Interview with Seth Fishman, Nonfiction Picture Book Author

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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?

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#KTWriteOn with Editorial Assistant Stephanie Guerdan: Mixed Media Storytelling

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Jay Kristoff, Joe Ballarini, Lisa Greenwald, mixed media storytelling, Stephanie Guerdan, Tehlor Kay Mejia, writing exercise, writing tips

Welcome to the Kite Tales Writing Prompt: #KTWriteOn. Each writing challenge is crafted by a kid-lit publishing professional to help spark ideas and creative energy. This prompt was created by Stephanie Guerdan of HarperCollins Children’s Books. Stephanie acquires and edits middle grade and teen books. Some of the books she has worked on include the acclaimed debut We Set the Dark on Fire by Tehlor Kay Mejia and the Soldier Dogs series. She likes queer fiction, weird science, and Star Wars.

By Stephanie Guerdan

There are so many different ways to tell a story — even if you narrow that down to just the format of a book. From traditional prose novels to full-color graphic novels, from highly illustrated to photographic, and everything in between.

One format that’s particularly close to my heart is mixed media. This kind of storytelling eschews traditional prose and instead tells a story through a collection of various kinds of media. In a way, it’s taking Marilyn Cram Donahue’s collaging prompt to the next level.  Instead of using your collage images as inspiration, you’re creating your own media and using them to tell the story itself.

Author Mary Jo Hazard: How to Find, and Write For, a Niche Market

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marketing, Mary Jo Hazard, niche markets, nonfiction, target marketing, writing tips

By Mary Jo Hazard

Peacocks have lived on the Palos Verdes Peninsula since 1924, but no one ever wrote a book about them until I did in 2010. Since then, The Peacocks of Palos Verdes has sold over 4,000 copies — identify a niche market and you can do it too! Read on for my road map on how it worked for me.

10 Inspiring Kite Tales Quotes from 2018

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Aaron Reynolds, Cassandra Federman, Dan Santat, Danielle Davis, Garret Weyr, illustrator tips, inspiration, Kayla Cagan, Kent Culotta, Melody Mansfield, Victoria Wells Arms, writing tips

I’m always grateful for the community and connection that comes from being a member of SCBWI. There’s no shortage of people willing to share advice, tips, and knowledge. And lucky for us, so many in the kid lit community have shared their stories and wisdom on the Kite Tales blog.

Whenever I need a creative boost, I like to reread Kite Tales posts for nuggets of inspiration.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from Kite Tales stories this year. Hopefully they’ll inspire you too as you set your 2019 writing goals. Read on and click the links to see the full posts.

#KT250 4th Quarter 2018: 5 Tips To Get Your Work Contest-Ready

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contest winners, contests, editing, SCBWI community, SCBWI members, submissions, writing tips

#KT250 is a Kite Tales quarterly community contest, but unfortunately this quarter we did not have enough entries to complete the contest. So instead, we’re offering you some tips as you prepare your work for any kind of contest submission and re-posting all our winning entries from this year! We’re so grateful for all who participated and made our first contest year so special. We can’t wait to see what you do next year!

And if you have any news to share about your entries, we’d love to hear it in the comments or via our “Great News” feature!

To find out how YOU can enter, check out contest info here. Entries are now being accepted for next quarter! (Please re-submit if you submitted for 4^thquarter 2018 and would like to be considered for the coming quarter.)

5 TIPS TO GET YOUR WORK CONTEST-READY:

Agent Nephele Tempest: Choosing Your Agent, Marketing Tips, Synopses, and Being an Equal-Opportunity Nerd

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diversity, marketing, Nephele Tempest, synopsis, writing tips

Nephele Tempest is on faculty for this year’s SCBWI-L.A. Working Writers Retreat (WWR). She joined The Knight Agency in January, 2005, opening the Los Angeles-area office. As an agent, she works with a number of talented writers, assisting them to hone their skills and build their careers. Nephele comes from a diverse publishing and finance background, having previously worked on the editorial side of the business, as well as for several major New York investment firms as a financial advisor and later a financial marketing and communications writer. Her previous experience provides her with insight into multiple aspects of the publishing industry and today she’s going to share some of it with us!

 SARAH PARKER LEE: You’ve been involved with SCBWI events in the past. Are you there just to give back or are you actively looking for clients? If the latter, what makes someone stand out from the crowd at these fast-paced events?

Paying it Forward: Going from Mentee to Mentor is Easier than You Think

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Elizabeth Van Steenwyk, mentor, mentoring, mentorships, Sherry Shahan, volunteering, writing exercise, writing tips

By Sherry Shahan

Elizabeth Van Steenwyk signs her new picture book Blacksmith’s Song. (Peachtree Pub.)

I was clueless about children’s books when I signed up for a writer’s workshop years ago with the prolific Elizabeth Van Steenwyk. Her credits: Seventy-five fiction and nonfiction titles. Impressive. But what struck me most was her generosity.

After reading my WIP, Elizabeth offered to send it to her editor at a school book-fair publisher. Willowisp Press became home for my first six middle-grade novels.

When our SCBWI region began discussing a mentorship program, I knew I wanted to be involved.

Dealing with Grief and Loss Through Writing

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depression, grief, loss, Michael Thal, writing tips

By Michael Thal

My hearing loss wasn’t gradual. I went to sleep one night with good hearing and awoke deafened. Six years later the virus returned making my “good” ear clinically deaf and leaving me with a severely dysfunctional left ear. Grief for my lost hearing hit hard.

According to David Kessler and Elizabeth Kubler Ross in their book, On Grief and Grieving, there are five stages of grief — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Channie Amato, LMFT, puts it in perspective, “The stages don’t occur in an orderly progression. Grief affects each individual differently.”

Normally a highly-motivated individual, I sank into depression. I was a teacher who couldn’t understand a word his sixth-grade students said, and as a father of two young daughters, I needed to set a positive example. Prior to my hearing loss I never raised my voice to my girls. Now I was screaming at them daily. Things needed to change, and fast.

Target Marketing: Writing for the Whole Family

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family, marketing, R.S. Mellete, target marketing, writing, writing tips

by R.S. Mellette

While the publishing world argues over what’s Middle Grade, what’s Young Adult, and what’s New Adult, I’m asking; whatever happened to “good for the whole family?”

Target marketing has been around long enough that most people think it’s the only way it’s ever been, but if you take a longer view of commercial art, you’ll see that excluding the majority of your potential audience is a brand new concept. Yes, I said “excluding.” If you write, or edit, or make acquisitions, or shelf for one specific age group, then you are limiting your audience. And by “brand new” I mean since the turn of the previous century.

#KTWriteOn with Author Marilyn Cram Donahue: Character, Voice

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character exercise, Marilyn Cram Donahue, voice, writing exercise, writing prompt, writing tips

Welcome to the second installment of the Kite Tales Writing Prompt: #KTWriteOn. Each writing challenge is crafted by a kid-lit publishing professional to help spark ideas and creative energy. This prompt was created by author and SCBWI volunteer Marilyn Cram Donahue whose latest middle grade novel, When Crickets Stopped Singing (Boyds Mills/Calkins Creek), will be published on March 20.

By Marilyn Cram Donahue

Are you looking for a boost of creativity? All you need is a pile of old magazines, some tape, and a sheet of 11”x17” paper. This is the ideal size, but you can also tape two sheets of regular typing paper together.

Step 1: Open the magazines and choose pictures that speak to you. Don’t analyze. Just think “AHA! I like that.”

Step 2: Rip out the pages you like and use your fingers to tear around the edges of whatever part of the picture speaks to you. Why are you tearing?