After the success of the first #DVpit event in April, #DVpit is back for another round of Twitter pitching fun on October 5^th and 6^th! If you’re unfamiliar with this event, #DVpit is a Twitter pitch contest created to showcase pitches by marginalized voices and help connect them to agents and editors.

While the number of diverse books is increasing, the number of new diverse authors entering the field remains low. Significant barriers remain for authors of color, Native authors, disabled authors, and other marginalized voices. With that in mind, we are excited to share information on this special Twitter event! The information below is cross-posted with permission from literary agent Beth Phelan’s #DVpit website.

#DVpit

A Twitter Pitching Event, Hosted + Moderated by Beth Phelan

October 5, 2016: 8AM – 8PM ET for Children’s and Teen Fiction/Nonfiction
October 6, 2016: 8AM – 8PM ET for Adult Fiction/Nonfiction

What is #DVpit?

#DVpit is a Twitter event created to showcase pitches about and especially by marginalized voices. This includes (but is not limited to): Native peoples and people of color; people living and/or born/raised in underrepresented cultures and countries; disabled persons; people with illness; people on marginalized ends of the socioeconomic, cultural and/or religious spectrum; people identifying as LGBTQIA+; and more.

The first #DVpit took place on April 19, 2016 and was a national trending hashtag. There have been over 15 authors signed by agents as a direct result of this event so far, with editors from small to mid-size to Big Five publishers requesting to receive the manuscripts at submission stage.

#DVpit was covered by Bustle, Salon, YA Interrobang, and multiple blog sites like Lee & Low Blog and Daily Dahlia.

The event was created and is moderated by Beth Phelan, a literary agent at the Bent Agency.

When is the next #DVpit?

#DVpit will occur over two days. Please make sure you are pitching your work on the appropriate day; many of the agents and editors will only tune in on a specific day, to see the pitches in the categories they represent/acquire.

October 5th will be for Children’s & Teen Fiction/Nonfiction (picture books, chapter books, graphic novel, middle grade, young adult).

October 6th will be for Adult Fiction/Nonfiction (all genres, commercial and literary).

The event will run on each day from 8AM ET until 8PM ET using the hashtag #DVpit on both days.

What kind of work can you submit?

The participating agents and editors will be looking for a variety of work, including all categories of fiction for adults, teens, and children, as well as nonfiction—as long as they qualify per the description here.

Please only pitch your completed, unpublished manuscripts.

How do you submit?

The event will be broken up over two days, one for Children’s & Teen Fiction/Nonfiction (October 5) and the other for Adult Fiction/Nonfiction (October 6). Please make sure that you pitch on the appropriate day.

Your pitch must fit the 140-character max, and must also include the hashtag #DVpit.

Please try to include category and/or genre hashtags as well.

We will trust that your pitch is for a diverse book / you are a diverse author, but if you want a quick way to make the diversity in your work more apparent in your short pitch (and you can fit a few more characters), I also encourage you to include an abbreviation as an easier way to get that information across. Examples: OWN (to suggest #ownvoices), POC, LGBT, DIS (disability), IMM (immigration), etc. These codes are up to you—I’m in no place to judge or police how, or even if, you label your experience. Please remember they are optional. You will *not* be at a disadvantage if you don’t include them! If you do want to add, please make the abbreviation as clear and straightforward as possible for our agents/editors.

Please pitch no more than once per hour. You may use the same pitch, or shake things up by using different pitches for the same project. You may pitch more than one project at a time, as long as they are completed and unpublished.

Please do not tweet-pitch the agents/editors directly!

The event will run from 8:00AM ET until 8:00PM ET, so please only tweet your pitches during that block of time, on the appropriate day.

What happens next?

Agents/editors will “like” your pitch if they’d like to see material from you, so please don’t “like” other authors’ pitches. Please also do not retweet. To show support, you can always reply or quote-tweet with compliments.

Each agent/editor will have their own preferences for receiving submissions, so if you get a “like” from someone, please refer to their Twitter feed to see what they ask for, and how you can contact them.

All of these agents/editors are invested in finding more marginalized voices, so if you’re comfortable with it (and ONLY if you are comfortable with it), I encourage you to self-identify in your query, or just simply let us know that the story and/or character(s) reflect your own experience (or even in your pitch if you have the space and the inclination).

If you see that multiple agents/editors from the same company have “liked” your pitch, please contact them directly for their policy on multiple submissions, or reach out to me and I will be happy to find out for you.

Keep in mind that many agents/editors will get sidetracked with their usual work or unexpected crises and may have to revisit the feed after the event is over. So don’t be surprised if you receive “likes” after the period closes!

Our own Stacy Whitman, publisher of our Tu Books imprint, will be participating again this round. So get those pitches ready for October 5th!

If you need help with your pitch, check out these helpful resources here.

For more information, please visit the #DVpit website.

Django Wexler Discusses Alice, the Heroine of The Forbidden Library Series

While the number of diverse books is increasing, the number of new diverse authors entering the field remains low. Significant barriers remain for authors of color, Native authors, disabled authors, and other marginalized voices. With that in mind, we are excited to share information on this special Twitter event, #DVpit, created to showcase pitches by marginalized voices and help connect them to agents and editors. The information below is cross-posted with permission from literary agent Beth Phelan’s website.   

#DVpit

A Twitter Pitching Event, Hosted + Moderated by Beth Phelan

April 19, 2016
8:00AM EST – 8:00PM EST

What is #DVpit?

