Looking Ahead, Blogosphere Buzz, and our Blogiversary Contest Winners!

A HUGE thank you to all those who entered our Second Blogiversary Critique Giveaway Contest, and a special welcome to all our new followers!

Before I share the winners' names, I have a question for you, our readers. As we look ahead to our next year of blogging, we're wondering what topics or questions you might have for us. Do you have a burning (or maybe just "nagging") question related to writing or to teaching writing? Or some writing-related topic you'd like us to address? If so, we encourage you to either post your question in the comments below or use the "Ask the TeachingAuthors"  link in our sidebar to send it via email. (If you're sending an email, please be sure to include the words "Teaching Authors Question" in the subject.)

By the way: if you're an email subscriber and you haven't visited the blog lately, I encourage you to stop by and check out some of the new links in our sidebar. I've been adding to the sections "Websites of Note," "General Children's/YA Lit Blogs," and "Author/Illustrator Blogs." I've also updated the pages "About Us," "Markets for Young Writers," "Resources for Teachers," and "Workshops/Visits." And if you'd like to see if we've already addressed a topic you're interested in, see the "Subject Index of Most Popular Topics" near the bottom of the sidebar.

And now here are the names of our two critique winners:

• Susan Kaye Quinn, who requested a novel critique, and
• Katie Cullinan, who requested a critique of a fiction picture book

Congratulations, Ladies!

If you didn't win, don't despair--see the Blogosphere Buzz below for a link to a contest where you can win a manuscript critique from publisher Elizabeth Law!

Now for some Blogosphere Buzz:

• If your burning question (see above) has to do with the current market trends in children's literature, instead of asking us, read this post by author/agent Mandy Hubbard. Here's an exerpt: "editors are really short on MG and feel this market is primed to boom in the way YA has."
• Would you like a chance to win a 30-page manuscript critique from Egmont publisher Elizabeth Law? Then head over to the Cynsations blog! And while you're there, be sure to read Cynthia's great interview with Elizabeth and author Allen Zadoff.
• I recently stumbled upon the YA Historical Fiction Challenge over at the YA Bliss blog. If you enjoy reading middle-grade and YA historicals, check it out.
• Speaking of challenges, the annual 48-Hour Book Challenge hosted at the MotherReader blog will be here June 3-5. Sign up is already open.
• Congratulations to all the SCBWI Crystal Kite Winners! Beginning this week the SCBWI market blog is featuring a series of interviews with all the winners. Today's interview happens to be with my friend and fellow VC grad, Ann Angel, author of Janis Joplin: Rise Up Singing. Hurray, Ann!

Happy writing!
Carmela

Had I only known THEN what I know NOW!

The celebration of our TeachingAuthors Second Blogiversary continues!
You can still enter to win one of our two Critique Giveaways!
Click on the link to learn the Contest details.
As always, we’re cheering you on.


Our Second Blogiversary got the six of us thinking: what nugget, what Truth, do we wish we’d known when we began writing for children?

For me, “nugget” was the operative word, literally and figuratively.
I knew my answer instantly.
All I had to do was read (for the gazillionth time) the inscription on the one-of-a-kind gold and silver ring that’s adorned my right hand’s fourth finger for longer than I can remember: the journey is the reward.
(Note: poetically-inscribed jewelry is Jeanine Payer’s trademark.)

Of course, learning that Truth took a whole lot of years, underscoring the very nature of the word “journey.”

Back in 1977, when I first naively tried my hand at writing a picture book for my then two-year-old son, I shared the mindset of every beginning student and writer I’ve since encountered.
How hard could writing a picture book be, really?
I mean, I’d earned a Journalism degree and wrote for a newspaper!
I’d taught fifth grade in the finest of schools!
A picture book is but 32 pages.
The story, too, is for very young children.
And hadn’t I studied my favorite picture books from the inside out? Hadn’t I typed them out, cut them apart, repasted the text, read for the pictures?
And anyway, wouldn’t the illustrations fill in any details I missed?

