Carrying the great A.S. King and Patricia McCormick forward, in This Is the Story of You

My actual beach book. 

Due out next spring, from Chronicle Books.

Thank you, A.S. King and Patty McCormick. 

For the words.

For the friendship.

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when diversity is not a strategy but an essential element of the story being told: Blue Birds by Caroline Starr Rose

We Need Diverse Books. We absolutely do. Books that don't merely place a "non-mainstream" character into the story for the sake of inclusion. Books that go much deeper than the announcement of, or allusion to, skin color, origin countries, sexual preferences. Books that don't operate as if conforming to PC checklists. Books that function outside the circle of slogans and tell real stories.

Truly diverse books are books in which the culture and cultural heritage and economics of the characters are essential to the story being told. They explore wide ranging personages, languages, histories, orientations, dreams. They are steeped in the particular social and personal pressures faced by very particular (and particularly well-drawn) characters. They introduce characters that seem to live not just on the page, but off it.

Middle grade/YA novels such as Ann E. Burg's Serafina's Promise, Thanhha Lai's Inside Out and Back Again, Jacqueline Woodson's Brown Girl Dreaming, Kwame Alexander's Crossover, A.S. King's Ask the Passengers, and Patricia McCormick's Never Fall Down and Sold have, among many other titles, introduced lasting, fully dimensional, diverse characters to younger readers. With her second stunning middle grade novel, Blue Birds, Caroline Starr Rose has made another important addition to this canon.

Blue Birds is a novel in verse that explores a little-known chapter of American history concerning the "Lost Colony" of Roanoke. It's late in the 16th century. English explorers have arrived to Roanoke Island, off Virginia. Conflict and distrust erupt among the native tribes and the English.

Into this setting Rose has placed two young girls—Alis, from England, and Kimi, a Roanoke who has watched the English bring disease and disaster to her world. Out on her own, Alis discovers the natural beauty of the place. Watching, Kimi must decide whether or not to trust this fair-skinned creature. Will Alis and Kimi be able to peel back the social prejudice and befriend one another? Will they be able to step over the great divide that rises whenever individual people are presented with difference? And what will they do—what can they do—as tensions mount in their respective communities?

Rose has given us a complex story, a real and researched story, a story that, despite its roots in late 16th century America, feels contemporary. The questions about other are neither dodged nor trumped, and they never feel commercially strategic. The questions arise because such questions naturally do, because this is the story Starr is telling. And look how gracefully and honestly she tells it:

Why do they dress as they do?
To speak their language,
does it feel as it sounds,
like sharpened rocks on  your tongue?
What makes their skin
the color of a snake's underside?
Why do the men not keep their faces smooth
but grow hair from their cheeks?
Do they ever bathe?
For their strong odor lingers
long after they've gone.

Though they
have brought us heartache,
must all of them
be enemies?

In bringing readers Alis and Kimi, Starr has not just brought us a distant era. She's brought her readers a way of sinking in with real questions about difference—and a credible suggestion that such differences might be overcome.

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on history sanitized and simplified for younger readers: let's think about this

In today's New York Times, Alexander Alter writes of the increasing number of "adult" authors who are reconfiguring their history books for the younger, still-book-buying crowd (or for those who buy books for them). She writes:

Inspired by the booming market for young adult novels, a growing number of biographers and historians are retrofitting their works to make them palatable for younger readers. Prominent nonfiction writers like Ms. Hillenbrand, Jon Meacham and Rick Atkinson are now grappling with how to handle unsettling or controversial material in their books as they try to win over this impressionable new audience.

And these slimmed-down, simplified and sometimes sanitized editions of popular nonfiction titles are fast becoming a vibrant, growing and lucrative niche.

I wonder about the wisdom of this—about the felt need to take well-written and absorbing histories and make them less than (for sanitized and simplified sound like less than to me) for younger readers. Let's first acknowledge what many young readers are capable of, which is to say, books rich with moral dilemma and emboldened by ideas. Let's next acknowledge what young readers need, which is to say the facts of then and now. 

