.jpg?picon=423)
By: Chris Barton,
on 3/28/2016
To get Bartography Express in your inbox each month — and to have a shot at the April giveaway of Bears Make the Best Reading Buddies, written by Carmen Oliver and illustrated by Jean Claude — you can sign up on my home page.
By: Chris Barton,
on 11/20/2015
When Jennifer and I celebrate our new holiday-themed books with an event at Austin’s BookPeople on December 5, we’re going to spotlight the store’s annual Giving Tree charity program. Guests buying any hardcover children’s book to donate to Giving Tree will be in the running for the giveaway of signed sets of Jennifer’s Revenge of […]
By: Chris Barton,
on 11/16/2015
When Jennifer and I celebrate our new holiday-themed books with an event at Austin’s BookPeople on December 5, we’re going to spotlight the store’s annual Giving Tree charity program. Guests buying any hardcover children’s book to donate to Giving Tree will be in the running for the giveaway of signed sets of Jennifer’s Revenge of […]
By: Chris Barton,
on 11/7/2015
Nick Patton hosted me this week for an interview on the newest edition of his Picturebooking podcast. I loved talking with Nick about ‘The Nutcracker’ Comes to America and The Amazing Age of John Roy Lynch and about being married to my favorite author in the whole world, as well as answering his curveballier questions. […]
By: Chris Barton,
on 9/1/2015
A mere 12 years, 6 months, and 23 days after I saved my first file on the topic of Utah-born Willam, Harold, and Lew Christensen, today marks the launch of my newest book, ‘The Nutcracker’ Comes to America: How Three Ballet-Loving Brothers Created a Holiday Tradition. It’s published by Lerner Books/Millbrook Press and gorgeously illustrated […]
By: Chris Barton,
on 5/15/2015
Those of you who loved my wife Jennifer’s 2014 novel Revenge of the Flower Girls might just be interested in what’s coming this August:
And if you’re sensing a theme running through the books Jennifer and I have coming out later this year, you’re right:
Between her Revenge of the Angels — in which the Brewster triplets find themselves woefully miscast in their church’s Christmas pageant — and my ‘The Nutcracker’ Comes to America arriving in September, we’ll start celebrating the holidays around here when it’s still 102 degrees.
But if you’re inclined to put off getting into the spirit of the season until you reach a more reasonable page on the calendar, that’s quite all right. We’ll be celebrating both books — and encouraging donations to the Giving Tree program — at Austin’s BookPeople on Saturday, December 5 (only 204 shopping days away).
By: Chris Barton,
on 1/22/2015
This month, one subscriber to my Bartography Express newsletter will win a copy of Burning Nation (Scholastic), the second book in Trent Reedy’s Divided We Fall YA trilogy
If you’re not already receiving Bartography Express, click the image below for a look. If you like what you see, click “Join” in the bottom right corner, and you’ll be in the running for the giveaway at the end of this week.
By: Chris Barton,
on 11/20/2014
I’m a few days late to the party, thanks to my participation in the YALSA and ILF events, but I’m happy this morning to share with you this recently recorded interview I did for Katie Davis’ kidlit podcast, Brain Burps About Books.
In addition to discussing Shark Vs. Train and Attack! Boss! Cheat Code!, Katie and I talked quite a bit about my email newsletter, Bartography Express, which I wrote about earlier this year for Cynsations. And in fact, while I was listening to our interview, I was actually putting the finishing touches on this month’s edition.
The November edition includes, among other things, a Q&A with K.A. Holt and a giveaway of her new book, Rhyme Schemer. If you want to receive this issue in your very own inbox and get in the running for the giveaway, you can sign up on my home page.
By: Chris Barton,
on 6/10/2014
Melissa Wiley asked if I’d like to participate in this rolling series of authors’ monologues about their current projects and writing processes, and I thought…
Well, from the title of this post, it’s pretty obvious what I thought. So here goes:
What are you working on?
I’ve got a couple of things going on at the moment, both of them picture books under contract.
One is a biography whose ending my editor and I are still trying to nail down — we want to make sure that we hit the final note just right. Do we leave the reader with one last impression of the subject himself, or encourage the reader to view the bigger picture beyond this one person’s life, or invite the reader to look inward and consider how the subject resonates with them individually, or attempt to accomplish something else? The runaway for figuring this out is growing pretty short.
