Mitali Perkins's Blog, page 19

Is it Pathetic When a Twitter Search Jumpstarts Your Writing?

After a huge cross-country move, it's tough to get back into writing mode. Yesterday, on a desperate hunt for inspiration, I searched for "Bamboo People" on twitter just to see if anybody had been reading it. (Come on, fellow writers, confess your google and social media searches -- it's a lonely vocation.) To my delight, I discovered an exchange that was even more lovely because these teens had no idea a certain discouraged writer might overhear it. Thanks to them, I'm suddenly ready to get back into my TIGER BOY revision.

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Finding a Literary Agent in the Age of Social Media

Hunting for the perfect agent to help you get your children's or YA book published? It's easier to do your research now than it was when I got started, mainly thanks to social media. Here are a few resources to help:



Twitter



Here's my list of agents on twitter who represent authors of books for young readers. Read their tweets for a while. Get to know their voices. Find the ones who like the kinds of books you read and write. Then submit your manuscript.



Blogs and Sites



Middle Grade Ninja asked a bunch of agents the same seven questions about their preferences. Here are their answers . Read, take notes, and think about who might be a good match for your work.



Writer's Digest has good information on-line about young adult and middle grade literary agents.



[From Kellye Crocker in the comments]: Scroll down the left sidebar at Literary Rambles for all kinds of agent interviews and information.



Know of any other research resources for unagented, brilliant writers seeking traditional publishers? Add them in the comments below. (Plus, read this good post by editor Sangeeta Mehta featuring  six questions to ask yourself before you self-publish .)

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Proudly Announcing ... 2013 Books Written By My Facebook Friends

I was looking for new reads, so yesterday I turned to a talented source: my friends on Facebook. "I want to read new books written by you people," I posted. "If you wrote a book published (or forthcoming) in 2013, could you drop the title, publisher, and target audience in the comments?"



Here are the eclectic, inspiring results, sorted by genre (there may be others, but these were submitted by friends who happened to stop by Facebook yesterday):





Picture Book



When You Wander, A Search and Rescue Dog Story | Margarita Engle | Holt



The Kite That Bridged Two Nations: Homan Walsh and the First Niagara Suspension Bridge | Alexis O'Neill | Calkins Creek



Ghost in the House | Ammi-Joan Paquette | Candlewick



Bogart and Vinnie: A Completely Made-up Story of True Friendship | Audrey Glassman Vernick | Walker







Children's Fiction



Little Women and Me | Lauren Baratz-Logsted | Bloomsbury



Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom | Tym Byrd | Outlaw Moon Books



Cartwheel: A Sequel to Double Eagle | Sneed Collard | Bucking Horse Books



Emma Emmets. Playground Matchmaker | Julia Rozines DeVillers | Razorbill



Mountain Dog | Margarita Engle | Holt



Seeing Red | Kathy Erskine | Scholastic



4 Zeke Meeks chapter books | Debra Green Garfinkle | Capstone



The Four Seasons of Patrick | Susan Hughes | Red Deer Press



Salt: A Story of Friendship in a Time of War | Helen Frost | Farrar, Straus and Giroux



Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent | Beth Kephart | New City Community Press



Odette's Secrets | Maryann Macdonald | Bloomsbury



Rules for Ghosting | Ammi-Joan Paquette | Walker



The Nelig Stones | Sharon Skinner | Brick Cave Books







Children's/YA Non-Fiction



When Rivers Burned: The Earth Day Story | Linda Crotta Brennan | Apprentice Shop Books



The Lightning Dreamer, Cuba's Greatest Abolitionist | Margarita Engle | Harcourt



Anne Frank's Chestnut Tree | Jane Kohuth | Random House







Young Adult Fiction and Fantasy



Cameron and the Girls | Edward Averett | Clarion/HMH



No More Goddesses | Kim Baccellia | Zumaya Thresholds



Graffiti Knight | Karen Willsey Bass | Pajama Press (Canada)



Brother, Brother | Clay Carmichael | Roaring Brook



The Gleaning | Heidi R. Kling | Coliloquy



Dream Girl | S.J. Lomas | Scribe



Paradox | Ammi-Joan Paquette | Random House



Dead is a Dream | Marlene Perez | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt



Faerie After | Janni Lee Simner | Random House



Feral Nights | Cynthia Leitich Smith | Candlewick



The Language Inside | Holly Thompson | Delacorte/Random House







Adult Fiction



Dark Descent | Marlene Perez | Orbit



The Bargain: A Novel (Plain City Peace) | Stephanie Reed | Kregel



Shadows on a Cape Cod Wedding: An Antique Print Mystery | Lea Wait | Perseverance Press







Adult Non-Fiction



The Disrespectful Interviewer: Thirteen Interviews with Authors (e-book) | Lauren Baratz-Logsted



Handling the Truth | Beth Kephart | Gotham



Preaching and Ethnic Diversity (Title to Come) | Lisa Washington Lamb



Making Our Way Through The Traffic: A Christian Response to Sexual Exploitation and Human Trafficking | Glenn Miles | Regnum



Blindsided: A Game Plan for Grief | Mark Scott | Clements



And Greg Hatcher added, "Probably not your thing, but I wrote a hell-for-leather adventure story starring the Black Bat for one of Airship27's 'New Pulp' anthologies."