You can already get that sort of thing in novels written for younger readers. Certainly Patricia McCormick is not writing down, making it easy, simplifying when she writes about the sex trade or the Cambodian war. Certainly Ruta Sepetys didn't make Siberia comfortable in Between Shades of Gray. Certainly M. T. Anderson didn't set out to make Octavian Nothing easy, simple, sterile. Certainly, Marilyn Nelson, publishing Carver, a life in verse for young adults, didn't think to herself, let me make this easy. She wrote each page smart, each page full of innuendo and terms to look up and mysteries, like this:

A Charmed Life

Here breathes a solitary pilgrim sustained by dew

and the kindness of strangers. An astonished Midas

surrounded by the exponentially multiplying miracles: my

Yucca and Cactus in the Chicago World Exposition;

friends of the spirit; teachers. Ah, the bleak horizons of joy.

Light every morning dawns through the trees. Surely

this is worth more than one life.

And certainly I, writing novels for young adults, am not setting history down in burnished, skip-over-it slices. Not when I write about the Spanish Civil War (Small Damages) or the shadowy blockade of the Berlin Wall (Going Over) or Centennial Philadelphia (Dangerous Neighbors) or 1871 Philadelphia (Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent) or Florence during the 1966 flood (One Thing Stolen). I am working to put a younger reader into the heart of it all. And sometimes that's not pretty. Sometimes that hurts. But that is history for you.

That's life.

YA writers have been writing sophisticated historical novels for a long time now. Why, then, suggest that those same YA readers need to be written down to when it comes to pure nonfiction? To the big stories. The telling moments. The individual against the state, the home versus the political, the science versus the dream, the big stuff that shapes who we became. Nonfiction for young adults, like novels for young adults, should be alive and deep and somehow true. It should respect the capabilities of younger readers.

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reflecting on urgent historical fiction in this weekend's Chicago Tribune

What makes for urgent historical fiction? Having pondered the issue while writing my own backward-glancing novels, I decided to tackle the question for Printers Row/Chicago Tribune and see what some careful consideration might teach me.

I'm grateful, as always, for the privilege of time and space in that wonderful publication.

My piece, which reflects on all historical fiction (which is to say no boundaries between Adult and Young Adult) begins like this:

“There is no real anonymity in history,” Colum McCann writes in the acknowledgments of TransAtlantic, his gorgeous time traveler of a book.

No anonymity. No facelessness. No oblivion.

           

Life is specific, and so is history. It’s emergent, conditional, personal, and absurd.

Why, then, does so much historical fiction land like a brick, with a thud? Why does it hint of authorial Look what I know, See how I found out? Why do so many writers of historical fiction seem to prefer the long way around the heart of the story? Why ignore the truth that the best historical fiction is as insistent as now?

And continues here.

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Serafina's Promise/Ann E. Burg: Reflections on a Novel in Verse

At NCTE 13, I sat on a panel with remarkable writers who have traveled the world — in their imaginations and quite literally — and returned with extraordinary stories.

One of those writers was Ann E. Burg, whose first novel, All the Broken Pieces, was an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, an IRA Notable Book for a Global Society, and a Jefferson Cup Award Winner, among other honors. Serafina's Promise, Ann's new book, is a moving middle grade novel in verse exploring the life of a young girl living in Haiti during the flood and then the earthquake that reconfigured the country and brought so much pain to so many people whose names we'll never know.

Some writers market their books as novels in verse, but only because the lines sit short and condensed on the page. Others—Patricia McCormick, Thanhha Lai, Karen Hesse, Marilyn Nelson, Sharon Creech, Caroline Starr Rose, Jeannine Atkins—are, in fact, poets, not just in the way they write, but in the way they see the world.

Ann E. Burg stands (absolutely) among these true verse novelists—her images evocative, her details precisely chosen, her impact huge as we follow this young girl who wants, despite dire circumstances, an education and a chance to be a doctor. Serafina's days are filled with chores, but they are also filled with the hypnotic beauty of pink flowers in fields of dried grass, of the stories a grandmother tells, of the arrival of a baby brother who smiles up at her, of a fat caterpillar and, later, a butterfly winging away from a web.

Burg's evocations of domestic rural life, of big markets, of a murderous flood, of the terrifying earthquake are piercing and precise—poetry both shattering and graceful. I share this one page with you here. I hope you will buy the book for yourself and for someone you love. I have a niece who is about to get this stunning gift.