#DVpit is a Twitter event created to showcase pitches about and especially by marginalized voices. This includes (but is not limited to): Native peoples and people of color; people living and/or born/raised in underrepresented cultures and countries; disabled persons; people with illness; people on marginalized ends of the socioeconomic, cultural and/or religious spectrum; people identifying as LGBTQIA+; and more.

What kind of work can you submit?

The participating agents and editors are looking for a variety of work, including all categories of fiction for adults, teens, and children, as well as nonfiction—as long as they qualify per the paragraph above.

Please only pitch your completed, unpublished manuscripts.

How do you submit?

Your pitch must fit the 140-character max, and must also include the hashtag #DVpit.

Please try to include category and/or genre hashtags in your pitch.

We will trust that your pitch is for a diverse book, but if you want a quick way to make the diversity in your work more apparent in your short pitch (and you can fit a few more characters), I also encourage you to include an abbreviation as an easier way to get that information across. Examples: OWN (to suggest #ownvoices), POC, LGBT, DIS (disability), IMM (immigration), etc.

These codes are up to you—I’m in no place to judge or police how, or even if, you box your experience. If you’ve already perfected your pitch and/or simply don’t see the value in including these codes, please remember they are optional. You will *not* be at a disadvantage if you don’t include them! If you do want to add, please make the abbreviation as clear and straightforward as possible for our agents/editors.

Please pitch no more than once per hour, per manuscript. You may use the same pitch, or shake things up by using different pitches for the same project. You may pitch more than one project at a time, as long as they are completed and unpublished.

Please do not tweet the agents/editors directly!

The event will run from 8:00AM EST until 8:00PM EST, so please only tweet your pitches during that block of time.

What happens next?

Agents/editors will your “like” your pitch tweet if they’d like to see material from you, so please don’t “like” other authors’ pitches. Please also do not retweet. To show support, you can always reply with compliments.

Each agent/editor will have their own preferences for receiving submissions, so if you get a “like” from someone, please refer to their Twitter feed to see what they ask for, and how you can contact them.

All of these agents/editors are invested in finding more marginalized voices, so if you’re comfortable with it (and ONLY if you are comfortable with it), you are encouraged you to self-identify in your query, or just simply let us know that the story and/or character(s) reflect your own experience (or even in your pitch if you have the space and the inclination).

If you see that multiple agents/editors from the same group have “liked” your pitch, please contact them directly for their policy, or reach out to Beth Phelan who can help you find out.

Keep in mind that many agents/editors will get sidetracked with their usual work or unexpected crises and may have to revisit the feed after the event is over. So don’t be surprised if you receive “likes” after the period closes!

Who is participating?

Over 50 agents and editors will be participating, and since this is a public event, more are likely to join in on the day! Our own Stacy Whitman, publisher of our Tu Books imprint, will be participating. See the full list here.

Please be sure to research any agent or publisher that “likes” your pitch. There is no obligation to submit your work to anyone you don’t want to.

For more details and a list of resources to help with your pitch, visit Beth Phelan’s post. Best of luck and happy pitching!

Looking online for resources as a new writer can be confusing. If you google “how to get a book published,” many of the first results you see are ads for resources that are sketchy at best—pay-to-play publishing, self publishing, vanity publishing. (While self publishing is a valid route, it’s important to know all your options before deciding self publishing is the right way for you.)

Change the query to “how to get a children’s book published” and the results aren’t much better. Eventually you may stumble on the helpful Frequently Asked Questions page for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), an excellent resource for new writers looking to improve their craft and figure out the publication process. But navigating all the resources out there, good and bad, can be tricky.

Sometimes, you need to cut through the layers of information overload and just learn from publishing professionals directly. This is where writing conferences come in—which offer this and much more.

There are many good writing conferences across the United States (and the world). The SCBWI has local chapters that host monthly events, and the regional chapters tend to host at least one writing conference a year to which they bring editors and agents from New York City and elsewhere to teach, network with attendees, and critique their work. Many writers come away from conferences having met multiple like-minded writers with whom they can start a critique group. Other organizations also host more intensive workshops, such as Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers, a conference that has gained national acclaim.

While these conferences are excellent general resources—and many of them are working hard to become more welcoming spaces for writers of color—we also recognize that without meaning to, sometimes general spaces don’t give writers of color the support they need in an industry dominated by white editors, agents, and authors. There is something to be said for a conference that begins with a mission to connect writers of color with information about publishing—from publishing 101, to improving craft, to networking with publishing professionals.

One such conference is Kweli Journal’s children’s book writing conference, which is holding its second annual writing conference on April 9 at Scandinavia House in New York City. The conference is only $100 for a full day’s programming (this is a really good price for a conference like this) and more than 25 authors, editors, and agents will be on panels and teaching workshops throughout the day.

The keynote speaker will be Edwidge Danticat, author of the Oprah’s Book Club pick Breath, Eyes, Memory and the YA novel Untwine, among many other acclaimed titles. Our own Joseph Bruchac, author of Quick Picks Top Ten title Killer of Enemies and more than 120 other books, will be there, as will Stacy Whitman, the publisher of our Tu Books imprint. Jessica Echeverria will be at the conference representing our picture book editorial team.

In the morning after the keynote, authors will learn from publishing professionals about how the publishing process works, and what their options are (self publishing, small presses, large publishers, whether you need an agent), and then the afternoon will break out into roundtables and critiques.

For a full list of publishing professionals who will be at the conference, check out the Kweli Journal website. We hope to meet you at the conference!

