Posted By Vonna on March 9, 2010

Last night, when Mary Pope Osborne, author of the famous Magic Tree House books, and her sister, Natalie Pope Boyce, author of the companion Research Guides for the Magic Tree House series asked the masses of children in their audience to help decide which book Mary should write next, a burst of enthusiasm met each of their suggestions. Mary listed out three ideas and asked the kids to vote on their favorite. Her ideas were:

1)      Jack and Annie go to a bamboo forest in China and have an adventure saving baby pandas. (This brought a lot of cute ooos! And a good show of hands.)

2)      Jack and Annie go to the Alps two hundred years ago when St. Bernard dogs saved people caught in avalanches. The Research Guide would either be about hero dogs or rescue animals. (A burst of excitement and another good show of hands.)

3)      Jack and Annie have an adventure with Abe Lincoln when he was a little boy. (Nearly every small hand in the audience reached for the ceiling! Mary and Natalie laughed and said that in New York, Abe got almost no votes.)

Next she asked the kids which name they would prefer to see in the title: Abe, Abraham, or Lincoln. The kids were firm; they wanted Abe Lincoln, and absolutely not Abraham.

The sisters were in town promoting the latest in the series, #43—LEPRECHAUN IN LATE WINTER and the newest research guide, LEPRECHAUNS AND IRISH FOLKLORE.

Mary Pope Osborne began her talk by explaining that she originally intended to only write four Magic Tree House books. She had been writing a variety of children’s books for ten years when her publisher, Random House, asked her to write a series. She told us she wasn’t keen on the idea because she enjoyed writing many different things and didn’t want to be stuck in the same story over and over. To solve this problem, she came up with the idea of a brother and sister who had some kind of time machine, so she could write about many times, people and places.

Her first idea was a magic museum where a weird lady would put a spell on the kids. That didn’t work out. Next, she thought of sending the brother and sister into the woods where they find a hidden artist’s studio and end up in some of the paintings. That didn’t work either. Mary said she spent a whole year trying to figure out how to make this time travel idea work, but she really just wanted to give up and go back to the kind of books she used to write.

One day, she and her husband came across a tree house and an idea sparked. That evening, the two of them stayed up late with friends talking about how they could incorporate a tree house into the way these kids could go back in time. They thought of books, because books are already magical. She said it seemed like such a simple idea, but aren’t the best ideas always the simple ones?

After the fourth book, children started writing letters to her. She said this had never happened with her other books. Then kids started giving her their ideas for Jack and Annie’s adventures. She began visiting schools and the stories snowballed.

Random House called, wanting twelve more Magic Tree House books.

At book #28, HIGH TIDE IN HAWAII, she began making the books twice as long, upped the reading level and strengthened the fantasy elements. The Merlin Mission books added more history. She and her husband worked together on the research guides, but then her husband, Will, became too busy with his theater work. (He is currently touring with Magic Tree House: The Musical.) They asked Mary’s sister, Natalie Pope Boyce, to take over writing the research guides.

Mary ended the session by asking the kids in the audience to help her decide which book she should write next. So now we know— the kids of Houston want an adventure with Abe Lincoln.

Thanks to Blue Willow Bookshop for hosting this fun event and to Westchester Academy of Inernational Studies for the use of their beautiful auditorium.

3 COMMENTS »

Category: Authors, Reading |
Tags:

Posted By Vonna on February 22, 2010

On Saturday morning, our conference had sold out and had a waiting list. The Merrell Center was an excellent facility. We had three big screens so everybody could easily see the speakers presentations. The microphones worked perfectly and we had wi-fi and plenty of electrical outlets so that our bookstore ran smoothly. The room for our lunch buffet was spacious, well organized and stocked with tasty food. We had a conveniently placed private room for our critiques and another separate room for the portfolio displays. And oh-so-easy parking! (But of course, I left my car lights on and came out to a dead battery.   My dear husband, who was only ten minutes away with jumper cables in his car, rescued me. )

Cynthia Lietich Smith’s outstanding keynote address set the tone for the day. When she tried to assure us that she is an introvert, all the other introverts in the room started gnawing our fingernails. Writing successful novels is challenging, but standing up in front of two hundred people and taking about the whole experience with grace and humor is awe-inspiring. By the end of her speech the room buzzed with optimism. Seriously, we giggled.

