Writing for Children

INTERVIEW WITH EDITOR PAULA MORROW

Although Paula Morrow has written more than 70 books and hundreds of magazine pieces (fiction, nonfiction, and poetry), she considers her main talent to be editing. Paula honed her skill editing for fifteen years with Cricket Magazine Group and Cricket Books, then with several book, magazine, and educational publishers. Most recently she edited at Highlights. Paula is the judge for the ICL Nonfiction STEAM Article contest.

We talk about:

• What STEAM is, why it's important, and how it differs from other nonfiction writing.
• What she will be looking for in ICL STEAM contest entries
• What is structure
• How structure differs between genres, between books and magazine stories, and between age levels
• Why a writer should never use more than one exclamation mark at a time
• An editor’s pet peeves
• Good examples and/or good sources
• And lots more!

HOW TO WRITE FUNNY

Is laughter really the best medicine?

I don't know, but I do suspect that laughter is a great way to get published. If you spend much time listening to acquiring editors or librarians or agents, you'll soon discover that humor is very much something they desire. Kids love books that make them laugh. Humans, in general, appreciate humor, even in the darkest times.

Unrelenting horror or pain is hard to survive, so being able to step outside it, even a little, to laugh can be life-saving. And readers will appreciate a story that allows them to do that. But for an author to find the way to do that takes a little understanding of how humor works. In this episode, let's talk about how to write funny.

INTERVIEW WITH VICTORIA BOND

Victoria Bond is a writer and professor. Her novel, Zora and Me, co-written with T.R. Simon, won the John Steptoe/Coretta Scott King Award for New Talent and was nominated for an Edgar Award in the category of Juvenile Fiction, as well as being a Junior Library Guild Selection. Victoria holds a MFA in poetry. The occasional essayist on issues both personal and political, she teaches first year writing at John Jay College, The City University of New York.

WE TALK ABOUT

• How Victoria and her co-writer start working together
• How they created the series together
• What’s based on reality and what did the authors invent
• How much reality should one use when writing historical fiction
• How far can you go when creating new information based on someone’s actual life

INTERVIEW WITH TALIA BENAMY

Talia Benamy is an associate editor at Philomel Books (an imprint of Penguin Young Readers), where she focuses on everything from picture books to middle grade and young adult novels. She has worked on books by Chelsea Clinton, Sonia Sotomayor, Temple Grandin, Jane Yolen, Abigail Harrison, Lisa Graff, Ruta Sepetys, Dev Petty, Sarah Brannen, and Terry Border. She sees books as having the amazing power to shape kids’ worldviews, and looks for manuscripts that have the potential to do just that.

We talk about: • What exactly does an associate editor do? • How does the process of using a reader help you go through the slush pile? • How do you determine if a piece of writing is good? • What are common mistakes you see in submissions? • What makes you reject a manuscript almost immediately?

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SUBMISSIONS

It’s the beginning of a new year. A time that we as writers like to set goals for our writing success and dream about what our writing career will look like next year at this time. Maybe one of your goals this year is to submit your work to agents or editors. It can seem like a Herculean task, but like the old joke goes, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. In this episode, based on an article from our own Jan Fields, we’re going to talk about what you should worry about most in your submissions and when it’s okay to press the send button.