Where are the fence and path?
Where is the big white church
where we pray on Sundays,
or the supermarket
where Papa sells mangoes,
sweet milk, and rice?

Nothing looks the same.

I keep walking.

In every ash-covered face
I search for someone
who is searching for me.

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My friends, my son, Patricia McCormick, Jan Shaeffer, my brother, Philadelphia: the day that was

Yesterday: Work on a new client project—a wonderful new client project. I needed to be very still, and think. And then the kind surprise of the Armchair BEA nomination, which had me laughing over the preposterous oddness of it, and so grateful for the support of friends. And then a run to the train station beneath rain clouds, a serendipitous conversation with the poet Catherine Staples (now releasing her first book), a rainbow over the city, and a dash to the University of Pennsylvania campus, to return a nearly overdue book. The campus was as quiet as I had ever seen it. The only noise the noise of reunion tents being hammered into place.

From the campus I flew beneath blue-ing skies down Walnut Street to Tavern on the Green, the bar where my son placed his bets on the college basketball tournament several weeks ago. That son, whose actual job involves making very smart decisions about things that can't be entirely predicted, happened to win. Guessed every outcome correctly, earning the prize of $250, three crisp bills that had to be collected in person. Since this boy is now a New Yorker, the collection privilege was all mine. I slipped down the Tavern stairs (breathless and damp). Announced my intention. "I am J's mother," I said—the most important thing I'll ever be, no matter how old he insists on becoming. I was rewarded with an envelope that I will hand deliver this weekend when I see my handsome, so happy son.

But I digress. For now I was running again, back up Walnut, and north, to a restaurant my friend Jan Shaeffer had recommended, a place called A Kitchen. Jan, I'd said, a really important and wonderful person is coming to town and it's so necessary that we meet at the right place.

(Jan, who leads St. Christopher's Foundation for Children, knows EVERYthing, and I often ask her to tell me more.)

Jan, you were right. The meal was innovative; it was perfection. And the company—well, how do I even talk about Patricia McCormick, who is gorgeous inside and out. Greatness is only partially what someone can do, what someone has produced, and anyone who has read this blog, or listened to me talk, or read my Publishing Perspectives interview with Patty, or read my New York Times review of Joyce Carol Oates' new book (where of course I talked about Patty), knows that I think Patty's work spells greatness, that I think her work endures. But even if Patty had never written or published a word, her greatness would be transparent. She is breadth and depth. She asks, and she listens. She stands beneath the dark skies, shining. She leaves you slightly off balance.

To the skies that drizzled, then cleared. To rainbows. And to my brother, with whom I spoke by phone while watching the trains glide by ahead of midnight.

This afternoon I'll be honoring another friend, the very important Mike Yasick, whose red pants and enormity of soul I remembered here. We lost Mike far too soon in March, and this evening he is being honored by his former employer (and my client) Shire at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Philadelphia's Winemaker's Dinner. The Mike Yasick Literacy Center at the Shane Victorino Nicetown Boys and Girls Club is being inaugurated this evening. I am bringing every YA book I've ever written, and signing them to Mike.

In perpetuity.

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We Could Be Heroes: Patricia McCormick, Ruta Sepetys, and kindness

I found this little girl in Berlin. She was mesmerized by the magic of bubbles. I left her city mesmerized as well, and then one day began to write a novel for it. I called that book We Could Be Heroes. I dedicated it to my editor, Tamra Tuller. It will be launched by Chronicle Books sometime next year, and I've held my breath, as I always do, hoping that it might find its right readers.

I cannot imagine being any more blessed than I am right now, today, by the kindness of two extraordinary readers—two young adult writers who have done so much on the page, done so much for others, done so much to elevate this genre, to prove its power. Thank you, Patricia McCormick and Ruta Sepetys for your words about We Could Be Heroes.

“Beth Kephart is one of my heroes. She’s spun gold out of the language of longing and has shown us how to make room for miracles. We Could Be Heroes –about a boy and girl separated by the cruelest of fates–will inspire any reader to make the leap for love.”
–Patricia McCormick, author of National Book Award Finalists Sold and Never Fall Down

 “An unforgettable portrayal of life and love divided. Kephart captures the beauty and desperation of 1980's Berlin with prose both gripping and graceful.”

