Rajani LaRocca's Blog, page 39

My First Picture Book Announcement!

I’m thrilled that SEVEN GOLDEN RINGS, my folktale-inspired STEM picture book explaining binary numbers, will be published by Lee & Low Books! This was one of the first picture books I ever wrote; I wrote the first draft in 2013, and revised it dozens of times before I signed with my agent and we sent it to publishers. But through all the revisions, the core of the story remained: a boy, Bhagat, hopes to use his talents to impress the Rajah and save his family from poverty. I can’t wait to see the art from incredibly talented illustrator Archana Sreenivasan! 2020 can’t come soon enough! You can find the announcement in Publisher’s Weekly here.

We Need Diverse Books Fall Fundraiser!

We live in a diverse country and a diverse world, and our literature, especially our literature for children, needs to reflect this. I am so impressed with the work We Need Diverse Books has done in this capacity, from offering mentorships to diverse creators, offering internships in the publishing industry, and honoring diverse creators of diverse books with their Walter Awards. WNDB’s 2018 Fall Fundraiser goal is to raise $50,000 to bring free books to low-income schools across the country. Kids need to have access to books in which they can see themselves.

In support of this wonderful organization, I’m giving away two picture book critiques and two middle grade query critiques! If you’re interested, here’s what you need to do:

Donate $75 or more to the WNDB Fall Fundraiser here: https://diversebooks.org/fall-fundrai...
Send a screenshot of your donation to me at rajani@rajanilarocca.com
In your email, tell me whether you’d like a PB or MG query critique.
First come, first served!
I will get my critique back to you by December 1, 2018

 

Thanks for helping me help this fantastic organization!

nErDcamp Northern New England!

I was absolutely thrilled to travel to Freeport, Maine this year to attend my first nErDcamp ever, #nErDcampNNE!

Nerdy Author Night took place on Friday, September 28. About forty authors were invited to meet with fans and future fans and autograph their books, which were available for purchase. I didn’t have any books to sell yet since MIDSUMMER’S MAYHEM won’t be published until June 2019, but I brought some cool promotional materials…and cookies, of course!

It was my first “official” event as an author, and just in case you can’t tell, I was super excited! I also got to hang out with some lovely, smart, rockstar authors!

The next day, Saturday, August 29, was the actual nErDcamp. In the morning, attendees wrote about topics they’d like to learn about and could facilitate discussions on. A schedule was quickly created, and then we all divided up into classrooms where we shared ideas, discussed important topics, and inspired each other. I joined my friend, fellow author Debbi Michiko Florence, to lead a discussion on diversity and #ownvoices in children’s literature.

And then these kinds of things happened. Not that we were having fun hanging out with each other. Oh, no…

All in all, nErDcampNNE was incredibly inspiring, heartwarming, and exciting. It was the perfect first author event for me, and I can’t wait until next year!

Staring Out of Windows

Something surprising happened last week when I traveled to my old hometown for a high school reunion.

Nothing mean or sad. Nothing embarrassing or weird. Nothing involving Imposter Syndrome (although that is very real!).

I caught up with my lovely classmates. We enjoyed delicious food (see below), laughed a lot, and shared what we’d been doing with our careers and families.

What surprised me was this: I got to reconnect with some faculty members who had once taught me. In fact, the first person I met when I showed up on campus was one of my former English teachers, Mr. Herzfeld. He retired a few years ago, but he looked almost exactly the same as I remembered.

I told him that I quoted something he once said to our class in my upcoming novel.

“What did I tell you?” he asked with trepidation.

“You said, ‘poets need time to stare out of windows,’ and I never forgot,” I said.

He had reminded our class that there was a place for daydreaming, for looking out of windows and thinking about the possible, and the impossible.

That wonderful teacher told me I was a writer.

Even in high school, I knew I wanted to be a doctor, so Mr. Herzfeld pointed me to the work of doctors who were also writers, like Richard Selzer and William Carlos Williams. He told me I didn’t need to give up writing, no matter what I chose as my career.

My life has been full of wonderful teachers—teachers who opened up the world and taught me the skills to make sense of it, who treated me like an intellectual equal, who demanded my best and pushed me to do even more. I met librarians who taught me how to research, and helped me find the perfect next novel to read. My teachers convinced me I could do anything and everything, that I didn’t need to limit myself.

And they were right: I studied government in college…and Shakespeare and calculus and Michelangelo and quantum physics and French. I did go to medical school and became a physician, and I’ve been humbled and overjoyed by my medical career.