We were happy to discover that all of our other guest speakers were also friendly and easy to talk to. Everyone I spoke with who had a critique came away from their sessions feeling energized and enthusiastic. I had a fun critique with Harper Collins’ assistant editor, Ruta Rimas. When I picked her up from the airport the day before the conference, we talked about current MG books all the way from Intercontinental Airport in northwest Houston to her hotel in Katy, so when it came time to discuss my pages we had a large frame of reference for discussing her comments on my chapter.

Our bookstore had an amazing twenty-seven authors and illustrators represented, and they all stayed to sign books after the conference. The portfolio room was so packed during breaks that I could barely get a photograph. We had an outstanding selection of prizes for our raffle, but I didn’t win anything. Maybe next time.

Monday I stopped in at Blue Willow because I knew our editor from Scholastic, Lisa Ann Sandell, would be there signing her own books for a school visit that afternoon. I hadn’t gotten a photo of Valerie Koehler, the owner of Blue Willow Bookshop at the conference, so I snapped a shot of the two of them and got Lisa Ann to sign a copy of her new book for me. Thank you, Valerie for all the work you, Alice and the rest of your staff did for our conference!

I’ll leave you with a selection of photos from the conference so everyone can see how much fun we had. Looks like we’ll need a bigger room next year!

10 COMMENTS »

Category: Conferences, SCBWI |
Tags:

Posted By Vonna on February 22, 2010

The Friday night before the Houston SCBWI conference, Varsha and Rajeev Bajaj hosted our guest speakers and the conference organizers at their lovely home in Katy.

We treated our guests (and ourselves) to good ol’ Texas barbecue and had a great time getting to know each other. This will be a low word count post, because I just wanted to share some of the pictures from this event. I’ll post more from the conference later.

6 COMMENTS »

Category: Conferences, SCBWI |
Tags:

Posted By Vonna on February 16, 2010

Last night I got to see a real treat—Heather Brewer, author of the popular teen series, The Chronicles of Vladimir Todd, had a book signing at Blue Willow Bookshop, my favorite local book store. The book she was promoting, ELEVENTH GRADE BURNS, is the  fourth in the series, and her fans, or minions as she prefers to call them, were thrilled to hear that the release for book five, TWELFTH GRADE KILLS has been moved up to this December. The reason for this rush also got the minions roaring—Heather has a new five book companion series based on the same story but from a different character’s point of view that will be launching next year, and that in the fall of 2011 she will be launching yet another YA series called BLOODBOUND.

Heather was an inspiration to the kids, telling them to follow their dreams no matter how many people tell them they can’t. But she also impressed upon them that they should go to college and get a solid degree, because following your dreams without a good back-up plan can lead to misery.

Heather didn’t go to college and she didn’t have a back-up plan. When she finished writing her first book, she sent it out into the world to find an agent or a publisher. She racked up 228 rejections. She finally set that book aside, and wrote a new one. This novel collected 98 rejections before she set that book aside, too. Heather took some time to tell us how she came up with the character for her next book, the lonely teenage vampire who became Vladimir Todd. This time, when she finished and sent out her queries, she told herself that if this one, this book that she loved so much, did not succeed, that she would give up her dream. But she worried that without a college education or experience, she would have to settle for whatever “real” job she could get.

With this bleak reality looming over her dreams, Heather sent out queries to eight agents. She received seven offers of representation.

Hoo-yah!

There is so much more that I would like to tell you about Heather’s presentation, but I’ve got to get back to my own work now. But if Heather Brewer is ever having an event near you, be sure not to miss it.

Check out Heather Brewer’s blog for more pictures of this fun and inspiring event.