When: Saturday, April 9, 2016, 8 am — 8 pm

Where: Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10016

Price: $100

Click here to register.

If you are not in the New York City area, fear not. Here’s a list of other writing conferences around the United States that have been recommended by writers we know:

British Columbia, Canada

Surrey International Writers’ Conference

California

SCBWI Summer Conference

Florida

Sun Coast Writer’s Workshop

Massachusetts

New England SCBWI Regional Conference

Oregon

Oregon Coast Children’s Book Writing Workshop

Willamette Writers Conference

Pennsylvania

The Highlights Foundation hosts workshops throughout the year

Western Pennsylvania’s SCBWI conference

Utah

Writing for Charity

Specifically for teens: Teen Author Boot Camp

Specifically for writers of speculative fiction: Life, the Universe, and Everything

Virginia

SCBWI Mid-Atlantic Annual Conference

These are only a small sampling of the excellent writing conferences out there. If you’re going to Kweli, let us know so we can look for you! If you can’t make it, feel free to recommend your favorite writing conference to learn about writing for children and teens.

A friend of mine asked me for a list of posts that I would like shared online (how nice, right?) and it prompted me to visit my website stats to see what posts were the most popular with those who visit.

This in turn led to the bright idea that instead of just sending her the list, I should share it here, too!

If you are looking for helpful posts in different areas of writing and marketing, these TOP 5 LISTS are ones visitors seem to enjoy the most. If you find any of them especially helpful, feel free to pass them on to others, too.

CHARACTERS

The Four Types of Character Flaws

Personality Traits: Building a Balanced Character

Lessons From James Scott Bell: Characters That Jump Off The Page

Finding Your Character’s Weakness

The Subtle Knife: Writing Characters Readers Trust But Shouldn’t

EMOTIONS

Hidden Emotions: How To Tell Readers What Characters Don’t Want To Show

Writing Emotion: Does Your Hero Shrug, Smile & Frown Too Much?

Writing Extreme Emotion Without The Melodrama

Show, Don’t Tell: Revealing True Emotion In Dialogue

3 Steps to Taking Your Character Further and Deeper With…Anger?

EMOTIONAL WOUNDS

Understanding Character Wounds: A List Of Common Themes

How To Uncover Your Character’s Emotional Wound

Emotional Wounds Thesaurus

Why Is Your Character’s Emotional Wound So Important?

How Your Hero’s Past Pain Will Determine His Character Flaws

CHARACTER ARC (MOTIVATION, GOALS, GROWTH)

Planning a Novel: Character Arc In A Nutshell

5 Surprising Ways Regret Can Deepen Your Hero’s Arc

The Importance of Psychological Development in Character Growth

How Your Character’s Failures Can Map A Route To Self-Growth

The Connection Between Emotional Wounds and Basic Needs

STRUCTURE & TECHNIQUE

Writing Patterns Into Fiction: Scene and Sequel

Story Midpoint & Mirror Moment: Using Heroes’ Emotions To Transform Them

James Scott Bell: The “Write From The Middle” Method

5 Important Ways to Use Symbolism in Your Story

Inside One Stop For Writers: Unique Templates & Worksheets

MARKETING

A Book Marketing Truth Few Experts Will Admit

5 Steps To Find Your Book’s Ideal Audience

Creative Book Launches That Command Attention

Need Online Exposure? Asking Bloggers For Help

Marketing For Introverts

OUR TOP POSTS LOCATED ON OTHER BLOGS

How To Research Your Book Smarter, Instead of Harder

Eight Ways To Make Your Character More Plausible

The 7-Step Business Plan For Writers

Flaws, Emotional Trauma & The Character’s Wound

Brainstorming The Hero Before You Start Writing

Hopefully there are a few post here that catch your eye and can help you with whatever you are currently wrestling with.

And what is the #1 visited page on our site?

TOOLS FOR WRITERS

There’s a reason for it too…if you haven’t visited, I recommend you do. There are many free tools and handouts that have been downloaded well over 50,000 times.

Happy writing, all!

Image: carloscuellito87 @ Pixabay

The post 35 Posts To Help Writers Elevate Their Craft And Marketing Skills appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS™.

Laurenne Sala began her career as an advertising copywriter, writing national campaigns for clients like KIA Motors, Jack-in-the-Box, and Beats by Dre.

A long time ago, I wrote a children’s manuscript called Peculiar Plants. It was all about weird little shrubberies that did things that other plants don’t do. Most of them were rare, growing only in a small patch somewhere on the far side of the planet, so they were hard to research. And not being a botanist myself, I needed credible sources to vet my work and offer quotes. Back then, the Internet wasn’t what it is now, and it was really hard to find experts in the field, much less approach them with questions.

Luckily, the process is a lot easier now—if you know where to look. Kathy Klopp Cohen is here today to explain how, with just a few quick steps, one social media network can supply you with a whole list of experts in whatever field you need.

I opened a Twitter account some months back and had reservations about it. I already had Facebook, Goodreads, Amazon, and email accounts, so was it worth my while to also add Twitter to my day? In a very short period of time, I realized that YES, it was worth the time and effort—but not in the way I had expected.

While researching my new mystery, I ran into a dead end on one question: If investigators find a dog at a murder scene in someone’s house, what do they do with the dog? Nowhere on the Internet could I find out what would be done in this scenario. I employed Google, Facebook, and emailed friends but came up with nothing. Then I thought of Twitter.