But when, several years ago, I decided to try writing fiction, I had my teacher’s conviction to fall back on: I was a writer. Once I remembered that, all I had to do was write. And now, I have a second career writing books for children.

Through the years, I’ve watched diligent, brilliant, incredible teachers help my own kids expand their universes. And I’ve watched my teacher friends put everything they have into their students, and get them excited about all kinds of things—including wonderful books, some written by people I know.

I am a writer. I am also a dreamer, who stares out of windows. Because of my incredible teachers.

Please share your reflections on your teachers in the comments!

But first, a recipe. One of my classmates made this delicious shortbread for a reunion event. It’s deceptively simple, but absolutely scrumptious.

Deliciously Simple Shortbread

Ingredients:

3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
3 sticks (8 Tablespoons each) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into slices
1/2 teaspoon salt

 

 

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F
In a large bowl or food processor, combine flour, sugar, and salt.
Cut in the butter using two forks, a pastry blender, or by pulsing in the food processor until fully combined and crumbly.
Press into a 9” x 13” pan and bake for 20-25 minutes until the top is light brown.

Allow the shortbread to cool on a rack. Cut into pieces while still slightly warm. Enjoy!

Giveaway Time!

In honor of the teachers who instruct and inspire their students with care and passion, who spend time and money and love on their pupils, who help show children that they really can do anything and everything, this month’s giveaway is just for educators. Enter to win an assortment of debut middle grade books by incredible diverse authors: THE SERPENT’S SECRET by Sayantani DasGupta, FRONT DESK by Kelly Yang, THE FIRST RULE OF PUNK by Celia Pérez, and HURRICANE CHILD by Kheryn Callender.

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LoonSong 2018

From September 6-10, I was incredibly fortunate to travel to the absolutely gorgeous Elbow Lake Lodge in Cook, MN to attend the LoonSong Writer’s Retreat. I made some fantastic friends, learned from the brilliant faculty, and got to breathe in the beauty of nature, wisdom, and words. If you are at creator at any stage in the process, be sure to check out this retreat for 2019! You can find more information here. In the meantime, check out these photos and you’ll get a glimpse of what I’m talking about.

The Official #TeamPITA 2018 Wish List, Part 1!

Welcome, wonderful writers! We are so glad you’re here! We’ll get to our wishlist in a moment, but first, a little about us, your potential mentors.

Remy Lai writes and draws stories for kids. She lives in Brisbane, Australia, where she can often be found exploring the woods with her two dogs. Her middle grade novel (a prose/graphic novel hybrid) PIE IN THE SKY is forthcoming from Henry Holt/Macmillan in Spring 2019. You can find it on Goodreads here. She is represented by Jim McCarthy of Dystel, Goderich, & Bourret.

Rajani LaRocca writes middle grade and picture books. She practices medicine and lives in the Boston area with her family and impossibly cute dog. Her middle grade debut, MIDSUMMER’S MAYHEM, a foodie Indian-American story inspired by A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the hours she’s spent watching TV baking competitions, will be published by Yellow Jacket/Bonnier USA in summer 2019. You can find it on Goodreads here. She is represented by Brent Taylor of TriadaUS.

We are both Pitch Wars 2017 mentees who benefitted immensely from our mentors and the Pitch Wars community this past year, and we are SO EXCITED to be paying it forward now as first-time mentors! Last year, we learned a ton, revised our butts off, laughed and cried and commiserated and celebrated together even though we’re literally on opposite sides of the world. Our mentee will get our best advice, our stalwart support, emails, and twitter posts and gifs for good measure. We will help you and root for you during the revision process, through the agent round, and beyond. We hope to forge a lifelong relationship with our mentee, just like the ones that our wonderful mentors share with us.

We are #TeamPITA—the concept, not the bread.

via GIPHY

We will be Pains In The A** in the best possible way: mentors who give you our best, maybe even painful, suggestions for edits, but who will never tell you what to do. Because your book is your book! Mentors who will listen patiently to your complaints during the revision process, but who will tell you that we know you can do it, so get to it. Mentors who will guide you and hold your hand during the agent showcase, querying, and beyond.

So…what are we looking for?

Middle Grade with humor and heart. We find that the best middle grade has both. Make us laugh and cry, like STAR-CROSSED by Barbara Dee and ALAN COLE IS NOT A COWARD by Eric Bell. Give us smart kids, like in THE WESTING GAME by Ellen Raskin. Give us emotionally rich stories, like THE WAR THAT SAVED MY LIFE by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley and WHERE THE WATERMELONS GROW by Cindy Baldwin.

