Sue Bradford Edwards's Blog, page 219
June 25, 2017
Find Yourself as a Writer
Tracee Ellis Ross is a comedian and a producer, a model and an actress. Obviously she is a woman of great talent but I have to admit that I was surprised when I saw an interview where she talked about journaling. I guess that as a writer, I tend to think of journaling as a […]
June 22, 2017
Story First, Theme Second
I’ve come across another example of a picture book that delivers a theme but does so without preaching. If you are a picture book author, you need to read BunnyBear by Andrea J. Loney. BunnyBear is a bear. He can roar. He can stomp. He’s big and strong and furry. But when he’s alone he likes […]
June 21, 2017
Focus: When You Need to Write
This past week has been a bit of a writing night mare. I have writing to do. Some of it I want to do. Some of it I have to do because deadlines are involved. But I am just barely meeting those deadlines and I’m doing it with no wiggle room to speak of. My […]
June 20, 2017
Balance in Nonfiction
When you write educational nonficiton for young readers, you aren’t generally trying to sell one side of the story. Instead, you are laying out the facts so that your readers can make up their own minds. For some books, that isn’t particularly difficult. The Zika Virus isn’t so much a pro and con kind of story. […]
June 19, 2017
Back It Up: Saving Your Bacon
Recently I read a post over on InkyGirl.com, the blog of writer/illustrator Debbie Ridpath Ohi, where she talked about a routine update erasing a large number of her illustration files. If she hadn’t had a full back up system in place she would have lost file after file. Imagine watching files disappearing from your hard […]
June 18, 2017
Plot and Subplot: Using One to Strengthen the Other
Okay, this entire post is going to be littered with plot spoilers so if you haven’t read David Baldacci’s The Fix you may just want to come back later. Although I normally listen to his work on audiobook, I took the opportunity to read this one and found a novel that uses the subplot to […]
June 15, 2017
Not Everyone Agrees: Culture Determines so Much
People seem to take a wide range of beliefs for granted. Some of them involve right and wrong ranging from the belief that everyone agrees on what is rig ht and wrong to the contrary idea that “we” are the only ones who have it right. Principals of science, food and so much more are matters […]
June 14, 2017
Rewriting: Cutting those Precious Scenes
“Be willing to kill your darlings.” In any other vocation, that advice would raise eyebrows but as a writer it is pretty straight forward. You have to be willing to cut excess verbage. And most of us don’t have any problem with that. We are perfectly willing to cut a word here or a phrase […]
June 13, 2017
What Kids Want
This past Saturday (June 10, 2017), I had the opportunity to hear about what kids like to read from a group of librarians. If you ever get an opportunity like this, take it! This group was especially valuable because both Jill Burkemper and Donna Mork Reed are writers. Burkemper is a grade school librarian […]
June 12, 2017
2017 Hornbook Awards
Although the award was announced at the end of May, I’ve yet to see a post on all three awards. So without further ado, the Boston Globe Horn Book awards for 2017 are: NONFICTION AWARD WINNER: Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers by Deborah Heiligman (Godwin Books/Henry Holt/Macmillan). Sue here: I’m usually pretty good about […]
