Sue Bradford Edwards's Blog, page 238
October 3, 2016
Censorship and the School Library
Do you ever worry that what you write will keep your books out of school libraries? I have to admit that the thought has crossed my mind. I’m not so worried about Hidden Human Computers but I was worried when I wrote Black Lives Matter. After all, I’ve seen the racist memes changing the popular slogan to All Lives […]
October 2, 2016
Enrich Your Writing: Take a Class for Free
Open Culture maintains a 1,200+ list of free online courses. I just finished up my most recent class so I’m on the lookout for the next course that will help enrich my writing. What are my prerequisites when I’m looking for an online class? It has to be free. I’m not taking these for credit. […]
September 29, 2016
Writing Tough Topics
I’m one chapter away from a full draft of the race and racism book. One chapter should be about 1850 words. Unfortunately, I’m running short. That’s no great surprise. When I write for Abdo, I’m used to creating a 9 chapter outline. This time around the outline was only 8 chapters. Because I’ve more or […]
September 28, 2016
Top Nonfiction Picture Books
Earlier this week, writing buddy Stephanie Bearce asked me for a list of the Top Nonfiction Picture Books in the last 5 years. Where to start? There are so many book lists out there — bestsellers, various ALA awards and more. I decided to start with the top nonfiction as selected by School Library Journal. Here’s […]
September 27, 2016
Suitable for Young Readers?
Maybe this has been on my mind because this is Banned Book Week, but it seems like I’ve been hearing a lot of talk lately about what books are and are not suitable to their age level. Most often it is because a broad topic is just “too much” for that age group. And sometimes […]
September 26, 2016
Winter Reading List
Are you an SCBWI Pal Member? A Pal member is someone who has published a book with a recognized professional publisher. If so, take advantage of this Pal opportunity to promote one of your books. The organization is pulling together a Winter Reading List for 2016. Schools, libraries, bookstores and consumers will have access to […]
September 25, 2016
ESL: Writing for a Korean Market
Saturday I had the opportunity to have an early reader critiqued by two of my Missouri SCBWI buddies, Peggy Archer and Stephanie Bearce. As always, their feedback was helpful but then Stephanie hit me with a question I couldn’t answer. “Are you sure that the power of three works in Korean stories?” Stephanie had recently […]
September 22, 2016
Banned Book Week
A public service out there for all you writer types. Next week (September 25–October 1, 2016) is Banned Book Week. Book banning isn’t when someone doesn’t want their child to read a book. That’s called parenting. Maybe not parenting well, but parenting. Book banning is when someone doesn’t want my kid, your kid or any […]
September 21, 2016
No No NaNo or Am I In?
Yesterday I spotted a blog post about NaNoWriMo. “Sioux,” I thought. “What is up? NaNo isn’t until November!” But Sioux is right. If you are going to do NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), now is the time to plan. Ugh. For those of you who don’t recognize the abbreviation, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing […]
September 20, 2016
Your Main Character: What Do Your Readers Need to Know?
Up until about a week ago, I had a fast and firm list of things that the reader needs to know about the main character. That list included: Gender Age Name Story goal Leave any one of those out and I’d have something to say about it. But then I read a piece of flash fiction, Fear […]