I got on my account, searched for someone listed as a policeman/woman, and found one in my old hometown who seemed to be fairly active on Twitter—in other words, he seemed to get on his account at least daily. So I tweeted my question to him.

Two minutes later I had my reply. Just like that! In TWO minutes, I was able to consult an expert in the field who gave me the answer I needed to write my scene authentically.

I’m sold on using Twitter now as a research tool. And since research is necessary for all authors, I’d like to share the process with you.

Let’s say that you’re looking for the answer to the following question: “When a surgeon is performing a long operation—for twelve hours or more—does he take breaks to eat, and if so, where and how?”

1. On your Twitter account homepage, go to the “Search Twitter” box at the top right. Enter surgeon there.

2. That search will take you to a page called Surgeon. Click on the search box, and a drop box will appear with a fairly long list. Click on the very last option that says “search all people for surgeon.”

3. And voilà! You now have a long list of bona fide surgeons with Twitter accounts who can be approached to answer your question.

4. As with any potential source, it’s important to verify that your new contact is who he/she claims to be. As you search your list, take the time to read the individual biographies under their names. The information they provide should include their full names, the cities in which they live, and their places of employment. In addition they should include links directing you to credentialed web sites, along with contact numbers you can use to verify their authenticity. Read some of their back-and-forth tweets to get a feel for their knowledgeability in the subject area and their potential willingness to answer your questions.

5. Settle on a few that seem to Tweet fairly regularly, since you’ll need your questions to be answered in a timely manner. Then politely message or tweet them with your question.

6.When you get a response from someone, be sure to say, “Thank you!”

If you’ve been looking for answers to questions for your story, try Twitter. It’s very likely that you’ll find an expert who’s willing to answer not only your immediate queries but also any others that come up down the road.

The post Twitter…for Research? appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS™.

It’s One Stop For Writers launch week, and we are celebrating up a storm! Have you entered for one of seven 1-Year Subscriptions to One Stop For Writers, or the Pay-it-forward Education Gift for a workshop seat in writing coach Jami Gold’s terrific online class? If not, follow this link for all the details, and good luck!

As some of you know, the heart of One Stop For Writers is our signature Descriptive Thesaurus Collection. Visitors to this blog (and The Bookshelf Muse before it) have watched Becca and I create highly-sensory, real-life description lists for many different areas (Character Emotions, Settings, Symbolism and Weather, just to name a few.) Delving deep to understand these aspects of description allows us to write rich, compelling stories. So, when writers asked us to, we started turning a few into books.

Now we’re writers, and we love books! But the list format we use isn’t always an easy read in digital format, and often requires a lot of scrolling to see an entire entry. We knew there had to be a better way.

Lucky for us Lee Powell, the creator of Scrivener for Windows, is a genius. He could see how the right medium would turn our thesaurus collections into a top notch resource for writers that would be super easy to use.

(click to enlarge)

At One Stop, each thesaurus is neatly organized and entries are easy to view. A Helpful Tip guides writers into thinking about how an area of description can be woven into the story to do more, and show more. There’s a tutorial for each thesaurus as well, helping writers understand the power of specific detail and how it can be used in the story for maximum effect.

(click to enlarge–a partial screenshot)

Setting is a big area of description. So much more than a backdrop for a scene, it is loaded with opportunities to convey mood, foreshadow, and act as a tuning fork for symbolism and theme. And that’s just to start! Using sensory details when describing your character in a specific location is important for pulling readers into the story.

You might be wondering how authentic the description is for each of our Setting entries. Well, whenever possible, Becca and I would visit the location ourselves so we could observe the sights, smells, sounds, textures and tastes first hand. The entire Setting Collection (once it is finished) will be around 250 entries. That’s a lot of research.

It wasn’t easy to visit some locations, but we were determined. As you can see in this photo…well, sometimes we had to go to great lengths to get exact detail.

(In case you were wondering, it is rather terrifying being arrested, even when it involves being set up by relatives with connections so you can get the “full experience” of being handcuffed and put into the back of police car!)

So, let’s just say the details in this particular entry are very accurate. If you like, swing by One Stop and check it out for yourself!

Before you head off with the rest of your day, there’s one more cool thing happening:

March To A Bestseller’s One-Day sale. This is where you can get a kindle copy of many great writing craft books (INCLUDING The Emotion Thesaurus) for .99 cents each. Yep, a buck! There are many great authors participating such as K.M. Weiland, Mary Buckham, Bryan Cohen, Jessica Bell and more, so if you’re looking to beef up on your writing skills, now’s the time.

I don’t anticipate The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression
will be priced at .99 cents again, so if you have a writing partner or critique group who doesn’t yet have our resource, feel free to let them know.

Click to tweet: Love The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide To Character Expression? Today it’s only .99 cents: http://ctt.ec/U2KoC+ #amwriting

Also-ALSO,

Becca is over at Kristen Lamb’s (she is a national treasure–I hope you are all following this blog!) discussing Making Story MAGIC—How To Bring the Elements All Together. Feel free to check it out!

And I am over at Romance University discussing How Characters Often Resist Attraction in Romance, and How To Show Their Body Language Struggle (plus I’m sharing some great body language cheat sheets for HIM and HER!)

Happy writing,

Angela

The post Inside One Stop For Writers: Our Descriptive Thesaurus Collections appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS™.

It’s hard to believe we’re only two short days away from opening the doors to the One Stop library. This is going to sound a bit baffling, but in some ways it hasn’t hit me yet. It’s a bit like a publishing a book: you plan, work, and strengthen your project, and it becomes your life. Then one day, boom, it’s out the door or uploaded and you feel…adrift.