Congratulations, one and all. Proud to be in your company, because a book is no easy thing to create. As John Butman notes in " Should You Write a Book? " (published in the Harvard Business Review and well worth a read), "There are many valuable roles a book, and only a book, can play in taking an idea public and gaining respiration for it — that is, making it come to life and breathe on its own."

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Voice Acting For Dummies: My Fantasy Studios Gig

To kick off my writing vocation in Northern California, Brilliance Audio sent me to Fantasy Studios in Berkeley to record the introduction and my own contribution to OPEN MIC: RIFFS ON LIFE BETWEEN CULTURES IN TEN VOICES .



Wait, stop.



Fantasy Studios , people.









This is where Lil Wayne heads after his Bay Area concerts, where Robin Williams voices his animated characters, where Journey and Aerosmith and the Grateful Dead recorded bestselling albums.














I walked in feeling awestruck, certainly, but secretly I was slightly cocky. After all, when I read to our boys growing up, I tried to be mesmerizing, right? They seemed into it. And when I read in church, I strive for reverence and excellence, and people seem to appreciate it. So it couldn't be that hard to read my own writing aloud, right?









Wrong.



Director and master voice actor  Paul Costanzo  gently but firmly led me through a session that lasted two hours, giving perfect examples with his beautiful voice, using inflection, pacing, intonation, and pitch to add meaning and depth to my writing. At times I swear he sounded more like a Bengali-American woman than I did.





Paul Costanzo (left), director and voice actor, and sound engineer

Alberto Hernandez (right) steered me through my recording session.

Thanks to today's experience, I certainly won't listen to an audio book in the same way. The thought, care, and talent that voice actors put into reading our novels make the purchase of an audio version well worth it. Their voices add a whole new dimension to our stories, as I sensed while listening to the audio version of Bamboo People , voiced by Jonathan Davis.



"To me, phrasing a piece of copy requires the same sensibility as phrasing a line of music," said Costanzo in an interview with the Mill Valley Literary Review . "The job of the narrator is to get the words off the page and into the theater of the mind of the listener, and the way the words take shape off the page has a profound impact on what the listener can envision."



I hope I managed to accomplish a bit of that in my own narration. The audio version of OPEN MIC releases 9.10.13, the same day as the anthology, so I guess we'll have to wait and see. In the meantime, I'm browsing libraries and bookstores to find some good audio books.

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Top Ten "Little" Things To Miss In Boston

The packers are boxing up our 12.5 years in the Boston area. Tomorrow's moving day, so it's a good time to post my list of Top Ten "Little" Things To Miss in Boston. Note: friends, neighbors, schools, libraries, indies, sports, publishers, history, architecture, and church are Big Things, and so are not listed. Ready? All additions welcome.




#10: Lilacs in the Spring: I hear some grow in California, but there's something dizzying about lilacs in New England because you've been longing for color and fragrance for months. Below is a variety that bloomed in our garden.








#9 Apple Picking: Apples, too, grow in California, but as my fabulous next-door neighbor says, "Nothing tastes like a New England Macintosh or Macoun. Irreplaceable!" Not to mention the five-senses experience of brilliant foliage in the background and the energizing tang of autumn air.







#8 Our House at Christmas.








#7 Washing Dishes in October.








#6 Sweet Caroline in the 8th Inning.







#5 Indie Ice Cream.









#4 The Accent: Versatility with four-letter words is a "hallmahk," (see below) s(short o)rry.




 



#3 Insider Town Names: This accompanies #4, but deserves a separate category, don't you think?









#2 Walkability: It's a cozy city, plus from our house I can walk to the Newton Free Library, Whole Foods Market Newtonville, and Newton Presbyterian Church, among other destinations, and bike along the Charles to Harvard University for Saturday morning coffee.




#1 Logan Airport: Close to home thanks to the Big Dig, requiring neither trains nor shuttles to get you to the JetBlue Airways gates at Terminal C, a Dunkin' at departures and one at arrivals, Menino's classic Bostonian voice welcoming all visitors, but best of all, my portal back to my home away from home.



Thank you, Boston. Here we come, San Francisco Bay Area!

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You're Invited: PEN New England Discovery Award Event 5/19

Please come celebrate authors Anna Boll and Kathy Quimby, winners of this year's PEN New England Susan P. Bloom Discovery Award . The event starts at 6:30 pm on Sunday, May, 19 at University Hall at Lesley University in Cambridge. It's free and parking is available.

Both authors will read from their winning submissions and refreshments will be served afterwards. Come mingle with other authors, members of the PEN NE Children's Book Committee, and the winners. (I'll have the privilege to introduce Anna and her work during the event.)  Hope to see you there!

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Thank you, New England, for Seven Years of Author Visits

Today marked my last all-day author visit before our big move to California . I met with four classes of seventh graders at Boston Collegiate Charter School  (BCCS) in Dorchester, one of my favorite destinations thanks to the Foundation of Children's Books  (find out more about this organization, please--they have an incredible vision to bring authors into underserved schools).



