, writing Tagged With: children's books, SCBWI, Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators, writing

Author Meg Medina’s Writing Prompts

April 9, 2015 by lynncoulter

Latina author Meg Medina had some of the audience at the recent Atlanta SCBWI conference in tears. The waterworks started when she gave us prompts to create characters for our children’s stories.

Tuck a tissue in your pocket and try one of these. Just be really, really honest, because, as Meg said, because growing up is tough, and writers need to tell the truth.

Ready? Finish this sentence: “I come from….”

To get you started, I’ll tell you where I come from. “I come from dirt-poor grandparents who lived in Alabama and dropped out of school around the fifth grade to help farm the family land. I come from a father who was the first person in his family to graduate from college (he could afford it only because of the GI Bill).”

Here’s another prompt: “And so, we meet again…’

One woman in our group completed that one with a paragraph about a man who sped through her neighborhood every night on his way home from work. While he barreled past little kids and startled dogs and stroller-pushing moms, he blasted his horn, non-stop. Then he’d screech to a stop in his carport, stomp inside, and slam the door behind him. She said everybody called him “The Blower.” While you wouldn’t make an adult the focus of a kids’ book, wouldn’t this guy make a fascinating character?

One more. Write your autobiography in just six words. When we did this exercise, many of the writers in the room came up with lovely, even lyrical lines.

Not me. I remembered a tough patch I’d gone through a few years ago, and I decided to look into my own darkness. My six words were, “Her broken pieces are still holding.”

Once I showed some vulnerability, others did, too. More than a few of us had damp eyes by the end of Meg’s talk, which was a good thing, because it meant we were digging deep into our personal truths.

Whether you’re writing about sunny times or desperate ones, Meg says we’re still every age we ever were. The preschooler, the adolescent, the young adult: they’re all still alive in our heads and hearts. Use her prompts to nudge or jolt your memories. Reach deep inside to find emotional connections that will grab your readers.

Filed Under: Miss Paws, writing Tagged With: Meg Medina, middle grade novels, SCBWI, writing, writing prompts, young adult novels

How to Get a Literary Agent

March 28, 2015 by lynncoulter

How do you get an agent for your children’s book? Well, first you need an elephant…

Okay, I’m kidding about that part. But Bob, the elephant you see above, has become the mascot for my middle grade novel, Whistling for Elephants.

I found Bob at the SCBWI SpringMingle, a conference for children’s writers and illustrators that’s held each year in Atlanta. He’s made by the talented Michelle Nelson-Schmidt, who also wrote a book about him.

Bob thinks he’s a unicorn, although his friends don’t see that at all. Then he finds someone who believes in him. Check out the trailer for Michelle’s picture book here on YouTube: Bob Is A Unicorn.

Landing an agent is a lot like finding someone who sees past your elephant-ness into your glittery, magical unicorn-ness. Agents share your dreams for the manuscript you’ve written, and believe it can be more than just a stack of paper. Like you, they see it as a published book children will love to read.

I’m excited that I’ve just received an offer of representation from Dystel & Goderich Literary Management. My agent loves middle grade fiction, and he’s encouraging me to get my story up to around 35,000 words (it’s about 26K now). Once I’ve given my characters a little more time on stage, so to speak, he’ll start circulating it to publishers. I feel so fortunate to have someone with his knowledge and experience in my corner.

So here’s what I learned, as I set out to find an agent:

1. Do your research. I used the SCBWI online catalog of children’s book publishers (you must join SCBWI to access it, but the membership fee is very reasonable, and there are lots of other benefits). Once you find an agency that’s open to the kind of work you’re doing, visit the agency’s site. Read about the agents who work there, and pay attention to what they’re looking for. You’re wasting your time to submit a Y/A novel to someone who only wants picture books. You may also want to Google the agent’s name, to find the books and authors he or she currently represents.

2. When you write your query letter, make sure the agent’s name is spelled correctly. Misspellings are a real turn-off, and suggest you’re a careless or sloppy writer.

3. Personalize your query, if you can. Don’t go overboard; you want to present yourself in a professional and businesslike way. But if the agent mentions he likes a certain book because of its strong voice or sense of place, and you like that, too, mention it. Just be genuine. If you don’t share his enthusiasm, don’t fake it. But little touches like that can show you’ve done your homework and you’re really trying to find a great match between what you can offer, and what the agent can represent with real heart.