It’s like your brain hasn’t clued in that everything has changed and the piece of yourself that you’ve held onto so tightly is now about to become something that belongs to other people too.

Well, One Stop For Writers is polished and waiting to become the online library it was meant to be. Lee, Becca and I are very excited, and hope it becomes a game-changing tool for a few writers out there. Because this is such a labor of love, we’re looking forward to adding to it over time, bringing even more value to everyone who uses it.

Writing Checklist Nirvana

As the “marketing department” of our little merry band, I created a bunch of imaged-based sharables that provide good value to writers: an assortment of check lists and tip sheets on different areas of writing that can be hard to master. Each one ties into our signature descriptive thesaurus collections and teachings.

My intent leading into launch was to offer something that would be shared openly online, and help get the One Stop For Writers name out there. Thanks to the terrific efforts of an amazing street team, the idea worked and we’ve achieved some discoverability. I’m linking to a few here for you to use in case you haven’t yet come across them. There are many more available on our special One Stop Pinterest board, too, along with some dark writing prompts and emotional showing tips.

(click each to enlarge)

Backstory Pin

Motivation Pin

Flashback Pin

Deep POV Pin

Raising Stakes Pin

Worthy Goals Pin

Also, if you go HERE, you’ll find many topic-specific writing boards we’ve put together under the One Stop For Writers banner. With so many articles out there on writing, it can be exhausting to know which ones pack the biggest value punch. This should help make it a bit easier to find the best of the best when it comes to writing advice.

Enjoy & happy writing!

Angela

The post Unique Writing Resources: Helpful Checklists and Tip Sheets appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS™.

Now that the kids have gone back to school, why don’t you?

• If you find yourself filled with ideas for children’s books and would love to write picture books, middle grade or young adult novels – what’s holding you back?

• Do you have a manuscript in the works, but you’re not sure if you’re helping or hurting it with constant edits?

• Interested in going back to school yourself to share your book with students?

Consider one of my Just Write Children’s Books courses or resources, all of which can be accessed from the comfort of your own home!

I offer three home-study writing courses that cover everything you could ever want to know about writing picture books, middle grade or young adult novels. The courses come with written lessons as well as writing assignments that will help you progress through your manuscript while learning all about the craft of children’s book writing. You can take any course at your own speed and from anywhere in the world. You will have a rough draft of a completed manuscript upon completion!

If you already have a completed manuscript and are simply unsure of what to do next, consider purchasing Editor in a Box, my 6-step editing system to help make your manuscript the best it can be! This product exists in two versions – one for picture books and one for chapter books and novels – and can be used again and again on all of your children’s book manuscripts.

If you’re ready to start submitting your manuscript to agents and editors, The Complete Picture Book Submissions System created by Julie Hedlund and myself, opens periodically for registration. To download our cheat sheet on picture book submissions and get notified when the course reopens, register here.

Finally, if you are ready to share your book with your target audience and supplement your author income, consider School Visit Wizard! This brand new product allows authors to learn how to cultivate, book and deliver stellar school visits!

Are you more interested in a traditional school setting? Think about applying to the 2016 Children’s Literature Fellows program run through Stony Brook Southampton. This program selects only 12 fellows per year who are mentored by bestselling authors, in order to complete several picture book manuscripts and/or a middle grade/young adult novel. While most of the course is completed from home, Fellows are required to attend the Children’s Literature Summer Conference and a Winter Publishing/Editing Conference at Stony Brook Southampton, NY.

So why not take a chance and go back to school? If writing children’s books is your passion, this is the moment to make it happen!

P.S. If you’re unable to make up your mind, be sure to take a look at my blog. I have tons of posts on the topic of writing and publishing children’s books. Be sure to scroll through the many posts or search keywords relevant to your interests.

I’m not sure if there is an “art” to writing about villains, but I do find that to write convincing and three-dimensional villains, one must be sympathetic to their plight.

Django Wexler is a self-proclaimed computer/fantasy/sci fi geek. He graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with degrees in creative writing and computer science, and worked in artificial intelligence research.

The post Mastering Words: Ways to Evolve as a Writer appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS™.

Lee Wardlaw is the author of 30 books for young readers, including Won Ton: A Cat Tale Told in Haiku, recipient of the Lee Bennett Hopkins Children’s Poetry Award, the Myra Cohn Livingston Award for Poetry, and the Purina/Fancy Feast “Love Story” Award.

To make re-mixed Shakespeare exciting for young readers as well as older readers, get your hands dirty and have a field day in that Shakespeare toolbox.

Lisa Doan | The Children’s Book Review | March 6, 2015 When I began writing The Berenson Schemes, a middle grade series in which responsible Jack Berenson is repeatedly lost in the wilderness of foreign countries by his globe-trotting parents, I gave some careful thought to creating the settings. The books take place in the Caribbean, Kenya and […]

     There are two things about writing that never get any easier for me. . .coming up with a good title and naming characters.  I still have a hard time with titles, but I have developed strategies to give my characters good names.

    I spent most of my pregnancy struggling to come up with just the right name for my daughter, a name that would be all her own. In writing, I do not have the luxury of spending eight months on one character name.

    I believe that name is the single most important aspect of a character. It is usually the first thing a reader learns about him.  The name should reflect the character's personality is some way, however subtle.  Sometimes that is a mysterious process that goes on in the author's head, unexplainable to anyone else.  I do not know how E.B. White decided on Charlotte and Wilbur, but can you imagine them named anything else?  A book called Barbara's Web?  A pig named Bob?  No, somehow Charlotte and Wilbur, along with Fern and Templeton and Mr. Zuckerman are so right, they could not be anything else.

