Chris Barton's Blog: Bartography, page 49

2015 Austin SCBWI Conference: You will win!

(What’s with the Shark Vs. Train reference in the post title? Well, read on…)

Registration opens one week from tomorrow for the annual conference of the Austin chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.

Regardless of whether you’re aspiring or accomplished, the March 7-8 conference has something for you:

keynote addressess and panel discussions

writing craft breakouts

all-day illustrator track

all-day professional development track

critiques and reviews of manuscripts, portf...

Bartography Express for November 2014, featuring K.A. Holt’s Rhyme Schemer

This month, one subscriber to my Bartography Express newsletter will win a copy of Rhyme Schemer (Chronicle), the new middle-grade novel in verse by Kari Anne Holt.

If you’re not already receiving Bartography Express, click the image below for a look. If you like what you see, click “Join” in the bottom right corner, and you’ll be in the running for the giveaway at the end of this week.

In which I talk with Katie Davis about gaming, writing, marketing, and 85 or so other things

I’m a few days late to the party, thanks to my participation in the YALSA and ILF events, but I’m happy this morning to share with you this recently recorded interview I did for Katie Davis’ kidlit podcast, Brain Burps About Books.

In addition to discussing Shark Vs. Train and Attack! Boss! Cheat Code!, Katie and I talked quite a bit about my email newsletter, Bartography Express, which I wrote about earlier this year for Cynsations. And in fact, while I was listening to our interview, I was a...

Goodbye, YALSA! Hello, ILF and B&N!

Keeping it really weird panel! #yalit14 pic.twitter.com/JQaliwMS2m

— Paula J. Gallagher (@paulajgal) November 16, 2014

There’s nothing better than a crowd of librarians and authors to remind me how lucky I am to be in this line of work, and to inspire me to keep on writing and earning my place among this bunch.

This past weekend, Austin hosted the annual YA symposium of the Young Adult Library Services Association. I participated in the Saturday evening Book Blitz — in which authors seated behin...

Researching, writing about, talking about and — yes — playing video games

Recently I was struggling to remember the name of the YA novel I had read that got me all choked up at the very end, but then I realized it hadn’t been a novel at all. It had been…

…a video game.

But which video game? Ah, for that piece of information, you’ll need to check out Laurie Ann Thompson’s interview with me about how I researched and wrote Attack! Boss! Cheat Code! A Gamer’s Alphabet.

Laurie and I also talked about our gaming experiences, including the ones that led me to dedicate the...

Get caught up on Picture Book Month

My post on “Why Picture Books Are Important” went up on the Picture Book Month blog this past week — but my insights are just one-ninth (at most!) of what’s been shared so far by a host of authors and illustrators.

If you haven’t stopped by yet and enjoyed what Arree Chung, Robin Preiss Glasser, Kelly Bingham, and others have had to say on the topic, what are you waiting for?

A much closer look at The Amazing Age of John Roy Lynch

Eerdmans Books for Young Readers is offering quite a generous preview of the picture book biography by Don Tate and me that’s coming in April 2015.

The Amazing Age of John Roy Lynch is the true story of John Roy Lynch’s 10-year transformation from teenage field slave to U.S. Congressman during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Just yesterday, I got to see full-size printed pages of this book for the first time. I’ve never been more proud of anything I’ve written, and I can’t wait for you all t...

Who you’ll find in Attack! Boss! Cheat Code! A Gamer’s Alphabet

I absolutely love this peek at the characters that illustrator Joey Spiotto created for Attack! Boss! Cheat Code!

But, man, is it tough being a dragon.

Picture Book Month starts tomorrow!

I’m excited to be featured in Picture Book Month this year along with a host of other authors and illustrators. My spot on the calendar comes next Thursday, Nov. 6, but throughout the month the picture book champions will include:

Aaron Becker

Kelly Bingham

Sophie Blackall

Arree Chung

Anna Dewdney

Johnette Downing

Ame Dyckman

Jill Esbaum

Carolyn Flores

Lupe Ruiz-Flores

Robin Preiss Glasser

Deborah Heiligman

Marla Frazee

Stefan Jolet

Kathleen Krull

Rene Colato Lainez

Loreen Leedy

Betsy Lewin

Ted Lewin

Brian Lies

K...

Some things I learned from writing Shark Vs. Train and Attack! Boss! Cheat Code!

I’ve got a new guest-post at Cynthia Leitich Smith’s Cynsations blog on the roles my kids played (and they roles they didn’t) in the creation of my picture books Shark Vs. Train and Attack! Boss! Cheat Code! A Gamer’s Alphabet.

Here’s a smidge of what I say:

Every book is an opportunity to navigate that territory in the middle, between what we adults want and love and think we know and what those kids want and love and think they know.



Through my experiences with Shark Vs. Train and Attack! Boss...