--Ruta Sepetys, New York Times bestselling author of Between Shades of Gray and Out of the Easy

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Lamp Lighters and Seed Sowers: Tomorrow's YA: the keynote address, in full

I was so grateful for the opportunity to give the keynote address at the Publishing Perspectives Conference, YA: What's Next, held at the hospitable Scholastic auditorium in New York City this past Wednesday.

Today the fine folks at Publishing Perspectives share the text in full, along with the illustrations by William R. Sulit.  These illustrations were modeled with 3D software, all with the exception of the beautiful face and hands, which belong to my niece (daughter of my famous I Triple E brother), Miranda.

In her keynote address from the YA: What’s Next? publishing conference, author Beth Kephart makes an impassioned case for YA books that are heartfelt, authentic and empowering.......

(Just added:  gratitude for a week of kindness toward Small Damages.)

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Returning to New York City for the Publishing Perspectives YA: What's Next Conference

We have felt—we still feel—paralyzed by the storm.  Those of us who love New York City and the Jersey Shore, those with friends in Connecticut and south, have watched the news and wondered about how those affected will survive the immediate flood waters and losses, and about how we, entrusted with this world, will somehow correct the devastating weather course we are on.  We have thought about those who died in the terror of the moment.

Shortly before the storm hit, I was invited by Dennis Abrams to return to New York City on November 28th for the second Publishing Perspectives conference, this one titled:  "YA: What's Next."  I said yes in a second (ask Dennis).  The first Publishing Perspectives conference was so well conducted, so informative and classy, that it is a thrill to return, this time as a panel moderator, to that Scholastic stage, where Taylor Swift sat in her signature red not so long ago.

I am always grateful on those days when I travel to New York City.  I know I will feel especially grateful for the ground beneath my feet as I make my way to the Scholastic headquarters on Wednesday, November 28, for the half-day event (9 AM to 1 PM).

I'll be moderating the panel, "YA: What's Next," where I'll be joined by David Levithan (author and VP and Publisher at Scholastic Trade), Francine Lucidon (owner of The Voracious Reader Bookstore), and Eliot Schrefer (2012 National Book Award finalist).

The full slate of speakers can be found at the link here. 

Finally, thank you to Ed Nawotka, the editor-in-chief of Publishing Perspectives, who has published so many of my stories on people who matter in publishing—Ruta Sepetys, Tamra Tuller, Michael Green, Lauren Wein, Pamela Paul, Jennifer Brown, Vaddey Ratner, Alane Salierno Mason, Eric Hellman, among them.  Click here to read my most recent story, an interview with 2012 National Book Award finalist Patricia McCormick.

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My interview with Patricia McCormick, in Publishing Perspectives

On this dark and windy (and quite wet) day, I'm so proud to have my interview with Patricia McCormick featured in Publishing Perspectives.  Patty, newly and justly nominated for the National Book Award for Never Fall Down, talks here about the making of this incredibly important book.  The interview begins like this, below, and can be read in its entirety here.  I interviewed Patty long before her book was nominated, by the way.  I just had a feeling.

Anyone who confuses young adult literature with simple kids’ stuff has not read Patricia McCormick. A former journalist with an investigator’s eye and an astute sense of social justice, McCormick’s novels for younger readers have taken her into a residential treatment center (Cut), the harrowing world of sexual slavery in India (Sold), the Iraq War (Purple Heart), and the killing fields of Cambodia (Never Fall Down).  McCormick wants us to know; she wants us to see.  She wants to teach us something about this world, but she is no sermonizer.  She’s a poet, in fact, this Patricia McCormick, writing of split worlds with lacerating precision, daring prose, and devastating beauty.

McCormick’s most recent book, the National Book Award finalist Never Fall Down (Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins), is a collaboration — a novel inspired by the real life of Arn Chorn-Pond. Swept into the Khmer Rouge’s brutal reeducation program, separated from his family in a series of labor camps, and bullied into being someone he might have never imagined could exist, Arn nonetheless survives, thanks in part to his talent for music and his refusal to lay down and die. Arn does not emerge from the book as an innocent. His shame is palpable, his losses many. As his interviewer, friend, and fellow traveler, McCormick’s greatest gift to Arn is the gift she has always brought her readers—her faith in the truth.