4. Add a brief and pertinent bio to your query. If you’ve published in the kids’ field or you’re a much-requested storyteller at your library or school, lead with that info. Not published? Mention writing courses you’ve taken, to show you’re studying and practicing your craft. Agents like to find writers who are SCBWI members, because that means you really care about children’s literature.

5. Follow the directions on the agency’s website and send only what is requested. If they want sample chapters pasted into your email, don’t send an attachment (most won’t open them). If they ask for 5 pages, there’s no need to send 15; it’s risky to annoy the person who’s reading.

6. Be patient. If the agency says their typical reply time is 2 months, don’t nudge them before then. When the time is up, it’s okay to send a short, respectful note asking if they need more time to consider your submission.

7. Keep writing. Keep writing. Keep writing. Continue to read, study, and perfect your work. Consider joining a critique group; your family probably loves everything you’ve written, but that’s because they love you. And having a supportive team behind you is great. But you also need unbiased readers, so you can discover what’s working, and what needs improving.

It feels magical when you finally connect with a great agent. Good luck on finding one who sees your inner unicorn!

Filed Under: Miss Paws, writing Tagged With: children's books, Dystel & Goderich, literary agent, SCBWI, writing

How to Make a Zine

March 17, 2015 by lynncoulter

my first zine

If you’re looking for great art, you’d better stop here.

But this isn’t about creating a masterpiece. It’s about making a zine.

First: what’s a zine? It’s a small, self-published–or in this case, handmade–magazine. I learned about them at the 2015 SCBWI Southern Breeze Springmingle, a conference for children’s book writers and illustrators. I made my first zine there, thanks to inspiration (and instructions) from award-winning Latina author Meg Medina.

Tools to make a zine: old magazines, scissors, a glue stick, and paper

Meg showed us how to fold a sheet of legal-sized paper into a small booklet with 4 pages. Since each page has 2 sides, that gave us 8 surfaces to work with. We cut pictures and text out of old magazines and glued them into our zines, supplementing them with stickers, stampers, and other odds and ends.

The goal was to create a sort of storyboard for whatever we were writing. The images and words didn’t have to mean anything to anyone else; we just picked out what spoke to us, jogged our imaginations, or sparked our creativity.

remember to give your zine a back cover

Mine isn’t perfect (perfect’s not the goal). I got carried away and used images for several different manuscripts I’m either actively working on or just starting to outline. But that’s okay. I can flip back through it for ideas when I need them. Next time, though, I’ll make just one zine per story, to help me stay focused on the plotlines and imagery I want to use.

If you’re having trouble getting started, or you’re stuck with writer’s block, try a zine. It might kick loose your next great idea.

Filed Under: Miss Paws, writing Tagged With: children's books, Meg Medina, SCBWI, Southern Breeze, writing, zine

Heroes in Young Adult Books

March 8, 2015 by lynncoulter

Some heroes wear capes – but not all.

After 5 years of on-and-off again writing, I finally finished my novel for middle grade readers (grades 3 to 6), and sent it to an agent. Fingers crossed she’ll offer representation. Even if she turns me down, I hope she’ll give me feedback to help me revise so I can send it off again. That’s the path to publication; try, try, and try again.

In the meantime, the best way to avoid chewing my fingernails is to jump into a new project.

I’m brainstorming for ideas for young adult novels. I woke up the other day with a single sentence in my head: “There was a hole in the side of the mountain.”

Yep, that’s it. No characters, plot, or setting. So do I have the start of a new story, or just some weird scrap from my subconscious? Remains to be seen.

I’m looking forward to taking a class with author Meg Medina next week at the SCBWI conference in Decatur, GA. According to the conference brochure, she’ll help us unearth clues for our next projects by making a journal using glue sticks, scissors, and magazine pictures. Sounds fun, yes?

While I was thinking about a protagonist for a Y/A book, I found this quote by actor Matthew McConaughey: “Every hero doesn’t go do this great big hero thing. They do the simple thing over and over and over…and they stick to it.”

So true. Not all heroes are Supergirls or Batmen; some are selfless, patient, perservering everyday Joes and Janes who push on in the face of adversity. They’re outsiders or bullied kids or teens who parent younger siblings when parents are MIA or unloving. In the adult world, heroes are caretakers of Alzheimer’s sufferers, single moms or dads, and people with chronic pain or disease.