We are happy to see contemporary, adventure, historical, time travel, sci-fi, and fantasy, although we’re not the best fit for high fantasy. And if your contemporary has a touch of magic, all the better! Think WHEN YOU REACH ME by Rebecca Stead, and FLORA AND ULYSSES by Kate DiCamillo.

We are not opposed to animal protagonists, but make sure they are unique and interesting, like THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN by Katherine Applegate.

We are happy to consider verse novels (like INSIDE OUT AND BACK AGAIN by Thanha Lai), epistolary stories (like THE NIGHT DIARY by Veera Hiranandani), graphic novels (like ROLLER GIRL by Victoria Jamieson), and unusual formats. Surprise us!

We welcome and celebrate diversity, both in authors and the characters they create.

We have more to say about our wishlist! To find out what, please visit Remy’s blog here.

To visit the main Put Wars blog hop page, click here.

Or to check out more MG mentors, see below.

2018 Middle Grade Mentors

Middle Grade Mentors Blog Hop will appear right here!

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My Successful Pitch and Query

The query trenches can be really rough. I thought it might be helpful for folks to see my successful 2017 Pitch Wars pitch and the query letter that got me offers and eventually led to my signing with my amazing agent, Brent Taylor of Triada US.

If you are interested in reading my 2017 Pitch Wars Pitch and opening, you can find them here.

Here’s my query:

Dear [AGENT],

MIDSUMMER’S MAYHEM is a 60,000-word middle grade mash-up of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Master Chef Junior.

Eleven-year-old Mimi dreams of winning a local baking contest to finally prove she’s not the least talented member of her family. Plus, it’ll start her on the path to becoming a celebrity chef like her culinary idol, Puffy Fay. But when Mimi’s dad returns from a business trip, he’s mysteriously lost his highly honed food writer’s sense of taste. Without his help, Mimi will never be able to bake something impressive enough to propel her to gastronomic fame.

Drawn into the woods behind her house by a strangely familiar song, Mimi meets Vik, a boy who brings her to parts of the forest she’s never seen. Together they discover exotic ingredients and bake them into delectable and enchanting treats.

But as her dad acts stranger every day, and her siblings’ romantic entanglements cause mayhem in their town, Mimi begins to wonder whether the ingredients she and Vik found are somehow the cause of it all. She needs to use her skills, deductive and epicurean, to uncover what’s happened and return everyone to normal. In the process, she learns that in life as in baking, not everything can be sweet.

MIDSUMMER’S MAYHEM was chosen for Pitch Wars 2017. I am a member of SCBWI, The Writer’s Loft in Sherborn, MA, and the 12 x 12 picture book community. I live in eastern Massachusetts with my family – which, like Mimi’s, is half-Indian and all-American.

Sincerely,

Rajani LaRocca

As you can see, I followed “the Hook, the Book, and the Cook” structure for this query.

If you are selected as a mentee this year, your mentors will do all they can to help you craft your best pitch and query. In the meantime, connect to fellow writers, get your query critiqued, let me know if you have questions, and WRITE ON!

If you’d like to add MIDSUMMER’S MAYHEM to your “Want To Read” list on Goodreads, you can find it here.

 

 

 

 

The Contest, the Connections, and the Cookies

What is Pitch Wars all about? There are so many ways to answer that question. But I’m going to answer it with another question.

What do writers do?

We write, of course. And we dream, revise, revise again, hope, fret, stew, gnash…

via GIPHY

But what we really do is connect. We connect our brains and hearts to what we put on the page.

That’s what Pitch Wars is about, too: connecting. Some of those connections happen in your writerly brain. You learn how to read an edit letter. You learn what is and isn’t working in your manuscript, and you connect those amazing synapses and channel it all into a revision.

via GIPHY

But the most important Pitch Wars connections are with people. The mentor-mentee connection is at the very heart of Pitch Wars. And if you’re fortunate, your story might connect with an agent or two (or more). And someday, you will connect with your readers. That’s the dream!

But I want to highlight a kind of connection that might just be the most important thing about Pitch Wars. And you can form this connection even if you don’t get selected as a mentee.

I’m talking about connecting with fellow writers—the most generous, hilarious, wonderful people in the world.

Last year, some people made friends on the Pitchwars hashtag and through #menteeshelpingmentees even before the Pitch Wars submissions occurred. I was not one of those people. I wasn’t very active on Twitter until after submissions last year, but once I submitted and joined in the fun, I met some cool folks.

And then, to my utter delight, I was selected as a mentee. And via email, Twitter and a secret Facebook group, we mentees shared our frustrations and joys, laughter and tears, and a whole lot of gifs and jokes as we went through Pitch Wars together. We swapped manuscripts and practiced pitches. We cheered requests and consoled each other over rejections. We celebrated every victory, large or small. We formed deeper friendships than I thought possible in an online community.