2 COMMENTS »

Category: Authors, Reading, Writing |
Tags:

Posted By Vonna on February 9, 2010

In my last post I talked about the great lineup of authors who will be showing their books at next week’s Houston SCBWI conference. In fact, it is such a great lineup that I need to add SIX more authors!

A few weeks ago I did a post on Creative Publishing using Cherie Foster Colburn as my example. Cherie will be joining us with her beautiful picture book OUR SHADOW GARDEN, which benefits the Children’s Art Project at MD Anderson Childrens’ Cancer Center.

Marianne Dyson, a former NASA air traffic controller, is bringing her books SPACE STATION SCIENCE, HOME ON THE MOON and SPACE AND ASTRONOMY.

Janet Fox is coming down from College Station to share her school-homework-activities survival guide for students: GET ORGANIZED WITHOUT LOSING IT. Check out the trailer for Janet’s new novel, FAITHFUL, which is launching in May.

JoAn Martin will be bringing her three teen novels: YANKEE GIRL, GOODNIGHT, MRS. DINGLEWALL and INVENTING CHLOE.  

Pat Miller will have two picture books, WE’RE GOING ON A BOOK HUNT and SUBSTITUTE GROUNDHOG.

Gail Greenberg’s NO PIG’S BRAIN SOUP, PLEASE! is a multicultural story about a Chinese girl who thinks she must choose between the culture of her adopted family and her Chinese heritage.

And remember on my last post I mentioned that Joy Preble, author of DREAMING ANASTASIA had been dropping hints about some exciting news? Well she has made the announcement: HAUNTED, the sequel to her debut novel DREAMING ANASTASIA, has been sold! Hurray, Joy! I’m sure this new book will be as good as the last one; I hope the cover is, too.

I’m looking forward to hearing the talks by all of the speakers who are coming to this conference. Besides the three authors/editors that I mentioned in Countdown: Reach for the Stars. pt1, we will be hearing from Ruta Rimas, an assistant editor with Balzer and Bray/Harper Collins. Follow this link to Market My Words for an interview with her. Patrick Collins, Creative Director at Henry Holt Books for Young Readers, will be giving critiques to the lucky illustrators who signed up in time, and agent Sara Crowe of the Harvey Klinger agency, will also be speaking and giving critiques. And as a special treat, Nancy Feresten, Vice President, Editor-in-Chief of National Geographic Children’s Books, will be critiquing non-fiction works.

See you there!

3 COMMENTS »

Category: Conferences, Reading, SCBWI, Writing |
Tags:

Posted By Vonna on February 8, 2010

In just two weeks, the Houston chapter of the SCBWI will be having our annual conference. Besides the great speakers we have lined up, one of the great features of our conference is the amazing number of local authors who will be participating in the conference bookstore. For those of you who will be joining us, I want to give you a preview of some of our authors and their books. For those of you who can’t be here in person, I have linked many of these authors’ websites so you can check them out from afar.

First up is one of my critique partners, Varsha Bajaj with her award winning picture book, How Many Kisses Do You Want Tonight? I’m excited that Varsha has a new book coming out later this year. I’ll do a post on that as we get closer to her launch.

Carmen Bredeson will be there with her book, After the Last Dog Died: The True-Life, Hair-Raising Adventure of Douglas Mawson’s 1912 Antarctic Expedition.

Shirley Duke will be bringing her playful picture book, No Bows!

Kathy Duval, another of my esteemed critique partners, will be there with The Three Bears’ Christmas and Three Bears’ Halloween. Next year Kathy has another book coming out with Disney Hyperion: I Think I See a UFO. I can’t wait to do a post on that book launch!

Laura Edge is presenting Locked Up: A History of the U.S. Prison System, along with her biographies of Andrew Carnegie, Stephen Spielberg, and Laura Bush.

Dotti Enderle will have Gingerbread Man Superhero, as well as her heart-wrenching novel, Man in the Moon.

Doris Fisher will have two picture books to present: Happy Birthday to Whoo? and My Half Day.

Debbie Frontiera will be showing Living on Sisu in addition to three books in her Eric and the Enchanted Leaf series.

