21 Wednesday Aug 2019
Posted in Toot Your Horn!
SCBWI members’ publishing news is something to celebrate here at Kite Tales! Check out whose book is coming to a platform near you or around the world. Horn-tooting and digital hi-fives welcome in the comments!
31 Wednesday Jul 2019
Posted in #KT250, Contests & Grants
Tags
agents, contest winners, contests, fantasy, middle grade, nonfiction, picture book, publishers, SCBWI members, seeking publisher, seeking representation, The Last Bookstore, unpublished, YA, young adult
#KT250 is a Kite Tales quarterly community contest! We’re proud to announce this quarter’s winners and share the first 250 words of their unpublished manuscripts. We encourage agents, publishers, and mentors to reach out to any they find intriguing!
To find out how YOU can enter for next quarter, check out contest info here. Entries are now being accepted for next quarter!
GRAND PRIZE WINNER: Continue reading
29 Wednesday May 2019
Posted in Author's Perspective
Tags
agent, Author Tips, nonfiction, picture book, picture books, Seth Fishman, The Gernert Company, Writers Day, writing tips
Maybe you’ve come across SETH FISHMAN’s award-winning book A Hundred Billion Trillion Stars. Or, perhaps you attended his Keynote Presentation at SCBWI LA’s 2018 Writers Day event. His books are rocking the nonfiction picture book world
CHRISTINE VAN ZANDT: Welcome to Kite Tales! It’s great to see a local writer doing so well. Let’s talk a bit about nonfiction picture books. In your latest book, Power Up: Your Incredible, Spectacular, Supercharged Body, you shift the focus from the amazing universe around us to the fascinating world inside our bodies. Power Up has an engaging story line and is loaded with cool facts. Do you have any advice for aspiring children’s nonfiction picture book writers? Continue reading
17 Friday May 2019
Posted in Toot Your Horn!
SCBWI members’ publishing news is something to celebrate here at Kite Tales! Check out whose book is coming to a platform near you or around the world. Horn-tooting and digital hi-fives welcome in the comments!
15 Friday Mar 2019
Posted in Author's Perspective
MICHELLE MARKEL is a successful writer and a local SCBWI member! She’s the author of Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtwaist Makers’ Strike of 1909, which won the Bank Street Flora Stieglitz Straus Award and the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award for Younger Children, and was also chosen as an NCTE Orbis Picture Honor Book. Her recent titles are Balderdash!: John Newbery and the Boisterous Birth of Children’s Books and Out of This World: The Surreal Art of Leonora Carrington.
CHRISTINE VAN ZANDT: Welcome to Kite Tales! Your career has included a number of popular narrative nonfiction books as well as some fiction. How is the industry changing?
MICHELLE MARKEL: The field of narrative nonfiction has busted open. There are now books about little known historical events, unsung heroes, and underrepresented groups (women and people of color). Editors are interested in expressive language, innovative artwork, and uncommon formats. They’re looking for creative “hooks” to grab young readers. If you love telling stories, and love nonfiction, this is your moment.
CVZ: What’s your writing process for your biographies? Continue reading
13 Wednesday Mar 2019
Posted in Contests & Grants, Writers Days
Tags
middle grade, nonfiction, picture book, SCBWI community, SCBWI events, SCBWI members, young adult
By Karol Ruth Silverstein, Contest Coordinator
It was another year of very strong entries in the SCBWI L.A. Writers Day Contest. As usual, manuscripts were submitted in four categories: Young Adult, Middle Grade, Picture Book, and Other (which includes poetry and non-fiction). First place winners in each category receive free tuition to next year’s Writer’s Day, as well as a manuscript critique from one of this year’s faculty members. If you’d like to contact any of the winners to request their manuscript or discuss publication, please let us know!
Our much-appreciated anonymous judges selected the following 10 honorees: Continue reading
06 Wednesday Mar 2019
Posted in Toot Your Horn!
SCBWI members’ publishing news is something to celebrate here at Kite Tales! Check out whose book is coming to a platform near you or around the world. Horn-tooting and digital hi-fives welcome in the comments!
Butterflies in Room 6, by Caroline Arnold, photographs by Caroline Arnold, Charlesbridge Publishing, ages 5-9, nonfiction, ISBN: 978-1-58089-894-2, released 05/12/2019.
19 Wednesday Dec 2018
Posted in Ask an Editor
Tags
“Ask an Editor” is a forum wherein SCBWI members submit questions that are answered as part of our quarterly Kite Tales blog. This month, we feature a guest host, Renée M. LaTulippe, children’s poet, freelance editor, and founder/teacher of The Lyrical Language Lab. 
Dear Editor – I’ve written a rhyming picture book, but now that I’m starting to search for an agent it seems a lot of them don’t want rhyming picture books. What should I do?
—Sam, Los Angeles
Dear Sam:
This is a question that gets a lot of airtime in kidlit writer circles, and for good reason. After all, we can all see how many rhyming picture books come into the world each year, so someone is writing and selling and publishing them, right? Seeing so many agents and publishers put up “No Rhyme Allowed” signs on their clubhouse doors is frustrating indeed. Continue reading
28 Wednesday Nov 2018
Posted in Toot Your Horn!
HAPPY HANNUKAH! There is a lot to celebrate this season, including SCBWI members’ publishing news! Check out whose book is coming to a platform near you or around the world:
Hanukkah Hamster, by Michelle Markel, illustrated by Andre Colin, Sleeping Bear, ages 5 – 7, Picture Book, ISBN: 978-1-58536-399-5, released 09/15/2018.
15 Friday Jun 2018
Posted in Author's Perspective, Illustrator's Perspective
Tags
Aaron Reynolds, After the Fall, Beekle, Bloomsbury, Brown Books, Caldecott Medal, Creepy Carrots, Dan Santat, Dude, illustrator, interview, Little, macmillan, Neal Porter Book, picture book, Roaring Brook Press, Scholastic, writer
In April, I had the pleasure of watching funny men AARON REYNOLDS and DAN SANTAT dazzle elementary school kids by acting out their new one-word picture book, Dude! Afterward, they graciously shared their wisdom and expertise.
CHRISTINE VAN ZANDT: What advice do you have for prepublished writers and illustrators?