    Since I write historical fiction, I have a second barrier to finding just the right name. My names need to fit the time period.  The characters in Yankee Girl were pretty easy.  The book was about my sixth grade class.  I used names that were popular in 1964, as well as names that were popular in the South.  Jimmy's Stars, which takes place in 1943, was a little more difficult.  I knew that my main character was born in 1932, and would have graduated from high school in 1950. I scoured libraries and second-hand stores for 1949-50 high school annuals. (There were an awful lot of girls named Betty.)

    Contemporary fiction isn't much easier.  Names change as quickly as any other fashion.  Some names scream a particular decade.  I am a baby boomer, and I was usually the only Mary Ann in a class full of Debbies, Karens, Cathys and Sharons.  When I was a middle school teacher in the late 80's, I taught more than a few Farrahs. My friends who had babies about then named them Ashley and Kate (not after the Olsen twins!)  When I had my daughter in 1994, I was the only one in my childbirth class who did not name their child Tyler or Taylor (regardless of sex).

   Then there are adult names. In children's books, they are usually not a central character but occasionally they are.  (Miss Gruen and Reverend Taylor in Yankee Girl come to mind.) How do you name adults?

   Here is a list of sources I have compiled that help me with The Naming Game.

   1.  Baby name books.  These often reflect the popularity (or lack of popularity) of a name, as well as give a cultural origin. (Warning:  I learned not to carry one of these in public unless I wanted to start rumors about a possible new addition to my family.)

   2.  School annuals.  These work for both contemporary and historical fiction.

   3.  School directories, websites, newsletters, newspapers, class lists.  Schools in my neck of the woods generate an enormous amount of student information. If you don't have access to your own personal student, read the school news pages online or in your neighborhood paper/website.

   4.  Obituaries.  Yeah, I know it's kind of morbid, but I have collected a number of "old-timey" names from them.  Around here, they usually include the person's nickname as well.

   5.  Observation.  I live a mile away from the fastest growing immigrant community in the country.  Call me nosy (or a writer), but I notice workers' name tags.  I ask the employee where they are from and how they pronounce their name.  No one has been insulted (yet), and I have collected names I would never have thought of on my own.

    6.  The Social Security Index of Popular Baby Names. This site is unbelievably cool.  It lists the top 200 names for boys and girls for each decade, from 1880 to 2010.  Not only is it searchable by decade, but by each state as well. (Apparently Mary and James were the hot names of my decade.) http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/decades

   What do I do with all these names?  I list them in a notebook, separate from my regular journal. Right now, the 1910 Social Security list is getting a heavy workout from me.  My characters are named.

      Now if I could just think of a title...

     Don't forget about our current book giveaway.  For more information click here.

Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

 

Before I became a writer, I had no idea being one also meant embracing a life of crime. I don’t know why. All the signs were there – the saying “every great lie has an element of truth”, T.S. Eliot’s immortal “Good authors borrow, great authors steal”, and the infamous Faulkner adage, “Kill your darlings” (Faulkner actually stole that saying from Arthur Quiller-Couch).

On this blog we’ve often discussed our own New Voices and New Visions awards for unpublished authors of color. Today we wanted to spotlight another great award specifically for authors of color: the On-The-Verge Emerging Voices Award from the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI).

The On-The-Verge Emerging Voices Award is a grant created to “foster the emergence of diverse voices in children’s books.” It offers two writers or writer/illustrators from under-represented backgrounds the chance to receive:

• An all-expense paid trip to the SCBWI Summer Conference in Los Angeles August 1-4, 2015 (transportation and hotel)
• Tuition to the SCBWI Summer Conference
• A manuscript consultation at the Summer Conference with an industry professional
• An additional meeting with an industry professional
• Tuition to the Summer Conference Writers or Illustrators Intensive
• A press release

We interviewed Lin Oliver, Executive Director of SCBWI, about the creation of the award and the role of SCBWI in diversifying the world of children’s book publishing.

When was the Emerging Voices Award established?

The SCBWI Emerging Voices Award was established in 2012, with funding from Martin and Sue Schmitt of the 455 Foundation.  The grant was created to foster the emergence of diverse voices in children’s books. Each year, we select two writers or writer-illustrators for an all expense paid trip to the summer SCBWI conference, which includes a manuscript consultation and additional mentoring.  Qualified applicants must be from an ethnic or cultural background that is under-represented in children’s literature in America, such as Black or African-Americans, Latinos, Pacific Islanders, American Indians or Asian-Americans.

Why did the SCBWI decide to establish the award?
The SCBWI is committed to encouraging the creation of a diverse body of literature for children. We believe that all children should be able to see themselves on the page and all readers will benefit from participating in diverse experiences through literature.  The representation of many cultures of ethnicities is vastly under-represented in today’s marketplace, and we hope this Award is a step to correcting that situation.

Have any past Emerging Voices winners gone on to receive publication contracts or publish books?

The award is still very young—there were three winners in 2012, and two in 2013.  As of now, all five winners are having their work-in-progress shared with editors and agents in the field.  There are no sales to report yet, but we feel confident that their work is in professional hands and receiving every possible consideration.

From L to R: Martin Schmitt, award winner Jennifer Baker, award winner Dow Phumiruk, and Sue Ganz-Schmitt

How do you perceive the SCBWI’s role in the greater movement for more diverse children’s books?