Sherry Garland will have In the Shadow of the Alamo, The Lotus Seed, Children of the Dragon, and Voices of the Alamo.

Writer Illustrator Warren Hanson will be bringing his beautifully illustrated picture books, The Next Place, Kiki’s Hats, and Bugtown Boogie.

Illustrator Layne Johnson will have his newly launched picture book, Off Like the Wind as well as another book that launched last month, The Declaration of Independence A-Z, along with the School Library Journal’s Hot Pick: Farmer George Plants a Nation, and Damon, Pythias and the Test of Friendship.

Margaret McManis will have her local favorites, Ima and the Great Texas Ostrich Race and Wild Texas Stampede.

Jenny Moss, who has an upcoming release from Scholastic Press, Shadow, will be there with her debut novel, Winnie’s War, which is set during the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918.

Anna Myers, who is visiting from Oklahoma, will have her latest novel, Time of the Witches, which was released in September. Several of her other  novels, including Stolen by the Sea, Assassin and Tulsa Burning, will also be available.

I was fortunate to see Joy Preble when her novel, Dreaming Anastasia, debuted. In her blog, Joy has been teasing us about impending news. Maybe by the time the conference gets here she’ll be able to spill the beans!

Vicki Sansum will be signing her charming picture book, Grandpa for Sale.

Pam Van Scoyoc will be selling her picture books Ballerina with Webbed Feet, Sparky and the Comet Caper, I Could Catch a Whale and Angel Wings. Check out her website for audio recordings of some of her books.

Mary D. Wade will have her latest books, David Crocket: Creating a Legend, David Crockett: Hero and Legend and Sam Houston.

Kathy Whitehead is bringing two of her books, Art from her Heart and Looking for Uncle.

We will also have books written by three special guests. Books available from our Central Texas celebrity and prolific author Cynthia Lietich Smith include Tantalize, Eternal, Jingle Dancer, Rain is Not My Indian Name, and Indian Shoes.

Books from Lisa Ann Sandell, a senior editor with Scholastic, are Map of the Known World and Song of the Sparrow. Alexandra Cooper, a senior editor with Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers, will have her picture book, Spin the Dreidel.

All of these great authors will be available to autograph your purchases. This is going to be a great conference, so don’t forget to bring a pen and notebook, your camera and your wallet! Blue Willow Bookshop will be running our conference bookstore, but if you can’t be with us, look for books by these great authors at your local Indie Bound bookstore.

ps. I hope I didn’t leave anyone out!

7 COMMENTS »

Category: Conferences, Reading, SCBWI, Writing |
Tags:

Posted By Vonna on February 1, 2010

Those of us who were in Austin this past weekend got lucky—the ALA announced the 2009 awards after the writers and illustrators had already agreed to attend the Austin SCBWI conference, Destination  Publication. So, we had both the author and illustrator for the Caldecott  Honor winner, All the World. We had the author of the Sibert Honor winner, The Day-Glo Brothers, and we had the author of the Newberry Honor winner, The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate. Of course, they might have chosen to attend the Austin conference instead of the New York conference anyway, because Liz Scanlon, Chris Barton, and Jacqueline Kelly are all from Texas. Yee-ha!

Liz Scanlon and Illustrator Marla Frazee gave an outstanding presentation on their collaboration for their beautiful picture book, ALL THE WORLD. These two women stole the show by sharing their emails from their editor, Allyn Johnston of Beach Lane Books, and their hysterical responses to her suggestions. If they ever gave up being an author and an illustrator, they could have a great career in stand-up.

Marla’s advice to picturebook writers was to write text that allows chemistry to develop between words and pictures. As an example, she played a fabulous slide show of her process in creating the illustrations for Seven Silly Eaters.

Jacqueline Kelly, author of the Newberry Honor, THE EVOLUTION OF CALPURNIA TATE, had this advise for writers who struggle with finding enough time to write: Keep a time diary for ten days. You will be amazed at how much time is wasted.

Chris Barton, author of the Sibert Honor, THE DAY-GLO BROTHERS, warned us all that to be successful writers, we need to be hard-headed, but in an educated way.