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The Push to Publish YA/Children's Book Panel: the questions we asked and answered

Before Catherine Stine, Nancy Viau, Alison DeLuca, and I met yesterday afternoon at Rosemont College for our Push to Publish YA/Children's Book Panel, we were invited to submit questions and answers for potential mulling during our panel. As the group's moderator, I promised the audience that I would share those very questions and answers here, to supplement the many other things we discussed during our it-flew-by-so-fast hour.  

Many thanks to all of you who came, to Catherine, Nancy, and Alison, who spoke so intelligently, and to Christine Weiser, Queen of Philadelphia Stories (from which the annual Push to Publish conference springs), who took this photograph for us. 

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Catherine Stine:

1. How important is social media to your promo plan and when should you start to implement it?

The best advice I got from an early mentor was to start a blog way before my next big book came out, not when it came out. I started Catherine Stine’s Idea City about two years before my latest novel was published, and by that time I had over 340 followers, who helped with my book blog tour, and other promo posts such as interviews, features and giveaways, as well as me guest posting on their blogs.
 

I had no idea that the blogosphere would be so friendly and eager to help. Part of the fun is that it’s a mixed age-community, with everyone from savvy book reviewers, still in high school, to seasoned authors in their sixties. The key is to care about what others are posting! If you want good comments on your posts, you must return the favor. I’ve learned so much about publishing and writing from this vibrant community, and from indie authors as well as ones who are published with the Big Six. Other important social media to develop: a Goodreads author page, a Facebook author or book page, a Pinterest page and a twitter account. There are others, but this is a great place to start!
Topical online reads:
1. Publishers’ Weekly article on YA Marketing-Digital versus Physical:
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bea/article/52455-bea-2012-ya-marketing-digital-vs-physical.html
2. Basic Marketing Tips from YA author, Elana Johnson:
http://elanajohnson.blogspot.com/2012/02/basic-marketing-plan-for-authors-who.html
3. What the heck is Pinterest, you ask? Check out a sampling of YA books for OCT on Pinterest! http://pinterest.com/BCSPLS/october-2012-children-teen-ebooks/
 
2. What are the big differences between indie and traditionally published books/authors? Between ebooks and paper copies? How do you see these trending in the future?

I see a blending in the future of who is published traditionally to who is publishing on their own, or with small houses. It will be more about the quality of the fiction and the authors’ growing readership than how authors publish. I’ve published with big houses such as Random House and American Girl, and I’ve also published through my own Konjur Road Press. Many traditionally published authors are now publishing their own out-of-print-books and novels that their agents haven’t placed. As publishing houses become more gun-shy and picky (because of less physical bookstores to sell to!) and authors learn how much they can potentially earn on their own the quality of indie fiction will grow ever higher! There is also a trend toward POD printing—that means print on demand. For instance, if someone orders your POD book through Amazon, or B&N, their publishing arm will print as many paperback copies as are ordered and no more. This has an upside for a beleaguered industry: publishers will no longer have to deal with huge store returns, which lose money for the houses when they must refund that revenue. On the other hand, it means less variety on the physical bookshelves. As more and more readers get comfy with ereading devices, more and more ebooks will sell. In the Catskills, where I go on the weekends, I feel the burn of bookstore closings. There are no more bookstores within 40 or 50 miles! People won’t stop reading, they will always want stories; they will simply buy more ebooks.  

Some related online articles:
1.     A post by indie fantasy author, Lindsay Buroker:
http://www.lindsayburoker.com/tips-and-tricks/successful-indie-authors/ 

2.     A post by Susan Kaye Quinn, indie YA author: http://www.susankayequinn.com/2011/09/taking-road-less-traveled-redux.html

3. Trends in YA? Write to trends or to what I love?

It’s always a gamble to predict specific trends because they change from year to year. And one should never, ever write specifically to the trends. You should write that amazing novel that only you can write! I tell my students to focus on a subject or theme that they are totally inspired by, because maintaining fuel for those entire 250 to 350 pages is something only fierce interest and passion can drive. That said, there do seem to be trends for 2013/14: realistic YA is making a comeback, after a paranormal and fantasy-saturated market. Vamps are trending out, but there will probably always be room for that unique, geeky or charismatic vamp! Historical fantasy is in with novels such as Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly. Magical realism is growing, as is confidence in YA sci-fi like Black Hole Sun by Gill and space opera, such as A. Ryan’s Glow. Horror and unusual blends are growing in popularity as seen in novels like Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by R. Riggs. There is also a trend toward sci-fi romance, as in novels like V. Rossi’s Under the Never Sky. And then, there are the trend-busters whose mind-bending novels start entirely new trends! Will you write one of these?