Occasionally, we got to meet each other at conferences and book launches across the country.

But recently, two of my best friends whom I’d never met came to my house! With their families!

Andrea Contos is a fiercely brilliant writer of atmospheric, thrill-filled YA. She is also one of the strongest, kindest, most honest people I’ve ever met. She celebrates everyone’s good news and is a great (virtual) shoulder to cry on when things aren’t going well. She knows pretty much everything. And her book, THROWAWAY GIRLS, is a page-turner in every sense of the word.

Emily Thiede is such a prodigiously talented writer that it’s kind of unfair. She’s also one of the most positive and persistent people I know. She’s the kind of friend who, the day of my deal announcement, found MIDSUMMER’S MAYHEM on Goodreads and posted a heartfelt review, including quotes from her 7 year-old, and didn’t tell me until later because she wanted to be the first. Her YA SF novel, NO MAN’S LAND, was so compelling that it made me procrastinate on all my errands and carry my Kindle around with me for an entire day, even at the lunch counter.

So these two wonderful friends came to my house during their vacation. They each had two daughters, and my own daughter happened to come from camp that weekend, too. And guess what the daughters did? They baked!

Peanut butter chocolate-chip cookies that happen to be gluten-free and easy to throw together and insanely addictive.

We moms chatted and caught up and hugged and celebrated. “To writing, and to friends,” we toasted. After all these months of connecting via social media and messages, it was truly incredible to meet these amazing women in person. We talked and talked about writing and family and Pitch Wars and summer and stories and stories and stories. Emily and Andrea were even lovelier in real life than they are online. And our girls (and my little boy dog!) and husbands had a great time, too. We lingered over drinks and dinner until twilight came and the bugs started biting. And even then, we didn’t say goodbye until it was clear that little people (and big ones) needed their sleep. We could have talked forever.

So for me, that’s what Pitch Wars is all about: connecting with your people, and supporting each other through all the ups and downs of publishing and life.

And sometimes, sharing cookies.

Flourless Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes 24 3-inch cookies
Ingredients:
2 cups smooth peanut butter
2 cups granulated sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup mini chocolate chips (optional)
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. Mix all ingredients together.
3. Using a tablespoon or small ice cream scoop, drop dough on cookie sheets, leaving 1-2 inches between each cookie.
4. Bake 7-12 minutes (depending on size of cookies) until cookies turn golden.
5. Allow to cool on the pan, then on wire racks. Cookies will be very soft (but still delicious) when hot. Enjoy!


Giveaway Time!

In the spirit of Pitch Wars, I’m giving away a query plus 10-page critique to a YOUNG ADULT writer! I’m limiting this to YA only because as a Pitch Wars MG mentor, I don’t want to create a conflict of interest. But I read plenty of YA and I can offer some insight!

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It’s Official!

I’m honored and ecstatic to be chosen as a Pitch Wars 2018 middle grade mentor! Pitch Wars is a mentoring program in which published/agented authors help unagented writers revise their manuscripts until they shine. This culminates in an agent showcase during which the manuscript pitches/beginnings are featured on the Pitch Wars website, and agents can request to see more. I was a 2017 Pitch Wars mentee, and I can personally attest to how Pitch Wars changed my life! It led to my signing with my incredible agent, and a make-my-dreams come true book deal for my novel, MIDSUMMER’S MAYHEM. But even before those things happened, Pitch Wars connected me to an incredible writing community, and that has been a real game changer. More on that later. In the meantime, you can check out my mentor bio on the Pitch Wars website. If you are an unagented writer looking for someone to jump into the publishing trenches with you, polish up your manuscript, because the Pitch Wars submission window opens on August 27, 2018!

On Baking, Besties, and Belief

In my forthcoming middle grade novel, MIDSUMMER’S MAYHEM, my 11-year-old protagonist Mimi bakes special lemon-lavender cupcakes for her best friend’s birthday. These cupcakes always make her happy, even after her friend moves away.

So when a dear friend of mine was celebrating a big birthday, I wanted to bake her this cake. And that’s why on June 23, Midsummer’s Eve, I spent all day baking with my 16-year-old daughter Mira, whom we sometimes call Mimi (does this sound familiar?). We wanted to create a fancy three-tier birthday cake decorated with purple and yellow flowers.

We baked the cake layers. We mixed up a huge batch of frosting. We started assembling the cake and covering it in white frosting.

It was not very pretty.

