In our modern lexicon, motion and emotion would appear to have entirely different meanings, but it’s no accident that the words are only one letter apart. They share the same root - from the Latin movēre, meaning to move. One refers to external movement, or the movement...
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Picture books tells their stories in two ways: 1) via text, and 2) via illustrations (hence the name “picture book.”) Occasionally a story...
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Polonius: What do you read, my lord? Hamlet: Words, words, words. - William Shakespeare, “Hamlet,” Act 2, Scene 2 And so we come...
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No, I’m not talking about pirate captains, or fishing. But I am talking about capturing something – and that is the interest...
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When Jane Yolen speaks of ‘focus’ with respect to writing picture books, she specifies that it should be sharp and small. There’s an...
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The third word in Jane Yolen's list of "Ten Words Every Picture Book Author Should Know" is Child-Centeredness. I've written about this...
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The second word in Jane Yolen’s list of ‘ten words every picture book author must know’ is Compression. It’s a good word,...
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Last week at the SCBWI Winter Conference, the award-winning author Jane Yolen talked about ten words that every picture book author should...
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I am often asked by students and editing clients what I think about critique partners or writers' groups. I vastly prefer the...
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