Once the writing part was done, I’d use my Library’s publishing directories to gather names of editors at those houses I wanted to publish me.
I’d submit my story to the right person, and just like that, or rather, after a considerable (but certainly understandable) waiting period, I’d receive a letter requesting purchase of my story.
Voila. Abracadabra. My dream would be realized.
I would become a Children’s Book Author.
Right?
Wrong!
(Of course.)

I see now: I was only just beginning.
Beginning an education.
Beginning my writer’s story.
Beginning a journey for which I’m grateful every day.

But back then?
After each and every failed effort, I simply picked myself up, dusted myself off, filed away the form and growing personal rejection letters and began another story, my format explorations paralleling my growing son’s new interests and reading expertise.
I’d bravely sought out other children’s book writers, via SCBW (it was so new, the I hadn't been added yet!), local writing classes and lectures.
And I adjusted the carrot that swung before my nose, blocking all views.
You know the one – the one labeled “Publication.”

I honestly didn’t see the Light – or rather, the path I’d undertaken, until 1989 when I bravely left my Writing Room for (the sadly no longer in existence) Vassar College’s Summer Children’s Book Publishing Institute.
That’s where and when I learned, thanks to the Institute’s Director Barbara Lucas: that First Step I took back in 1977 brought me to a World - the Children’s Book World, a world worth traveling.

I had much in common with my characters as I made my way within that world, traveling the Universal Plot Line, past Way Stations, Depots and breath-taking scenery.
I was meeting friends, allies, mentors, crossing thresholds, undergoing tests, approaching inmost caves, experiencing supreme ordeals, rising from the ashes to return home heroic, the prize in hand.
The character is always smarter for the journey.
This writer was too.

True, finally selling my first picture book to the esteemed publisher Holiday House, a publisher I’d targeted when I first began, had me smiling. Like the Ugly Duckling who’d traveled for so long looking for his home, I’d never known such happiness.

But once I took in the view – all the roads I’d traveled, intentionally or otherwise, the people I’d encountered, the knowledge I’d gained, all I’d experienced good and bad, that view somehow paled against that non-stop swinging carrot, Publication.

I’m still out-and-about, traveling my much-loved world in all sorts of ways I hadn’t imagined when I first began writing, with more opportunities than one would think to remind myself of my ring’s truthful inscription.

Should I find myself disheartened, anxious, even doubtful, I just might treat myself to Jeanine Payer’s newest earrings, then keep on keepin' on.

.

Happy Traveling!

Esther Hershenhorn

P.S.
Believe it or not, Jeanine Payer is sponsoring a Contest to honor National Poetry Month. The deadline for your poem submission is April 30.

Our Second Blogiversary, a Critique Giveaway, and a Special Poem!

Hooray! Today is our Second Blogiversary!

Where does the time go? Can you believe it's been two years since we launched this blog? Once again, we will celebrate by giving you, our loyal readers, a present:

Our Second Annual TeachingAuthors Critique Giveaway!

Full details are posted below. But first, since today is also Poetry Friday, I'd like to share a special blogiversary poem by my amazingly talented co-blogger April Halprin Wayland. If you'd like to read the story behind this poem, along with more of April's Poetry Month poetry, visit her website. And don't forget to check out today's Poetry Friday roundup at the Book Aunt blog.

      OUR  BLOGIVERSARY!
      by April Halprin Wayland

     We six who ride our blog horse here

     are rather like that Paul Revere

     “One if by land, two if by sea,”

     was revolution's poetry

     We TeachingAuthors gallop, too,

     to share our lantern light with you

     we aim to help, support and cheer

     so you can write with joy, not fear

     in this New Land: Kidlitosphere

(c) 2011 April Halprin Wayland, all rights reserved

And now for our Giveaway Details:
For our blogiversary last year, we offered our first ever critique giveaway. This year we decided the best way to "help, support and cheer" would be to do it again. Only this time, TWO winners will have their choice of a critique of one of the following by a TeachingAuthor:

• fiction picture book up to 750 words
• nonfiction picture book up to 1000 words
• first five pages of a novel (chapter book, middle grade, or young adult novel): up to 1250 words
• poetry: up to 16 lines, 12-point font (1-2 poems)
• magazine short story: up to 800 words 
• synopsis of a middle grade or young adult novel: up to two pages max, single-spaced, 12-point font (Note: only one winner may choose this prize.)