The cake showed through in some places, especially on the edges. And it was really difficult to make the frosting smooth, even with an icing spatula and both of us trying.

Aha! We said. We’ll cover the flaws with our frosting flowers!

I’d recently gotten a box of new decorating tips. We picked out one that was supposed to produce a rose shape, and tried it out on a scrap of cake.

“It looks like a turd,” said Mira.

We giggled, but we kept going. And the attempts continued to look like something a unicorn might shoot out its rear. Witness our first attempts in purple below:

They were sweet, delicious, and hideous. There was no way we could bring this cake to my friend, who is an accomplished baker. And certainly not for her big birthday!

*   *   *

A few years ago, when I first became serious about getting published, I shared some of the ups and downs with my children. I shared when I got agent interest, and agent rejections, positive feedback, and feedback that required me to change things and change things again. I shared the never-ending waiting. I wanted them to know it’s never too late to try something new, and it’s important to keep learning, no matter your age. I wanted them to see me struggle and persevere, and eventually, succeed.

But it wasn’t easy. We writers sometimes have dark moments when nothing seems possible, and all our hard work seems wasted. I had a moment like that last year, when everything I’d labored over seemed like a lopsided, poorly frosted cake with turd flowers. I thought about quitting. And I said so out loud.

And Mira said, “Don’t give up on something you love, even if you never get published. Besides, I know you’re going to be published some day.”

I reminded her that there’s no guarantee.

And she said, “I believe in you, Mom.”

*   *   *

Back to the cake.

Mira and I looked at the sad cake and the ridiculous flowers, and we started to snicker. We giggled, guffawed, and shrieked. We howled. We narrowly avoided collapsing to the floor and rolling around.

Once we calmed down, we decided to just decorate the cake.

The first flowers were not much better. But then, as we kept going, they improved. Except for the occasional turd-like blip, they looked like little purple roses.

Ultimately, we ended up with a delicious AND beautiful cake we were proud to bring to my friend’s party. Here’s the finished product:

   

And of course, even more wonderful, we’d spent a laughter-filled day together.

Mira was right—about the cake, and about publishing. Because a few months after that low moment last year, I entered Pitch Wars, and I was selected by my amazing mentor. With her help, I revised my novel and made it even better. And then, after receiving multiple offers, I signed with my absolutely incredible agent. A few months later, after receiving multiple offers, we sold that novel to a fantastic publisher. That novel is MIDSUMMER’S MAYHEM, and it will be published in summer 2019.

So here’s the recipe for lemon-lavender cake with lavender frosting. It celebrates friendship. It also reminds me that one of my best friends is my daughter, who really did internalize what I hoped to teach her about believing in yourself and persevering through tough times.

And who, as it turns out, has a lot to teach me, too.

Lemon-Lavender Cake with Lavender Frosting

Ingredients:

For Cake:

2 ¾ cups cake flour
4 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
2 tsp dried lavender, crumbled between fingers
1½ cups buttermilk, room temp
5 large egg whites
1¾ cups granulated sugar
10 Tbsp unsalted butter, room temp
1½ tsp pure vanilla extract
1½ tsp pure lemon extract
Zest of two lemons

For Frosting:

2 cups (4 8 Tbsp sticks) unsalted butter, softened
8 cups powered sugar
6 Tbsp lavender soda syrup, or 2 Tbsp dried lavender, finely ground in a spice grinder
Gel food coloring (optional)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F. Butter and flour cake pans (I used 8-inch, 6-inch, and 4-inch round cake pans).
Sift together cake flour, baking flour, crushed lavender, and salt.
In another bowl, combine sugar and lemon zest and rub together with your fingers until the sugar is pale yellow and smells lemony.
Whisk together buttermilk and egg whites.
In a stand mixer, cream butter and lemon-sugar until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and lemon extracts and beat until combined.
With the mixer running, alternate adding the flour mixture with the buttermilk mixture, beginning and ending with the flour mixture.
Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for 25-35 minutes, checking at 20 minutes, until the cakes have risen and are springy. A cake tester should come out clean.
Cool on a wire rack before frosting.
Make the frosting: In a mixer, beat butter until light and fluffy. Beat in powdered sugar, 1 cup at a time. Add in lavender syrup (or powdered lavender) to your liking, tasting after each tablespoon.
Frost cake and decorate as you like. Enjoy!

 

Giveaway Time!

Enter the Rafflecopter below for a chance to win a copy of STAR-CROSSED by Barbara Dee! This delightful middle grade adaptation of Romeo and Juliet is about friendship, discovering who you are, and of course, Shakespeare!

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