As the largest organization of children’s book writers and illustrators, we believe we play a leadership role in the movement to increase diversity in our field. We always make sure that the faculties of our national conferences include publishers, agents, authors and illustrators of diverse backgrounds.  We encourage our members to support and promote books from these publishers, authors and illustrators.  We often publish articles and papers about the role of diversity in children’s books, and work with other organizations such as the Children’s Book Council, First Book and We Need Diverse Books who are involved in this important initiative.

From your perspective at the SCBWI, what are a few of the biggest obstacles that you see aspiring authors of color facing?

We all acknowledge the need to support aspiring authors of color, but their eventual success will be determined by the marketplace.  It is crucial that the these books prove to be not only artistic and social successes, but also commercially viable.  This is a challenge not just for children’s books but for our whole society—-we need to all show interest in and embrace all the diverse cultures that make up America.

Has the SCBWI taken any other steps to promote diversity among its membership?

In addition to the Emerging Voices Award, we have a special category in our Work in Progress Awards for multi-cultural books.  Many of our scholarships have been awarded to students of color. And our Amber Brown Grant sends authors to low-income schools who have never been able to afford an author visit.

How can publishers and the SCBWI work together to create a more inclusive industry?

In the past year, the We Need Diverse Books campaign has done a wonderful job of creating awareness of the lack of diversity in our field. That is the first step. The SCBWI will continue to provide opportunities for publishers to discover new talent. The publishers need to put forth their best effort to publish those books, and together, the SCBWI and the publishing community need to market those books and help bring them to the forefront in the consumer consciousness.

More information about The Society of Children’s Book Writers and all of its programs can be found at scbwi.org.  Please visit us.

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I want to talk about strong female characters in dystopian worlds, but right off the bat, I’m going to be difficult and say, “Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. What do we mean by strong exactly?”

The main challenge in writing multiple points of view is helping the reader keep everybody sorted out.

It isn’t easy to tackle tension when writing a story, but keeping these things in mind can point you in the right direction.

BY CRISTIN O’KEEFE APTOWICZ

In the summer of 2010, I gave up what were the defining elements of my life for over a decade—my New York City apartment, my arts-related job in Soho and my role as host of a popular Lower East Side reading series—all to pursue my dream of writing the biography of 19th century collector of medical oddities.

More than a few people in my life thought I was crazy. Sometimes the person staring back at me from the mirror thought I was crazy too. But I knew that the idea couldn’t be completely insane because of one reason: I had earned a yearlong residency at an Ivy League university to do it.

To confirm, I was not the likeliest candidate to receive such a residency. I didn’t (and still don’t) have a MFA, nor did I study nonfiction writing as an undergrad. The vast majority of my arts career had been developed within the New York City poetry slam community, about as far from academia as you can get. My earliest poetry collections were self-published, and had titles like Dear Future Boyfriend: This is What I Sound Like and Hot Teen Slut, a “memoir-in-verse” about the year I spent writing and editing erotica.

But even from the earliest parts of my career, I understand that the biggest obstacle between me and the writing grants, fellowships or residencies I coveted was myself. After all, the only true way to guarantee you won’t get a grant is by not applying for it.

And so, it is in that spirit that I present to you a brief guide to submitting for grants (which typically provide writers with financial support), residencies (which offer writers a work and/or living space to create for little or no cost) or fellowship (often times a hybrid of grant and residency, where a writer receives ongoing support in someway) with the hope that it will inspire you to put yourself out – no matter how new or established you are – and challenge yourself and your art for the better.

1. Believe in yourself. That might sound silly to state, but it’s important. You need to realize that you are talent worth rewarding, and that your ideas deserve attention and support. Believe in yourself, and go to Step Two.

2. Evaluate Yourself. Note I did not say “Cast Judgment on Yourself.” No, evaluate yourself means looking at everything you bring to your art. Be specific and catalogue it all. Please know that every perceived minus you feel you have, can be a plus. There are just as many grants and fellowships for new/emerging artists (for which artists already knee-deep in their career cannot apply) as there are for more established artists. Where ever you are in your career, there are grants and funding opportunities for you!

3. Figure Out What You Want To Do. What do you need to help you take your art to the next level? Would it be funding, to help buy supplies? If so, how much (or really, how little) money would it take to make a real difference? Would you prefer a residency, to give you time and focus? If so, how long could you leave your life to participate in a residency: two weeks? two months? a year? Be honest and specific, but don’t be afraid to be ambitious too!

4. Research Opportunities. Too often, artists will get overwhelmed at this stage, but that’s because they put too much pressure on themselves to get started on grants immediately. Instead, I would suggest making it a two week long game for yourself, where you collect as much information on grants, residencies and fellowships as you can which fit you and your vision of where you can go with your art (now, or in the future). It’s as easy as creating a Word doc, and copy & pasting information. The name of the grant or fellowship, a sentence-long descriptor, a URL and the deadline date is really all you need. Put the information in chronological order, closest deadline date to farthest, and pretty soon you’ve created a pretty spectacular to-do list.

“But how do we find about grants, residencies and fellowships?” you are probably asking.

The easiest answer is the most obvious one: search. Just plug in your chosen art form (“writing,” “fiction,” “playwriting,” etc…) and the word “grants” (or “residencies” or “fellowships”) and see what comes up. However, please take into consideration that the smaller the pool of applicants, the greater your chance at a success. So instead of just searching “writing grants,” try searching “poetry grants.” Another tip: searching grants that are just within your state or your city (the name of your city or state with the phrase “arts council” can yield great results).