Kirby Larson, athor of the 2007 Newberry Honor, HATTIE BIG SKY was there to talk to us as well. Unfortunately, I had to be out of the room during her presentation. I’ll have to dig around in blogs of the other attendees to find out what she had to tell us.

Several other writers came to share their expertise with us. Jennifer Ziegler, author of ALPHA DOG and HOW NOT TO BE POPULAR, mentioned that when prewriting, it is helpful to note in your outline your characters’ moods at the beginning of the scene and at the ends of the scene.

PJ Hoover, author of THE FORGOTTEN WORLDS TRILOGY, suggested that when authors have school visits, they should take something more unique than bookmarks or postcards to hand out to the kids—give them something that has your information on it that they will want to keep.

Shana Burg, author of A THOUSAND NEVER EVERS, told us that in revision, it is important to make sure that each scene is creating an emotional reaction and that the action of the story is sequential.

Sarah Lewis Holmes, author of OPERATION YES! was there with her editor, Cheryl Klein. They gave a presentation on the author/editor relationship. Cheryl said that it was her job to be the readers’ advocate. She needs to identify what the reader wants to be feeling in each scene. Sarah  admitted that her revision letter was overwhelming at first because there was so much to be done. Her advice is to read your entire revision letter completely, go back and make notes in the margins, then put it away for a while. In the end, Cheryl said, it is not important if the problems get solved by the writer following the editor’s suggestions or if they get solved by the writer coming up with a new solution. All that matters is that the problems get solved.

Thank you to Mark McVeigh of the McVeigh agency for his riveting address, and thank you to Andrea Cascardi, Stacy Cantor and Nathan Brandsford for sharing their time and expertise with us.

And a big Thank You! to Tim Crow for organizing this wonderful event.

5 COMMENTS »

Category: Reading, SCBWI, Writing |
Tags: SCBWI

Posted By Vonna on January 25, 2010

This past Friday night, I had an opportunity to hear Becca Fitzpatrick talk about her NYT Bestseller, HUSH HUSH. A standing-room-only crowd filled Blue Willow Bookshop in Houston to get a chance to hear Becca and have her sign their books.

I saw a few writers from Houston’s SCBWI chapter, and Becca recognized some of her Twitter and Facebook fans in the audience. She brought candy to bribe questions from the crowd, but this group didn’t need prompting. Her young fans were starry-eyed and eager to chat. Many of them wanted to know the backstory of  the secretive Patch, but Becca wasn’t telling. She hinted that they won’t find out more about this fallen angel in book 2, Crescendo, but there might be a book 3 and perhaps she’ll reveal more of his past then.

Becca let us all in on some of the trials and tribulations of bringing Hush, Hush into being. She said it took five years to write. At first she just knew that Patch had a big secret, but she didn’t know what his secret would be. At that time, she says she was a “pantser”, someone who writes without a plan. The book wasn’t going any where, so she shelved it.

Sometime later, she went to a writers’ workshop where she was introduced to outlining. With these new ideas, Becca went to work constructing her new plan for the novel. She brought along her stack of color-coded index cards (shown in the images to the left) to show us how much outlining she ultimately did for Hush Hush.

Another thing she shared with us that gave heart to the aspiring writers in the audience was the number of rejections she got from agents and publishers; almost 100! Most of the rejections were nondescript, but a few were harsh, such as “no one would want to read about a character as unlikable as Vee.” This caused several audience members to declare their love for Vee. Some one asked if she had ever met any of the agents who rejected her. Becca said she had never met any of them, but after the sale of her book was announced in Publishers Marketplace, a few emailed her asking, “Hey are you that girl who queried me…”

In addition to debuting at #10 on the NYT Bestsellers list, Hush Hush has garnered other awards and recognition, such as:

Included in the 2009 Association of Booksellers for Children Best Books for Children Catalog

Winter 2009 Kids’ Indie Next List Top Ten pick

CBC Favourite Children’s Books Top Ten Pick

Becca also brought her computer with her to show us some of the cover photo shots that did not get used. Fans of the cover will be happy to know about these awards from the Urban Fantasy Cover Art Awards, hosted by All Things Urban Fantasy:

Best YA Cover

Best Male Only Cover

Most Unique Cover

Best Debut Cover

I’m fortunate to live near an indie book store which hosts so many great Young Adult and Middle Grade authors. Next month I’m looking forward to their visit from one of my son’s favorite authors, Heather Brewer, who will be here promoting the latest adventure from the Chronicles of Vladimir Tod.

