Writers often worry about beginnings. They worry about endings even more. But the place where picture books most often falter is the middle—the long stretch between setup and resolution where momentum must be sustained without yet delivering payoff. The middle of a picture book is not a...
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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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Every writer I know has encountered writer’s block at one point or another. Sometimes it arrives quietly—a vague resistance when you sit...
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In the writing world we often say there are two kinds of plotters—outliners, who work from a carefully planned story map, and...
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One of the most common issues I see when reviewing picture book manuscripts is this: a story that’s pleasant, charming, or even...
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Many writers assume that depth comes from complexity—that richer stories require more plot, more explanation, more moving parts. But picture books teach us...
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