Contest rules:
Since the manuscripts will be submitted via email, this giveaway will be open to all our readers worldwide. However, be sure to read the rules below carefully before entering:

1. This giveaway is for our readers. Therefore, to qualify, you must follow us via Google Friend connect, Facebook/Networked Blogs, or as an email subscriber. If you are not already a follower, subscribe via one of the links in the sidebar before you enter. (We will verify that you're a follower!)
2. Post a comment saying how you follow us for one entry. If you are an email subscriber, you must also provide your email address in your comment. Be sure to indicate which type of critique you'd like to win, too.
3. You may receive one bonus entry by helping to spread the word about this giveaway via a blog post, Tweet, or Facebook link. As proof, you must post a second comment containing a link to your blog post, Twitter address, or Facebook wall.
4. No more than two entries per person. All entries must be as comments to today's post.
5. Entry deadline is 11 pm (CST) Tuesday, May 17, 2011.
6. The winner will be determined using the random number generator at Random.org, and will be announced Wednesday, May 18. 

Please note: your manuscript must be formatted in the same way you would to submit it to an editor or agent: in a standard 12-point font on 8 1/2 x 11" paper with one inch margins. For more on manuscript format, see this article.

After we have identified the winners, we will assign the appropriate TeachingAuthor to each critique. That TeachingAuthor will contact the winner via email regarding the submission procedure.

If you'd like to read about our qualifications before submitting your entry, see our "About Us" page.

Important: Feedback and comments to the winner from the TeachingAuthor cannot be used as an endorsement in any way.

That's it! If I've left out something important, feel free to ask questions in your comments.
Good luck to all, and happy writing!
Carmela

Teacher Appreciation Week, Our Contest Winners, and More Buzz

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week. So let me begin this post with a little classroom humor:

A child comes home from his first day at school.
Mother asks, "What did you learn today?"
The child replies, "Not enough. I have to go back tomorrow."

This joke is courtesy of the Teacher Appreciation website. In addition to teacher/student jokes, the site contains ideas for showing our teachers how much we appreciate them. Please don't let this week go by without saying "thank you" to a teacher.

This post is later than usual for me because I spent the morning visiting Union Ridge Elementary School in Harwood Heights, IL. The students were so attentive and enthusiastic, and they made me feel very welcome. Thank you, Huskies! And I have to commend and thank the teachers and staff at Union Ridge for celebrating their marvelous young authors. I had the honor of presenting a writing workshop to the winners of their Young Authors competition. What a creative group!

Speaking of winners, today I have the pleasure of announcing the winners of not one, but two Teaching Authors contests. As it turns out, both our winners are teachers--how appropriate for Teacher Appreciation Week! Before I tell you their names, I want to thank everyone for celebrating our First Blogiversary with us. Your response was phenomenal, and we're thrilled to welcome so many new readers.

The winner of our First Blogiversary Critique giveaway is Tricia, who blogs at The Miss Rumphius Effect. Tricia is a former middle school teacher who now prepares future teachers. She's going to have to decide between having a critique of her poetry or a nonfiction picture book manuscript.

The critique giveaway was such a huge success that we will definitely do it again. Meanwhile, if you're looking for a critique, you may want to consider placing a bid for one in the Hunger Mountain Critique Auction going on through May 9. Here's how Cynthia Leitich Smith described the auction on her blog, Cynsations:

"Bid to win full length manuscript critiques with Tanita Davis, author of the Coretta Scott King Honor Book Mare’s War (Knopf, 2009), Michelle Poploff, Vice President, Executive Editor at Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers, and picture book writer Tanya Lee Stone, who won the Sibert Award for Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream (Candlewick, 2009). In addition, National Book Award finalist Deborah Wiles and Jacqueline Kelly, author of Newbery honor book The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate (Henry Holt, 2009), will offer young adult and middle grade manuscript critiques. Bidding ends at midnight EST May 9."