The other book is all made-up fun, or will be. Right now, I’ve got characters and a vague sense of what the conflict is going to be, but so far there’s neither a story nor, frankly, much fun. (Though I’m enjoying myself.) What I’m working on, then, is figuring out the specifics of what happens, or might happen, or could happen, or should, or ought to, etc. Opening lines popped into my head late last night, so I need to revisit those and see if they still seem to set the right tone and get the story going in a good direction.
How does your work differ from others in its genre?
I don’t know that my picture books individually differ drastically from other narrative picture books, but collectively they stand out a bit by falling into two distinct camps. I love writing seriously researched nonfiction, and I love just making up silly stuff, and I feel just as comfortable doing one (The Day-Glo Brothers) as the other (Shark Vs. Train). Enough people have asked me some variation of “How do you do that?” that I understand that enjoying both types of writing is not the norm, but it feels perfectly natural to me. Writing for this audience wouldn’t be nearly as fun if I didn’t or couldn’t do both types of books.
Why do you write what you do?
I write my biographies because something about the arc of an individual’s life — regardless of whether anyone I know has ever heard of this person — fascinates me. I like writing about people who end up in vastly different circumstances from those in which they entered the world, and about how inner drive and outer happenstance work together to change the course of a person’s life, and about the impact that person’s life has on the rest of us. And I like writing about people whose fields of achievement offer lots for me to learn about along the way and lots to distill and convey to my readers.
I write my fiction because I’ve always enjoyed getting people to laugh — or at least taking a shot at getting them to laugh — through the words I string together. It’s no fun when my efforts fall flat, but the times when my audience (even if that audience consists of just one person) does laugh — those keep me going.
How does your writing process work?
For biographies, with the very first piece of research I consult, I generally start creating a timeline of key events in the subject’s life. From that timeline, the period of the person’s life that most intrigues me will begin to emerge — I don’t generally write cradle-to-the-grave biographies, so I’m on the lookout for a significant place to start my telling of their story and a meaningful, resonant place to end my telling. Then I’ll research and research and research until I’m not running into much new information, or not finding any information that alters the story arc that’s taking shape. By then, I’m feeling sort of full and antsy, and I can’t help but start writing, though I’ll probably continue doing research of some sort until the illustrator is entirely finished with the art.
That’s a fairly amorphous process, but it’s even more so for my picture book fiction. Sometimes, I bang out a full draft the first morning an idea occurs to me, or the first day I pull a previously-jotted-down story idea from a pool of candidates. Other times, there’s a lot of mulling — weeks and weeks of mulling — about how to approach a character or theme or plot point before I ever actually start writing what anybody else would consider to be a draft.
For both types of books, I tend to revise a lot as I go. I turn in very clean drafts — not that they necessarily get returned from editors in quite the same condition.
Who’s next?
Who am I going to ask to answer these questions after me? Well, Melissa has already gone to my go-to author.
So, I was thinking that instead I would ask the most recent commenter, which would be Tina Kugler. But I see that Tina has already taken a crack at these questions.
So, how about you? If you’d be up for keeping the Writing Process Blog Tour going — or if you’ve already done your bit — won’t you please leave a comment letting me know where the rest of us can find your answers?
By: Chris Barton,
on 6/2/2014
Who am I to pass up an opportunity to link to a guest post Jenny wrote at Cynthia Leitich Smith’s Cynsations blog — especially when the topic involves me?
Jenny and me. Photo by Sam Bond Photography.
Jennifer Ziegler on How to Live Happily Ever After With Another Writer
…I think what people are specifically wondering about is how does it help or hinder our writing – and our marriage?
Upon reflection I’ve come up with some underlying “rules” that make our partnership work.
1) We celebrate each other’s triumphs – even if it’s “Yay, you worked out that thorny section in chapter nine!” Because we are fans of each other’s work, each other’s victories feel like our own.
But also, we know that because other rewards, like honors, critical acclaim, and, yes, money, are fleeting in this business, we need other ways to measure our success. And a hard-fought victory over a tricky section is every bit as worthy of commemoration as a major award.
In addition to complimenting each other…
Thank goodness someone finally had the opportunity to explain to Cyn what it’s like being married to another author.
