Sue Bradford Edwards's Blog, page 178
January 29, 2019
Character Emotion: Emotion Ranges from a Little to a Lot
Character emotion is one of the first things that writers learn to show vs tell. An angry character yells and stomps. A sad character cries. A happy character dances for joy. But emotions aren’t binary, either on or off. Sometimes emotions are strongly felt. Other times they are more subtle. Part of showing character emotions […]
January 28, 2019
Why Elephant and Piggie Are Top Notch Early Readers
Earlier this week, I read an article by Jodie Rodriguez about the Elephant and Piggie series. Rodriguez wasn’t happy with her children learning to read. She wanted them to be fluent without the stumbles and the starts and stops. She wanted them to grasp what they were reading. As I read her piece, I realized I […]
January 27, 2019
Author’s Copies: Fossils, Fossils and more Fossils
Saturday, we came home from bald eagle watching to find a package on the porch. We were expecting a book for the teen’s birthday but this was way too heavy. It turned out to be not one book but four – my author’s copies, 2 each, of Evolution of Reptiles and Evolution of Mammals. When […]
January 24, 2019
World Read Aloud Day
For 2019, World Read Aloud Day is February 1. That’s one week from today. Whether you are an author, a teacher or just someone who loves books, reading matters. LitWorld sponsors this global event and gathered statistics on why reading matters. Statistics gathered in 2016 show that 758 million adults – two thirds of them women […]
January 23, 2019
Branding: Do You Have One? Do You Need One?
Does an author need to have a brand? I’ve always been hesitant to say yes an author needs a brand. Part of this is because I write so many things. Although all of my books are nonfiction, the audience ranges from third grade to high school. I’m also writing some fiction. How can a range […]
January 22, 2019
A Writing Plan: Customization is Key
Monday one of the son’s friends found me in the kitchen. He’s a college freshman who, like many freshman, finds himself adjusting his life plans. In spite of the common knowledge that boys don’t read and boys especially don’t read fiction, he’s an avid reader who loves teen fiction. We spend some time talking writing […]
January 21, 2019
Steady Ahead: Maintaining POV
When I say that I’m in an adult book club, I don’t mean racy adult. I mean grown up book as opposed to the books for children and teens that I write. Without these ladies, I might go months and never lay eyes on a grown up book. Not that I’m 100% happy with all […]
January 20, 2019
Source Bias: What to Use and What to Lose
Research, accuracy and source bias has been on my mind a lot the last few days, and not surprisingly it started with a news story. This particular story was the one about Nathan Phillips and a group of students from Covington Catholic High School. One narrative has a group of white male highschool students mocking […]
January 17, 2019
Mary Oliver: RIP
Mary Oliver. Even a non-poet like myself knows Oliver’s name. For those of you who may not have heard, Oliver died yesterday from lymphoma. Personally, I always appreciated the straightforward truth of her poems, many of which were set in the natural world. Even when I didn’t think I got poetry, I knew that even […]
January 16, 2019
Finding Your Niche: Or Why I’m Not Talking to My Socks
Finding your niche as a writer. That’s one of the big steps in writing success. When talking to non-writers, you may be a “freelance writer,” broad stroke. But when you are talking to an agent or editor? You should be a nonfiction educational writer, a children’s nonfiction writer, or something else fairly specific. Recently I […]