Nancy Viau

How do I avoid the slush pile?

It's the "kiss of death" to address your submission to Dear Editor, Agent, or To Whom It May Concern. Research a name and target your manuscript to a real person, one who is acquiring work in the genre in which you write. There's a wealth of info to be found on websites such as www.publishersmarketplace.com http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/>  (monthly subscription is about 20 bucks), www.agentquery.com <http://www.agentquery.com/> , www.querytracker.net <http://www.querytracker.net/> , and www.scbwi.org <http://www.scbwi.org/> . Bloggers like Casey McCormick, www.literaryrambles.com <http://www.literaryrambles.com/> , often feature authors and agents, and many editors and agents have blogs and are on Twitter or Facebook. But, instead of relying only on info found on the Internet (where everything's always correct, right? Ha!), find a better, more personal connection by going to conferences and/or getting one-on-one critiques at conferences. Strike up a conversation, exchange business cards, and schmooze your way to success.

What is in a query letter to an agent? How about a cover letter to an editor?

The best way for me to answer this is to give each person copies of letters I wrote to the above people. I'll dissect what I've included and why, and tell the group if it was a successful or not. I feel that the best "takeaway" is something someone can actually take away. : )

What types of picture books are children's book editors looking for?

This is the million dollar question! Who really knows? Many agents and editors say they want a story based on a marketable character. (Ex: FANCY NANCY, LADYBUG GIRL, DON'T LET THE PIGEON DRIVE THE BUS). In additon, they want short over long (less than 800 words), loud over quiet, and non-rhyming over rhyming. They'd also like you to be a celebrity! (*Smirk*) That being said, there are plenty of recently acquired books that break all these rules. (Ex: LOOK WHAT I CAN DO! and STORM SONG, my two picture books due out this spring. They are not character-based, they're considerably quiet, and they rhyme. And yes, I'm still shocked that they sold.)

Alison DeLuca

 1. What are the challenges of being an Indie author of children's books?

The main one, and it seems to be continually lessening, is the question of access. Do children and young adults have access to platforms on which to read ebooks? As the ereader market widens, this becomes less and less of a concern. Still, I do think that Indie authors of YA and children's books should explore the POD (print on demand) market. There are several different sources for this: Createspace is the most obvious, and Lulu is a cheap alternative. LightningSource is perhaps the best-regarded within the traditional industry, which is important to remember if an author wants to get books stocked in local bookstores.

For anyone considering POD, my advice is to do plenty of research. Print is very difficult. Consider hiring a professional format person and cover artist. A pro will remember issues like having headers, chapters that begin on the right side of the book, inserting blank pages where necessary... it can all be overwhelming for a beginning Indie author. Really, formatting is an art unto itself.

Another challenge, and in a way it is a good thing, is that Indie authors are, to some degree, held to a very high standard. Reviewers will be quick to point out shifts in point of view, tense irregularities, the use of the present progressive... Again, consider hiring a professional copy editor, as well as a structural editor. Don't skimp on the beta readers - try to have two rounds at least. The more feedback, the better.

Before doing any of the above, do your research and find companies and professionals that you can trust. It is here that a writer's group or collective can be invaluable. If you have a personal recommendation, it makes it much easier to contact and trust the editor or artist involved.

2. What are some good sources for Indie children's authors?

All writers, not just Indies, should be completely familiar with the breakdown of genres and metadata in the BISAC system. You can see a list of BISAC headings here, and each will click through to subgenres: http://www.bisg.org/what-we-do-0-136-bisac-subject-headings-list-major-subjects.php

There are many Indie author groups online. I interact with The Indie Exchange on Facebook. That page is nice because they don't allow book promo of any sort, so the conversation sticks with writing and publishing, instead of turning into a stream of spam. Do be aware that there are "rules" for each page, and if someone does post promos on  a non-promo site for example, the mods will delete it and contact you.