Visit Ebay to place your bid.

Our second winner is Sandra, a middle-school teacher who has two blogs--one on reading and one on writing. Sandra will receive an autographed copy of Irene Latham's Leaving Gee's Bend.

Again, a huge thank-you to all who participated in our two contests. We'll be having another giveaway soon, so please stay tuned.

Blogosphere Buzz

• In case you haven't heard, Alice Pope will no longer edit the annual Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market, so her CWIM blog has come to an end. However, the good news is, she will now be blogging for SCBWI at the all new SCBWI Children's Market Blog. I've already added it to my blog reading list!
• The latest edition of The Prairie Wind, the SCBWI-IL online newsletter, is now online. As usual, it's packed with amazing advice, inspiration, and information. And for all you bloggers, be sure to read Hilary Wagner's article, "Ma’am, Put Down the Laptop and Step Away from the Blog!"
• I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed on my friend Bruce Black's Wordswimmer Blog. We discussed one of my favorite topics: character names. You can read the interview here.

Have you read something online recently that would be of interest to children's writers or those who teach writing? If so, please post a comment with a link.
I think that's all for now. I need a nap. :-) 
Happy writing!
Carmela

Happy Birthday To Me!

April may be the cruelest month, but I don't care.  I'm too busy celebrating the last year of my thirties, my son's third, my daughter's fifth, and yes, a Blogiversary and our April's birthday, too. 

Have you noticed that "Happy Birthday" is rarely (if ever) sung on TV?  As Mary Ann pointed out, there's that pesky matter of royalties, and apparently this song commands exorbitant ones.  Next time you watch a soap opera (if you dare), note the quick cutaway to commercial when the cake is wheeled out or the opportune ringing of a phone or sudden heart attack that befalls the birthday girl.  It's not about the drama, I'm sorry to say.  It's about the stupid song.  Just as often, it's about the Midol product placement or the actor who can't remember his lines or the set that has enough room for only two people when you need to throw a wedding! 

Most of my paid writing work has been writing for hire.  Writing for hire can be an awful lot of fun.  But apart from the challenges that are readily imagined (what if I hate the material?), there are also those devil-in-the-details moments I never considered.  When I was writing Nancy Drew, I had to be cognizant at all times of the rules of Nancyland (no guns or drugs despite the raging crime epidemic in River Heights).  There was a preordained number of chapters and pages, as well.  An hour-long daytime program is only 39 minutes minus the commercials.  Writing to a set structure (see the five-paragraph essay) makes life a lot easier in many ways.  In other ways, it is horribly constraining. 

My English Composition students write five essays per semester, and often they have trouble getting excited about the material, to put it mildly.  This is writing-for-hire in its barest form, after all -- pass the class, and you get to graduate and, one hopes, find the job of your dreams.  Fail to get the job done, and well... take English 101 again. 

For my students, God is in the details.  Once they can recount an experience vividly, without resorting to cliches and empty expressions, they have connected with the material in a way that makes the writing fun (and the reading, too).  And if they have done it once, they can do it again.  So even if their writing is full of run-ons and agreement errors and I despair of having taught them anything, I have.  I think. I hope!

***

Don't forget to enter to win a critique of your work, in honor of our blog’s first birthday!


And please note: Your first entry must say how you follow us—via Google, Networked blogs, or email. You must post a SEPARATE comment to get a second entry. This makes tracking entries much easier. Entry deadline is 11 pm (CST) Tuesday, May 4, 2010.

 
Writing Workout

My students had a highly disrupted semester this spring (I use the term figuratively) thanks to copious snow, which is paralyzing to Marylanders in the baffling way that rain is to southern Californians.