By: Rene Colato Lainez,
on 7/27/2011
Today is my last post from the Austin SCBWI conference. It’s my seventh post about the conference and I’ve just given you a sampler from the presentations, so it shows how great these conferences can be.
Before I get into the post for today, here’s a quick recap of the other posts from the conference in case you missed any: agent Mark McVeigh on publishing, agent Andrea Cascardi on getting and working with an agent, editor Cheryl Klein on writing a great book, agent Nathan Bransford on finding the right agent for you, author/former editor Lisa Graff on writing and revising and advice from ALA winners.
The conference had plenty of other published writers, and here’s advice from them:
Kirby Larson (2007 Newbery Honor Book Hattie Big Sky): The secret of success is keeping your bum in your chair and working. No matter how bad you think it is, you have to get the first draft done and keep going.
Liz Garton Scanlon (2010 Caldecott Honor Book All the World): Find a community to help you, whether a critique group or writing partner, because it helps you live in the solitary environment of writing.
Shana Berg (A Thousand Never Evers): You should have an emotional reaction to your story when you read it.
Jennifer Ziegler (How Not to be Popular): Outlining can be an invaluable tool, but use it as a map.
Jessica Lee Anderson (Border Crossing): In dealing with rejection, rethink, revise and resend, inspire yourself with stories, nurture your creativity.
P.J. Hoover (The Emerald Tablet): Think outside of the box. Don’t settle for cliches and stereotypes. Write unique characters
By: Mark G. Mitchell,
on 9/30/2009
What does this short animated clip have to do with John Singer Sargent or children’s book illustration?
A quoi ca sert l’amour, a short animation by Louis Clichy, with thanks to illustrator and animation/game artist Amanda Williams for finding this. She called it “brutal and adorable.”
If a child-friendly story had illustrations with these lines — and visual characters as memorable as these, and color the way John Singer Sargent used it in his painted scenes, it would be some picture book, right?
I’m assembling my fantasy football — I mean illustration project — team here.
So, starting with the cartoon: What makes these stick figures tug at your emotions as they do?
The honesty? That we know these people? And been these people?
The “simple” (but oh-so-sophisticated) graphics with their varied perspectives and 360 degree “camera revolutions”?
All the fast cutting and surprise transitions?
The song? Edith Piaf’s and Theo Sarapo’s singing?
The subject?
Could some of this aplomb be translated into picture book illustrations?
Are these enough questions for now?
OK, so let’s add some color and texture. John Singer Sargent had a knack for these.
Thanks to Chicago based painter Raymond Thornton for finding this.
I know. Sargent is the painter who gives all other painters inferiority complexes. We don’t now a lot about how he made his palette choices. (We know that he looked carefully.)
So enough with dream teaming. We’ve got some housecleaning items today.
Two powerhouse chapters of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) have announced their 2010 pow-wows — both set for early next year.
Austin SCBWI comes first with Destination Publication featuring a Caldeecott Honor Illustrator and Newberry Honor Author, along with agents, editors, more authors, another fab illustrator, critiques, portfolio reviews and parties.
Mark the date – Saturday, January 30, 2010 from 8:00 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. Get the full lowdown and the registration form here. Send in your form pronto if you’re interested — more than 100 people have already signed up. Manuscript crtiques are already sold out. But a few portfolio reviews are still open at this writing!
Destination Publication features Kirby Larson, author of the 2007 Newbery Honor Book, Hattie Big Sky and Marla Frazee, author-illustrator of A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever, which received a Caldecott Honor Award, and more recently All the World penned (all 200 words of it) by Austin’s own children’s author/poet Liz Garton Scanlon.
Frazee teaches children’s book illustration at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. She and Scanlon plan to talk about their collaboration. You can read wonderful essays by them on this very topic here.
"All the World" by Liz Garton Scanlon and Marla Frazee
The faculty also includes: Cheryl Klein, senior editor at Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic, Lisa Graff, Associate Editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux Books for Young Readers, Stacy Cantor, Editor, Bloomsbury USA/Walker Books For Young Readers, Andrea Cascardi agent with Transatlantic Literary Agency (and a former editor), another former editor, Mark McVeigh who represents writers, illustrators, photographers and graphic novelists for both the adult and children’s markets, and agent Nathan Bransford.