As in all things, be pleasant and professional when interacting within a group. At the same time: BE ON YOUR GUARD. There are many, many wolves out there. Do not give out personal contact info or enter into a contract without spending a lot of time on background research.

3. Once my children's book is up, how do I get sales?

Ah. Now we enter the wonderful world of marketing. Be aware that writing the book was the easy part. And even when it is formatted and edited, there is a lot of work ahead for Indie authors.

The beginning author may find herself excitedly throwing her info and promos on every available type of social media. It's good to have a presence, but there are some things to keep in mind:

A steady stream of spam on Facebook, Twitter, or any type of social media is boring and off-putting. INstead of tweeting buy links over and over, how about being creative? For example, if your book is about music, you could schedule a Twitterchat about favorite songs or lyrics.

My mentor in all things marketing-related is Kristen Lambe. She runs a wonderful writer's blog here: http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/ Not only does she offer guides to the tangled world of social media, she also gives what amount to in-depth treatises on plot development, story arcs, and characterization.
 

Beth Kephart

What is the most surprising—or affirming—aspect of the YA writing community?

Although I’ve taught teens for years, I never planned to write books that were specifically set aside for that age group.  It seemed, to me, like an entirely different language, a world that I would never effectively penetrate.  Now with my eighth and ninth YA novels set for release, I have learned important things about the generosity of the YA writing community, the fervor of librarians and teachers, and the wide open heart of teen readers. Power—sometimes chaotic, sometimes strange, but nearly always mesmerizing—abides in the YA community.  And that is why, I think, adults increasingly lean in our direction.  That is also why so many teen books increasingly refuse to stay within set boundaries.  We writers of teen books want everyone to share in the magic.

Is there room for the quiet YA book?

I wasn’t sure there would be one, when I first started writing.  In fact, my kind of book was a bit of an experiment for Laura Geringer, my first YA editor, then at HarperCollins.  What would happen, she wondered, to teen books that were deliberately focused on emotion and mood, setting and  ideas, language and light, in the age of Twilight?  Would they find an audience? The good news is that there is an audience.  Not a rip-roaring, I’m-going-to-be-rich-and-famous audience.  But enough of an audience to enable me to keep writing my kind of book, to keep finding my kind of teen (and adult) reader. And for that I am hugely grateful.

What is the hottest trend in YA fiction?

I have been saying for a while now that we are at long last shedding categories with YA fiction.  We are celebrating individuals who write books that break rules and boundaries.  The Book Thief freed us, in that way. Writers like Patricia McCormick and A.S. King continue to remind us how powerful the unexpected is. And of course I still believe, as I wrote last year, that illustrated YA books, along with well-written, engaging historical novels, will find firmer marketing footholds.

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Never Fall Down: Patricia McCormick and Arn Chorn-Pond

Yesterday afternoon I had the privilege of reading Never Fall Down, Patricia McCormick's most recent young adult novel.  Never Fall Down is inspired by the life of Arn Chorn-Pond, who survived the Khmer Rouge genocide and went on to become a musician-peacemaker celebrated by Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and many others.  Rare is the writer who could take on such a subject and do it honorably.  For very good reasons, Chorn-Pond trusted Patty, a journalist whose earlier young adult novels—Cut, My Brother's Keeper, Sold, Purple Heart—are both deserving literary prizewinners and commercial successes.  Patty McCormick's career is proof that you can write with great meaning, originality, purpose, and more than a little poetry and still find a fervent readership.

I'll have more to say about Patty McCormick in the weeks to come.  For now, please watch the video above, in which Patty and Chorn-Pond (introduced to one another by one of Patty's neighbors) speak of the making of Never Fall Down.

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In the New York Times Book Review: reviewing Joyce Carol Oates and James Preller

I am honored to be reviewing new young adult novels by Joyce Carol Oates (Two or Three Things I Forgot to Tell You) and James Preller (Before You Go) in this weekend's digital edition of the New York Times Book Review, as part of the Back to School issue.

My thoughts can be found here.