I usually do this exercise earlier in the semester, but it's waited until the last day (today!) because we've been too busy cramming exercises in grammar and MLA formatting.

Our text has a whole chapter devoted to the Process Analysis essay.  This format provides a wonderful exercise for students who will be moving on to technical writing classes or to any type of business career.  It is also a great exercise in developing clarity on the sentence level and accurate detail globally.

I like to divide students into two groups for variety's sake.  Those in one group write instructions for making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich; the other group describes how to tie one's shoes.  Once the essays are completed, ask for a volunteer demonstrator and have him/her act out the steps indicated in a sample essay.  What we discover is that it's hard to spread peanut butter without first removing the lid from the jar.  I don't think I've ever had a student wind up with properly tied shoes at the end of the exercise.  (No wonder my daughter is still in Velcro, as apparently I can't explain it clearly, myself.) 

The other great part about the exercise is that students have to decide where to begin and where to end.  It's a story in microcosm.  And at the end, you have an edible sandwich -- food being a great motivator, even at 8:30 a.m. and even when you use green pepper jelly, I've discovered.

Bon appetit!

Our First Blogiversary, Earth Day, and a Critique Giveaway!

Happy Blogiversary to us!
Mary Ann kicked off our celebration on Monday, but it's exactly one year ago today that we launched this blog. When we chose the date, we didn't realize it also happened to be Earth Day. If you missed JoAnn's Earth Day poem last week, I hope you'll stop and read it here now.

Today, finally, are the details of our special giveaway:
As a thank you to our readers, we're offering a critique of your choice from a TeachingAuthor!

One lucky winner will be able to choose a critique of one of the following:

• fiction picture book (up to 1000 words) critiqued by Mary Ann 
• nonfiction picture book or beginning of longer nonfiction manuscript (up to 1000 words) critiqued by JoAnn
• synopsis of a middle grade or young adult novel (up to two pages max, single-spaced, 12-point font) critiqued by Esther
• first five pages of a middle grade or young adult novel (up to 1250 words) by Jeanne Marie
• poetry (up to thirty lines, 12-point font)--this can be in one poem or several poems, critiqued by April 
• middle grade short story (up to 1000 words) critiqued by Carmela  

Since the manuscripts will be submitted via email, for the first time, this giveaway will be open to all our readers worldwide. However, be sure to read the rules below carefully before entering:

• This giveaway is for our readers. Therefore, to qualify, you must follow us via Google Friend connect, Facebook/Networked Blogs, or as an email subscriber. If you are not already a follower, subscribe via one of the links in the sidebar before you enter. (We will verify that you're a follower!)
• Post a comment saying how you follow us for one entry. Please indicate which type of critique you'd like to win, too.
• You may receive one bonus entry by helping to spread the word about this giveaway via a blog post, Tweet, or Facebook link. As proof, you must post a second comment containing a link to your blog post, Twitter address, or Facebook wall. (Feel free to copy the above blogiversary image to your blog.)
• No more than two entries per person. All entries must be as comments to today's post.
• Entry deadline is 11 pm (CST) Tuesday, May 4, 2010.
• The winner will be determined using the random number generator at Random.org, and will be announced some time Wednesday, May 5.  (It may be late in the day, as I'll be "out and about" at a school visit that morning.)

If you'd like to read about our qualifications before choosing your critique, see our "About Us" page.

Please note: your manuscript must be formatted in the same way you would to submit it to an editor or agent: in a standard 12-point font on 8 1/2 x 11" paper with one inch margins. For more on manuscript format, see this article. The appropriate TeachingAuthor will contact the winner via email regarding the submission procedure.

Important: Feedback and comments to the winner from the TeachingAuthor cannot be used as an endorsement in any way.

Hmm. I hope I haven't left out anything important. In case I did, feel free to ask questions in your comments. Good luck to all!

And if you missed yesterday's post, please take a moment to read it and give us some feedback on how we can make our blog even better in the year ahead.

Happy Earth Day and happy writing!
Carmela