BCCS has this to say about itself:

Boston Collegiate Charter School serves over 600 students in grades 5 through 12. Our goal is to instill in our students the expectation of college from the moment they walk through our doors. Boston Collegiate has consistently brought its mission to life: 100% of our graduates have been accepted into college! The majority of them will be the first in their families to graduate from college. In 2012, 100% of BCCS 10th grade students scored Advanced on the Math MCAS exam, ranking BCCS as first in the state on this exam.

Wow. Each year during my author visit to BCCS, I see this mission in action. These kids are focused. They ask great questions. Today one was taking careful notes while I spoke. I asked if I could see them and she gave me a copy:







Here are a few phrases that caught her attention as I was speaking:


"challenge: find a book you'll read again"
"rejected a lot"
"7th grade was her least favorite year"
"books widen hearts more than movies"
"no shoes in the house in India"
"stories are everywhere ... find your own"

Yep. That about sums up my presentation.



Thanks, New England, for seven great years of hospitality to me as an author. Since 2006, I've visited dozens of schools and libraries in all of your states, explored your lovely small towns and dynamic cities, discovered your great restaurants and coffeeshops,* and last but far from least, met your dedicated, passionate educators.



I'll be back for a week in the spring and a week in the fall to make the rounds. In the meantime, keep up your good work of connecting books with young readers. I'm going to miss being a part of it all year around.





*Check out the Cape Verdean lunch I relished today at a restaurant in Dorchester, for example—perfect, since I was speaking to many Cape Verdean students:

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New SCBWI Award for Unpublished Authors over 50!

Maybe it's because I recently hit (ahem) a big birthday myself (your cue to coo in kindly disbelief, thank you very much), but this announcement that just zinged into my in-box was exciting:

The SCBWI is proud to announce the immediate launch of the Karen and Philip Cushman Late Bloomer Award
for authors over the age of fifty who have not been traditionally published in
the children’s literature field.  The
grant was established by Newbery Award winner and Newbery Honor Book recipient Karen
Cushman and her husband, Philip Cushman, in conjunction with the Society of
Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.  Karen published her first children’s book,
The Midwife’s Apprentice (winner
of the 1996 Newbery Medal), at the age of fifty-three and has gone on to become
one of the field’s most acclaimed novelists. 

 “This award was established to encourage and celebrate late bloomers
like me, who didn't start to write until age fifty.  But then I bloomed, and I'd love to see
others do so as well,” said Karen.  

SCBWI Executive Director Lin Oliver agreed, “One of the great aspects of
writing children’s books is that it’s not age-restrictive. The SCBWI hopes an
individual’s creative expression can make a valuable contribution, no matter
what his or her age.”  

The award is open to both unpublished children’s book authors or
author/illustrators over the age of fifty, and one winner will be chosen from the
pool of those who have submitted material for the SCBWI Work-In-Progress Grants. 

The winner will receive $500 in cash, and free tuition to any worldwide SCBWI
conference.  The first winner will be
selected this year and announced along with the other Work-in-Progress Grant
recipients. 

About
Karen Cushman 

Karen Cushman is the author of The
Midwife’s Apprentice (winner of the 1996 Newbery Medal), Catherine, Called Birdy (a Newbery Honor
book), The Ballad of Lucy Whipple
(winner of the John and Patricia Beatty Award), and her latest book, Will Sparrow's Road (Clarion 2012).
Karen lives and writes on Vashon Island in Washington.  To learn more about Karen visit www.karencushman.com. 

General
Information 

Founded in 1971, the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators
is one of the largest existing writers’ and illustrators’ organizations, with
over 22,000 members worldwide. It is the only organization specifically for
those working in the fields of children’s literature, magazines, film,
television, and multimedia. The organization was founded by Stephen Mooser (President) and Lin Oliver (Executive
Director). 

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Charlesbridge Hosts Panel on Diversity in Children's Literature

Charlesbridge and the Children's Book Council's Diversity Committee Present


Diversity on the Page, Behind the Pencil, and in the Office:
A Discussion with Children’s Book Creators and Editors




Thursday, May 16, 2013 | 6:00-7:30 p.m.

Moderated by Ayanna Coleman, CBC Diversity Committee




Panelists:


Mitali Perkins, author
London Ladd, illustrator
Katie Cunningham, Editor, Candlewick Press
Alyssa Mito Pusey, Senior Editor, Charlesbridge Publishing
Monica Perez, Executive Editor, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt





Location: Charlesbridge Illustration Gallery
First Floor, 85 Main Street, Watertown, MA 02472






 Seating is limited for this free event, so please register here.

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Honoring Salman Rushdie: An Intimate Reading and Dinner

Believe me, if I were in New York City on May 6th, I'd be at this event. The Asian American Writer's Workshop is inviting us to honor Salman Rushdie at Tribeca Cinemas, and to sweeten the deal, they've added a fabulous lineup of other guests: Zadie Smith, Jonathan Safran Foer, Téa Obreht, Amitava Kumar, Himanshu Suri (formerly of Das Racist) and Top Chef competitor Dale Talde. Get tickets and/or find out more here .

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