A Lesson in Showing Versus Telling
Last week I started teaching the spring course in Childrens Literature for grad students in the MFA in Creative Writing and Literature at Stony Brook Southampton. We spent the first class discussing the many formats of children’s lit, and began our picture book study (we’ll move on to chapter books, middle grade and YA fiction [...]
Ideas on the Go
I’ve been honing my Story Radar, and have found the holiday season to be more abundant than ever with respect to prompting ideas. The problem is, most of them come to me when I’m on the fly… and if I don’t document them immediately, by the time I get home they’ve gone. So I’ve been [...]
Who Can Help Me Tell This Story?
This week I had the joy of interviewing my friend and picture book hero, Peter H. Reynolds, for the Children’s Book Hub. As usual, Peter said a million inspiring things and shared a number of jewels about writing. Among them was a reference to his own writing process that set off lightbulbs in my head. [...]
Voice Exercises
As every singer knows, exercises that strengthen and warm up the vocal cords are essential in order to sing well. Painters do studies, and dancers stretch. But what about writers? This Fall, I’ve been taking a workshop entitled “Imagining What You Know” with the incomparable Roger Rosenblatt. Each week, Roger has given us a new [...]
National Picture Book Month
November is National Picture Book Month, and I thought I would contribute to the celebration with a list of ten of my favorite picture books. This is by no means a definitive list – I have hundreds of favorites! – but for our family, these books have stood the test of time and continue to [...]
Story Radar
Here’s another jewel I picked up from Peter H. Reynolds’ workshop last summer: “Story Radar.” This is a term Peter uses for the technique of always being on the alert for ideas and inspiration. An expression, a character, an event, a question, an image – anything can ‘wave’ to you on any given day as [...]
If Your Life to Date Were a Children’s Book…
… what would the title be? This was a question Peter H. Reynold posed to his workshop participants during last summer’s Southampton Children’s Literature Conference. Then he did something extraordinary. Each of us came up with our title, and Peter then designed a Peter H. Reynolds book jacket around that title, and listing our name [...]
Books Not Yet in Print
I’ve been taking a break from blogging the past month or two, but it’s time to get back to it! And what better way to begin than by sharing some of the pearls of wisdom I picked up from last summer Southampton Childrens’ Literature conference? I had the great honor of sitting in on Peter [...]
Independent Publishing – Pros & Cons
Independent Publishing essentially has two definitions. In the commercial publishing world, independent publishers (also called “indies” or “small presses”) are small publishers that publish a limited number of books per year (usually less than 10). Their status may also be determined by an annual sales figure (i.e. less than $50 million, after returns and discounts). Small [...]
Mapping Your Plot
In my “Just Write for Kids” course, we spend quite a bit of time exploring different ways to develop plot. We look at basic three-act storytelling structure: Act 1 – Set-up/Intro to character(s) and problem Act 2 – Problem escalates to crisis or turning point Act 3 – Resolution/Character solves problem and/or learns something, grows [...]