Another way to discover grants, fellowships and residencies is to look up the bios of writers you admire to see what funding they’ve received when they were at your stage in their career.

And lastly, another incredible resource is NYFA National Artists Grants. It’s the largest of its kind in the county, and it’s absolutely free to use:

And now the big one, Step 5.

5. Just Do It. Don’t overthink the applications. As long as you qualify at the basest level, submit. The first application you do will be the hardest, as you will likely creating everything you need from scratch: bios, artistic resumes, samples, project summaries, etc. But once these have been created once, you’ll be able to repurpose them for every future application. So don’t let the first one scare you.

And if you freeze up in the middle of your application, try thinking about what the granting organization NEEDS to hear from you, instead of what you WANT to say. It’s basic enough advice, but you’ll be surprised how often artists get caught up polishing the bells & whistles of their application, and ignore its heart: who are you, and how will awarding you this opportunity ultimately benefit you (the artist) and the organization (whose mission is to help artists just like you).

6. Be Proud of Yourself. The moment you submit an application, you’ll immediately be obsessed with knowing if you’ve won or not. That’s natural, so be forgiving. But also be proud. The moment you submit your application is the moment that you prove to yourself that your work is worthy and deserving. Regardless if you win or if you lose, that new sense of self is something you should honor and celebrate.

7. Spread the Word. This is the final step, but in many ways, it’s one of the most important. As writers, we need to empower each other to take these steps forward, and the best way I’ve found is to match artist friends we believe in with grants that would make good fits for them. It’s natural to feel territorial about grants you yourself are applying to, but if you stumble across a good grant that you can’t (or aren’t) applying for, try to find to match it with another writer you know. Even artists who seem more established and in the know may be extremely grateful at your thoughtfulness, and poets who are peers (or are even less established than you) will surely be heartened and inspired by your attention.

And that’s it. The first few times you submit can be rocky, but as you get more comfortable with the process, you might even find yourself looking forward to it. Grant applications can be interesting new ways for you to examine your art and your process. They can ask you questions about your projects that you’ve never thought of, and force you to create things (budgets, time lines, etc…) that will only help you and your project in the long run, regardless if you get the funding or not.

Before I wrap this up, I want to tell you two short personal stories about me and grants.

I was 23-years-old when I received my first book contract to write a history of the poetry slam movement. I immediately set about applying for funding to help me with what I knew would be the enormous costs of tackling such a project. Over the course of three years, I applied for several dozen different funding opportunities. I got exactly zero of them.

However, I can also say—with absolute honesty—that I would never have finished the book without that relentless parade of (unsuccessful) applications. Each one helped me better understand my project, and the steps that it would take to cross the finish line with it. The applications asked me questions about timelines, budgets, whom I imagined the audience would be. It asked me if it could be taught in the classroom, if it would appeal to people outside of my community, if it helped shine a positive spotlight on any under-represented communities. It asked me about me: where I had as a writer to actually finish the project I was pitching.

With each application, I grew a deeper understanding of the book I was writing, and grew more and more determined to do it regardless if I received the funding I once thought was so necessary. And soon—with zero funding and a lot of hard work—my book, Words In Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam, came out in the Fall of 2007.

When it was time to write my second nonfiction book, I knew exactly what to do. I searched for appropriate grants, residencies and fellowships, lined-up my recommendation writers, and prepared my CV, artist statements and summaries of the project. And then I began applying. I applied to everything I could, and shortly after submitting my first batch of applications, I received my first rejection. And then another. And then another. Soon I had wracked up an entire year’s worth of rejection. I had reached the point where the very next application I was slated to start was the very first one I applied for the previous year.

But then I opened my email’s spam folder and found an email from the University of Pennsylvania. Certain that it was rejection, I opened it up to read without even removing from the spam folder. You can imagine my surprise when the first sentence congratulated me for being named the 2010-2011 ArtEdge Writer-in-Residence at the University of Pennsylvania, and I knew in an instant that leaving my comfortable life in New York City was the choice I had to make. A year’s worth of applications had forged in me a deep need to write this book, and the greenlight that UPenn had given me was the last piece of the puzzle. I knew I could do it, and know—with UPenn’s residency—I knew how I would do it as well.The UPenn residency turned out to be the first of several fellowships and residencies I would receive, each one absolutely instrumental to the creation of my resulting book, Dr Mütter’s Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine, which was published in Fall 2014 by Gotham Books / Penguin.

When young writers ask me for my advice about how they can secure funding for their own projects, I tell them the stories of both my books. Because to me the value of these applications isn’t just the financial support they can provide if you win one. No, there is a lot to be gleaned from those first steps too: to find yourself and your project worthy enough to put in an application. That, my friends, can be the real game-changer.

Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz (@coaptowicz) is the author of six books of poetry (including Dear Future Boyfriend, Hot Teen Slut,Working Class Represent, Oh, Terrible Youth and Everything is Everything) as well as the nonfiction book, Words In Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam.

Cristin’s most recent awards include the ArtsEdge Writer-In-Residency at the University of Pennsylvania (2010-2011), a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry (2011) and the Amy Clampitt Residency (2013). Her sixth book of poetry, The Year of No Mistakes, will be released by Write Bloody Publishing in Fall 2013 and her second nonfiction book, Dr. Mütter’s Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine, was released by Gotham Books (Penguin) in September 4, 2014

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