But novels, especially for young readers, hinge on drama, tension, and action. How would you write about a character who is an ordinary, everyday hero without boring your audience? How do you convey strength, passion, drive, and change–because by definition, every story has to be about change, whether interior or exterior–in a setting or circumstances that are about “simple things” someone is doing “over and over and over”?

Of course, nobody is saying I have to write about that kind of hero. And this isn’t an impossible task; other authors have created just these kinds of characters. I’m just mulling over who my next protagonist will be, and what he or she will want and do and need.

Like I said, I’m looking forward to Meg Medina’s journaling exercise. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Filed Under: Miss Paws Tagged With: children's books, heroes, Meg Medina, SCBWI, writing, young adult

Barry B. Wary, by Leslie Muir – A Picture Book for Bug Lovers

May 27, 2011 by lynncoulter

Barry B. Wary, by Leslie Muir (Hyperion Books)

My son is grown up now, but sometimes I still wish I had a little one around the house, so I’d have an excuse to buy more picture books. I love the stories and amazing artwork.

Today I’ve got a treat for those of you who also love picture books–and it’s an even bigger treat, if you’re an aspiring children’s writer (like me!). Leslie Muir, author of BARRY B. WARY, recently spent a little time answering my questions about her brand-new book and about the writing process.

Leslie, who is also a poet, sold the manuscript for BARRY, along with two other manuscripts, about three years ago–and yes, it took that long for the first one to be published. The good news is that Leslie’s other books are coming out soon, and in the meantime, she’s sold a fourth. (Big congrats, Leslie.)

And just who is BARRY B. WARY? He’s a hungry little spider who dines on click beetles and fireflies, as spiders do, but his dining habits leave him a little short on friends. Then he spots a passing butterfly, and….well, you’ll just have to read the story. Until you do, enjoy this visit with Leslie!

1. Leslie, how did you get into writing about bugs? Does this have anything to do with Bailey, your German shepherd, who enjoys munching on flies?

Well, my dog is a highly skilled fly catcher, but he was not the inspiration for this particular story. (German Shepherds are very sensitive, so please don’t tell him). I do find bugs and spiders endlessly fascinating. And their funny little features and quirky personalities make great fodder for picture book tales.

This is Bailey, Leslie's dog. Handsome, isn't he? Leslie says he's a good fly-catcher.

2. Are your sons into bugs? What kind of stories do they like to read (or hear read aloud, if they’re very young)?

My nine and ten-year-old sons are into anything that flies kamikaze-like or thrives in dirt.

Much to my chagrin, my boys have moved away from picture books—though they still secretly enjoy them. I refuse to believe otherwise! They are both into middle grade fantasy (Tolkien is big with my youngest right now) and they adore graphic novels.

3. What made you decide to write BARRY B. WARY in rhyme? We know you’re a poet, but don’t publishers say they don’t buy many rhyming picture books anymore?

When I started this story, I was a member of an online poetry group, so most everything I wrote during that period was in rhyme. Because it’s difficult to do well, rhyme is always a harder sell. But fear not! Publishers are still buying rhyming stories. They just have to be exceptional.

4. Was this book hard to write? How many revisions did you go through?

BARRY B. WARY was originally a short poem and eventually evolved into a picture book. There were many revisions along the way. And in order to sell the story, I was asked to totally revamp the ending. My original ending was predictably sweet and romantic, but my editor thought it would be more interesting if Barry remained true to his darker, carnivorous nature. She was right. Last week, I read it to over 1.000 elementary school students and their reactions were comical.

5. How hard do you think it is for aspiring picture book writers to be published? Picture books almost seem like the hardest kinds of books to sell nowadays.

The picture book market is tough right now and publishers are responding by being very selective. Even proven authors are finding the waters difficult to tread. However, I remain a staunch believer that a worthy story will eventually find a home. These days, it might just take a little longer.

Leslie Muir, author of BARRY B. WARY

6. Any advice for wanna-be writers of children’s books?

Read widely. You never know where those precious jewels of inspiration will come from. Learn the craft and connect with fellow writers, editors and agents by joining SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) and attending conferences. Join a critique group and let your stories be heard by objective ears. And finally, listen. Use constructive criticism as a tool to fine-tune your work.

7. What are you working on next?

Right now I’m in the middle of a picture book story about a mischievous (and highly annoying) fairy who decides to go to school. I’m having a lot of fun with this one—probably because it’s not in rhyme. : )

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Barry B. Wary, book review, books, children's books, Leslie Muir, picture books, SCBWI, writers, writing