Congratulations to Becca Fitzpatrick on her success, and best wishes for a long and exciting career!

5 COMMENTS »

Category: Reading, Writing |
Tags:

Posted By Vonna on January 18, 2010

All of the sad talk about the current state of the publishing industry can make an aspiring writer wring her hands in dismay, but I would like to take a moment to point out something for which all aspiring writers can be grateful:  the many authors, editors and agents who so generously share their knowledge and experience with anyone who takes the time to read their blogs.

As I have mentioned before on this blog and in the comments I’ve left on several other blogs, I have found outlining to be essential to my ability to successfully complete a novel. Something even more important which I’ve never talked about, though, is structure. Without a good structural plan, the outline could still turn into another disastrous sERIESof uNFORTUNATE eVENTS. (I’m listening—I’ll wait for the groaning to die down).

A few wonderful authors out there in Blog Land have posted some excellent tips on creating structure. One which I have found to be true to my own style of plotting is Janice Hardy’s magnanimous posts on The Other Side of The Story, which start with this one: I Love it When a Plan Comes Together, Part One

I loved Janice’s book, SHIFTER, so I was delighted to discover that when I laid her structural plan over the outline for my WIP, it was nearly a perfect match. (I may be rushing my mid-point reversal, though. I’ll have to think about that.)

Over at brian’s blog: writer talk, Brian Yansky has posted his thoughts on structure, outline optional.

Charlotte Rains Dixon, at Word Strumpet, says that structure should be not be imposed on a story until the writer has completed as many “discovery” drafts as it takes to know the story inside out. In her post, Writing Fiction: The Two Nows Structure, she explains how to structure novels where the backstory and the current conflict are presented as distinct narrative arcs, each with its own conflicts, forward movement and mounting action.

In a post titled A New Plot Predicament, R.L. LaFevers blogged about the difficulties of planning structure in a book that involves a lot of traveling, in this case, the fourth book in her Theodosia series.

I know there are many more great posts about structure out there and I would love to read them all. If you can think of any, please let us know about them in the comments. Let us know what structural plans work for you!

Photo Credits: skeleton army: Balloon Artistry ; bag o’ bones: Oriental Trading Company

7 COMMENTS »

Category: Writing |
Tags:

Posted By Vonna on January 11, 2010

Last week, our Houston SCBWI group had Lucy Chambers from Bright Sky Press as our guest speaker. Lucy, an editor with Bright Sky, talked to us about the need for creative approaches to having a book published in these hard times. One of the case studies she talked to us about was Our Shadow Garden, written by Cherie Foster Colburn and illustrated by children at the Children’s Art Project. This picture book was released in September for purchase through the outlets of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. 100% of the proceeds benefit their program. In April, Bright Sky Press will take over distribution and Our Shadow Garden will become available nationwide.

Though Cherie donated this book to help the pediatric cancer patients at the M.D. Anderson, it has been a boon to her career, too. Bright Sky press will publish two more of Cherie’s books EZID: Texas Roadside Wildflowers, to be released Fall 2010, and Bloomin’ Tales: Seven Legends of Texas Wildflowers, illustrated by Joy Fisher Hein.

This was a rather remarkable example of a generous and creative approach to getting a book published. I’m not sure this would work for novels, but for picture books and non-fiction that is in support of a cause, this could be a a great platform for launching a career while helping others.

Update! I just heard from Cherie that she has a third book coming out with Bright Sky Press next year, a coffee table book on heirloom bulbs. Southern Living is also involved with this book. Go, Cherie!

2 COMMENTS »

Category: Writing |
Tags: