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I am delighted to welcome Rebecca Newman to this blog today. Rebecca is on tour to celebrate the release of the Spring edition of Alphabet Soup magazine. This edition also marks one year of publishing for Rebecca and Alphabet Soup.I thought it might be useful to take a look inside what happens to put together a children's magazine, so asked Rebecca to give us the inside story. Over to you,

Writing Easy Readers by Robyn Opie Easy readers are children's books that fall between picture books and early chapter books. They vary in length depending on the publisher but as a guide work on 1,000 to 2,500 words. This limited word length means these books have fewer pages than early chapter books. Easy readers are aimed at children who are beginning to read, aged from 6 to 8. Easy readers

Creating Ideas for Children's Books by Robyn Opie Ideas are everywhere. All of the time. It's our job, as authors writing for children, to find some ideas and turn them into entertaining stories. The most common sources of inspiration include: our experiences and personalities, children, family, pets, friends, conversations, television, newspapers, books etc. I've never had any trouble finding

Begin with a Bang! by Robyn Opie It is a fact of life that publishers will only read one or two pages of your manuscript. They receive far too many submissions to give each one their undivided attention from beginning to end. And, sadly, some of these submissions don't deserve more than a minute or two of an editor's time. As a reader, I have given up on books that haven't grabbed me in the

Plotting and Developing a Story: Cyclone Santa By Robyn Opie In 2001, my then publisher, Barrie Publishing, produced an Australian fiction series. They were looking for stories with an Australian historical background for a second series. It was at this time I wrote Caught in a Cyclone, set at Christmas 1974 during Cyclone Tracy. Before I could submit my manuscript, Barrie Publishing decided

Another link to an article you should read if you want to write for children. Today's link is to a blog post on the Children's Writing Web Journal. The post, Writing Page Turning Picture Books was written back in June, and discusses four ways of giving your picture book text the page-turning quality that makes a picture book work. You can read the piece here.

As a surprise follow up the release of my first ever ebook, Baby Monster, I received notification a few days ago that my words had been chosen for inclusion in I Wish Someone Had Told Me That, an ebook offering advice for new and aspiring children’s writers. The book offers advice from 64 children’s authors, and I am humbled to be included in such a successful group of authors. Produced by the

A simple sketch of Claude Allen. I feel very free when coming to this part ; - simple sketch. Feels like drawing with no boundaries! Sketch on A4 paper using derwent sketchign pencil. scan A4200dpi. If you want to see more plase visit mystudio69.. Enjoy!:)