Sue Bradford Edwards's Blog, page 32

A Picture Book Can Teach Without Preaching

If you adore picture books or adore a young picture book fan, check out Home in a Lunchbox. It is a great example of a topic that could be preachy. But with Cherry Mo’s text and illustrations it tells a powerful and moving story. When Jun moves from Hong Kong to the US, she has … Continue reading A Picture Book Can Teach Without Preaching →

Note to Self

First of all, thank you to Self Time for creating this. You can check out that Instagram account here. When I saw this graphic it seemed like something we all need to hear periodically no matter where we are in our writing journey. As beginners, it is so easy to look at the Big Names … Continue reading Note to Self →

Do You Support an Indie Bookstore?

For those of you unfamiliar with this term, an independent or indie bookstore is a bookstore that is independently owned. It is a small business. I always feels like I’m preaching to the choir when I post about indie bookstores, but then I discover that there are writers and readers who don’t support their local … Continue reading Do You Support an Indie Bookstore? →

Do You Support an Indie Bookstore? Day is 4/29

For those of you unfamiliar with this term, an independent or indie bookstore is a bookstore that is independently owned. It is a small business. I always feels like I’m preaching to the choir when I post about indie bookstores, but then I discover that there are writers and readers who don’t support their local … Continue reading Do You Support an Indie Bookstore? Day is 4/29 →

How Many Sources Will I Need?

“How many sources will I need?” This is a question that I never know how to answer. I’ve written book with 10 or 20 sources. But for this particular project I’m up to 134 with 11 spreads still to rough. After that, I get to revise the whole book which normally adds still more new … Continue reading How Many Sources Will I Need? →

Picture Books to Study: A Review of Woven of the World

If you are someone who is writing picture books, Woven of the World by Katey Howes and illustrated by Dinara Mirtalipova is a book that you need to study. And I don’t use the word study lightly. This is a book that needs to be savored. It needs to be experienced multiple times to completely … Continue reading Picture Books to Study: A Review of Woven of the World →

When Do You Stop to Do Research?

Yesterday I wrote about a letter I composed as part of a class exercise. I wanted it to sound like it has been composed in 1876. In reading letters actually composed during that time, I got a feel for the language, both individual words and how sentences would be spun. But what I didn’t get … Continue reading When Do You Stop to Do Research? →

Imitating the Past

One of the assignments in my course on writing historical fiction and time travel fiction involved “forging” historic documents. It sounds edgy, doesn’t it? But what the author meant was that we needed to write a letter, an article or some other piece that sounded like something written in the past. For my first attempt, … Continue reading Imitating the Past →

Reading My First Novel

When you write for young readers, a lot of time is spent discussing what words you shouldn’t use and what concepts are TOO much. It is a concern but it is one we tend to overemphasize. When kids read up, they filter out a lot. A group of us were discussing the LGBTQIA characters in … Continue reading Reading My First Novel →

Writing Someone Else’s Story

As I was drafting my cozy, I included a scene that took place on the bottoms. That’s an area here where I live. Actually we have two bottoms. One is named for the river, the Missouri Bottoms. The other is the Columbia Bottoms. In my region these are areas of farmland. Spring floods and the … Continue reading Writing Someone Else’s Story →