Every year at both the Southampton Children's Literature Conference and at Picture Book Summit, whenever aspiring writers have a chance to ask agents or editors a question, they ask some variation of the same one: what’s hot right now? The assumption behind the question is understandable...
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If you ask agents and editors what they’re looking for, you may hear many different answers: A strong hook. A fresh concept....
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Writers entering the children’s publishing world are often surprised to discover that most major publishers do not accept "unsolicited" - meaning "un-agented"...
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One of the most common questions I hear from my students, editing clients, and other aspiring children’s book writers is: How do...
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Writers often worry about beginnings. They worry about endings even more. But the place where picture books most often falter is the middle—the...
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I've often written about the importance of developing what Peter H. Reynolds calls story radar—the ability to notice ideas in the world...
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If you’ve been writing picture books for a while, you may have noticed that ideas sometimes arrive in bursts—and sometimes they don’t...
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Every writer eventually encounters a creative rut. The ideas feel flat. The enthusiasm fades. The work that once felt exciting begins to feel...
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At some point in every writer’s journey, a quiet voice begins whispering a dangerous question: Why them—and not me? Maybe you see a debut...
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Every writer collecting submissions will eventually collect something else as well: rejections. They arrive in many forms—polite passes, form responses, the occasional champagne...
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