Sue Bradford Edwards's Blog, page 219
May 18, 2017
Creating Kid Content: Are You Ready?
Thursday I watched an interesting Ted Talk, What Adults Can Learn from Kids with Adora Svitak. Svitak makes some interesting points, especially for those of us who create for a younger audience. (My plan was to link to it but that funciton seems to be “limited” today, so I’ll imbed the video below.) When adults […]
May 17, 2017
The Dot Test: Rising Tension
I’ve been contempleting one of my new manuscripts, working on a rewrite. This particular picture book has a fun concept and interesting characters. I say “interesting” because one of them is more interesting than she is sympathetic although she does change and grow. But in addition to this you also have to have a story […]
May 16, 2017
New Poet Laureate: Margarita Engle
The Poetry Foundation has named the next Young People’s Poet Laureate – Margarita Engle. The award is given every two years to someone who has devoted their career to creating “exceptional poetry” for young readers. The laureate advises the Foundation on matters relating to young people’s lit and may take part in projects to help […]
May 15, 2017
Picture Book Mentorship
Do you feel like you’ve hit a brick wall with your picture books? You’ve read all there is to read about writing picture books. Your critique group likes your work but you still can’t find a publisher or an agent. What are you doing wrong? One of the best ways to get past this point […]
May 14, 2017
Characters: Creating People that Live and Breathe and Can Walk Off the Page
Recently I read a really interesting post at Heather Alexander’s blog, Interrobangs. Titled “Antagonists Need Love Too,” Alexander wrote about being as nurturing and in-depth in the creation of your antagonist as you are with your protagonist. The reason for this is that she sees to many ho-hum flat antagonists in middle grade fiction. They […]
May 11, 2017
Agents and/or Editors
When you are shopping your work around to agents, do you cease and desist sending it to editors? Yesterday, I read a post on Janet Reid’s blog about Twitter pitch events. In her post, Reid discusses the fact that she was out with a group of agents. One of them mentioned contacting an author whose […]
May 10, 2017
The Scientific Method: Don’t Use It and Date Your Book
I have to admit that I have kind of a dicy relationship with the scientific method. Observe. Develop a hypothesis. Test said hypothesis. Develop new hypothesis. I know it and I’ve used it but sometimes it feels . . . limiting. This was an especially serious problem when my son was doing science fair projects. […]
May 9, 2017
F’ing Gs: Being a Writer Mom
My son is graduating from high school this month. I know that this doesn’t mean my job as a Mom is over, but I’ve been reflecting on the trials of being a writer mom. I was a writer before I was a mom. Maybe that’s why it never crossed my mind that I couldn’t do […]
May 8, 2017
Inspiration: Some Writer
When we take our work to critique group, we always hope that they are going to LOVE it. After all, these are our stories. Okay, I meant to call them story-babies, but I just can’t do it. Far too precious for me to do it and survive. Anyway, these are our stories and we adore […]
May 7, 2017
Book Trailer
Recently I came across the book trailer for Tara Lazar’s Way Past Bedtime. Lazar shared a funny story about her trailer. She was fussing and fuming that she hadn’t gotten it together in time to have a trailer before her book launched. She fussed and fumed enough that she got the attention of her teen […]