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on the dignity, intelligence, and craft of Patricia McCormick

A few years ago, at the invitation of Alessandra Balzer of Balzer + Bray (Harper Collins Children's Books), I joined a table of remarkable young adult writers and advocates in a famed Philadelphia restaurant.  Chris Crutcher sat to my left, Patricia McCormick to my right. I was, of course, lucky.

But only lately, reading CUT and SOLD, two of McCormick's rightly beloved books, have I realized just how lucky I was.  Patricia McCormick is—I'll use the word—a writer.  A writer with a moral heart and a social conscious.  A writer who has taken on subjects like cutting and the horrors of sex slavery, not to sensationalize, but to teach, not to exploit, but to help the rest of us understand what is truly at stake, what must be fixed.  And a writer who boldly experiments with form.  A writer of true and beautiful sentences.

There is an elegance to her work, a dignity.  There is great intelligence as she unpacks her stories. Everything feels real. Nothing feels forced. There is the bounty of genuine knowing.  Listen to this, from the early pages of SOLD, the story of a young girl forced to work at Happiness House.  These are the halcyon days.  This is before.  Lakshmi is poor, and she has a gift for seeing beauty.

At dawn, our hut, perched high on the mountainside, is already torched with sunlight, while the village below remains cloaked in the mountain's long purple shadow until midnight.

By midday, the tawny fields will be dotted with the cheerful dresses of the women, red as the poinsettias that lace the windy footpaths.  Napping babies will sway in wicker baskets, and lizards will sun themselves outside their holes.

Like CUT, SOLD never blinks.  It doesn't glance away from the hard truths. It doesn't gauze the facts with fairytale.  I read both books with my heart in my throat—heartbroken and also awed by McCormick's talent.

Patricia McCormick has a new book due out soon—a book called NEVER FALL DOWN, based on "the true story of an 11-year-old boy who survived the Khmer Rouge by playing music in the Killing Fields."  Archbishop Desmond Tutu has called the book "one of the most inspiring and powerful books" he's ever read. Our teens need books like these.  And so do we.

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Inside the happy sink of book making

Chanticleer Garden often appears on this blog–in photographs, in stories, in reminisces.  Today it is here thanks to the imagination of my husband, who took a photograph of the garden years ago then invented his own version.  It's an old image, a sketch image, something I found in my files just today, when I was looking for a quote I've tucked away somewhere—words I find I need about ruins.

My head is full of a book I'm writing.  I feel all verve-y and alive, terribly attached to the notion of putting all these thoughts about memoir making down.  I stand on one rung of a ladder, pulling myself up.  I peer over the hedge of what I've written already and think, But, oh.  There is so much more.

I dangle.  I stretch.

Meanwhile, I read the work of the extraordinary Patricia McCormick.  I will have something to say about her supreme talents tomorrow. 

Until tomorrow, then.

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Well Groomed

I have been out of my home more than I should be of late—at meetings, at conferences, at gatherings. I have not found the time simply to be. Last night, as I walked through the dusk of my city, Philadelphia, toward the ALAN cocktail hour at the NCTE event, I felt a floating disassociation from myself. I counted the things that I should be doing, the things that would never get done.

That welling was countered almost at once by the embrace of HarperTeen's own Laura Lutz (who is a dark-haired version of the young Amy Irving, I finally decided); by a conversation with the delightful Matt Phelan; by the long rat-a-tat with HarperTeen's Emilie Ziemer, not just a dancer herself, but an exemplary reader (and good soul). It was further improved by time spent with Jill Santopolo, and by listening, then, to writers talk about their process and their teaching.

Are you a lawyer? someone asked me. No, why? I wondered. Because you ask so many questions, came the answer. A familiar accusation.

There was a dinner after that—eating on stools, family style, in the Osteria kitchen; it was like a scene straight out of Top Chef. Chris Crutcher talked about freedoms of speech. Patricia McCormick was her extraordinarily lovely self (we share friends, as it turns out, and experiences in special places). Alessandra Balzer and Patty Rosati were gracious hostesses. I wasn't entirely sure, to be honest, just why I was there, how I fit—if I would ever fit—within that lit world glamor. But I was very glad to have been invited. To have touched down, for a brief spell, within that world of books.

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