The conference also features authors Sara Lewis Holmes, Shana Burg, P. J. Hoover, Jessica Lee Anderson, Chris Barton, Jacqueline Kelly, Jennifer Ziegler, Philip Yates, and illustrator Patrice Barton.
Read more about everyone here.
Houston SCBWI has announced the (still developing) lineup for its conference just three weeks after Austin’s: Saturday, February 20, 2010. Registration is NOW OPEN.
It headlines Cynthia Leitich Smith, acclaimed author of short stories, funny picture books, Native American fiction, and YA Gothic fantasies, Ruta Rimas, assistant editor Balzer & Bray/HarperCollin, and Patrick Collins, creative director at Henry Holt Books for Young Readers. Collins art directs and designs picture books, young adult novels and middle grade fiction.
Among the recent picture books he has worked on: Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What Do You See?, Old Penn Station and Rosa, which was a Caldecott Honor book.
The conference also features Alexandra Cooper, senior editor at Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, Lisa Ann Sandell, senior editor at Scholastic Inc., and Sara Crowe, an agent with Harvey Klinger, Inc. in New York.
You can download Houston conference info and registration sheets from this page.
No, you don’t have to be Texan to register for either of these big events. You just have to be willing to get here for them.
Remember that just about any SCBWI conference or workshop is a great education for a very modest investment.
* * * * *
Speaking of great educations for a very modest investment, Mark Mitchell, author of this post and host of this blog teaches classes in children’s book illustration at the Austin Museum of Art Art School and online. Learn more about the online course here — or sample some color lessons from the course here.
By: Jennie,
on 11/24/2008
My fridge is full to bursting of things like turducken, heavy whipping cream, and cranberries.
Tomorrow is school and work, and I'm off to start my baking (and to continue to write those last two papers).
I never thought much about Thanksgiving until I spent that fall abroad and it was just really... different. It was only then that I realized how much I really like the holiday. Dan and I hosted a Thanksgiving when we were living in England. It took weeks to find pumpkin pie filling and recipes had to be converted to metric and the firemen were all on strike. But, in the end, it was American friends and British ones, with a real football game on the satellite TV and then the next day everyone asking me if I "enjoyed my day off" because, apparently, cooking dinner for 15 people is a day off.
Plus, many of my British friends can now say that they've tasted pumpkin pie and know what an American biscuit really is.
But, you know, book time:
Just read through all your posts – such an abundance of info!
Sarah
http://www.writingonthesidewalk.wordpress.com
Glad you liked them, Sarah. Yeah, it was a great conference. And I couldn’t include everything or I’d be writing about it for months. Conferences with great lineups like these are very valuable.
A little inspiration goes a long way. Thank you for sharing!
My pleasure, Grier. And I agree, a little inspiration does go a long way.
Thanks for this! I’m a member of the SCBWI and am embarrassed that I didn’t know about the Austin Conference. Is this an annual event? I have a cousin who lives in the area and I would use the excuse to sleep on her couch next year, if so.
Hey Kathy,
Yeah, the Austin SCBWI chapter has a conference every year. Their website is at: http://www.austinscbwi.com/
And you can check events for all regions at the SCBWI website: http://www.scbwi.org/default.aspx
SCBWI puts on some great conferences, and they’re definitely worth checking out. Look at the lineups, see if the speakers are good for what you write and sign up. The bigger conferences are more expensive, like the annual summer conference in Los Angeles and winter conference in New York, but they’re worth it. If you can’t afford them, though, you can find some great smaller conferences, like this one-day one in Austin for less money.
Sam, It sounds like a wonderful conference.
CAn’t wait to hear about it all first hand.
Thanks for the updates!
It was great, Laura. The Houston one will be great too.
Thanks for sharing your notes and thoughts so thoroughly. It’s super helpful. I love going to regional SCBWI conferences and reading notes from others. I’ve heard Cheryl Klein and Mark McVeigh at other conferences, but didn’t take nearly so detailed notes as you did. Thank you!
[...] writingonthesidewalk I have been recently reading blogger Samantha Clark’s update for the Austin SCBWI conference. It sounds like it was a great event and filled with tons of useful information for all who [...]