Children’s Writing 101 with MWPA: Blog and Retreat Links

Last Saturday I presented the workshop “The Business of Children’s Writing 101” with the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. We had a cozy class which allowed the participants to get some great one on one attention as they crafted their elevator pitches and queries in advance of the New England SCBWI spring conference. We discussed the journey of a book from manuscript to publication, defined Midlist, and learned not to defend our work in a critique. We even got to have a mini-workshop for those who had brought picture book manuscripts.

The afternoon brought a web hunt of great kidlit blogs, social media, and kidlit community events that I’ve listed below.

Most important—we discussed that craft comes first and that if you have trouble with your pitch or query it often means that your manuscript is not quite ready for prime time.

If you missed this class and would like MWPA offer this or other kidlit workshops again, please contact Josh Bodwell, Director of MWPA. Happy writing!

A Few Great Blogs:

Through the Tollbooth: VCFA students who do in depth pieces on craft.

Lynda Mullaly Hunt, Be Someone’s Hero, No Cape Required: Specific connections with literacy, student success, and educators.

Cynthia Leitich Smith, Cynsations: Clearing house of amazing info from the industry including guest bloggers.

Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast: In depth illustrations and illustrators, process, production, and more.

Jama Rattigan, Alphabet Soup: Reviews of food-based books, poetry.

Ingrid Sundberg: Great posts about story structure, screenwriting, and plot.

Pub(lishing) Crawl: Group of authors and industry professionals posting about craft and business.

A Few Great Kidlit Retreats/Resources:

Highlights Founders Workshops

The Writing Barn

Vermont College of Fine Arts

Falling Leaves/Green Leaves from SCBWI Eastern NY

Rutgers One on One

Picture Book Boot Camp with Jane Yolen

SCBWI

A Thursday Ramble

I just finished 50 pages of revision which is a pretty great work run for me. I’ve been having such a hard time sustaining the revision. Once I’ve merged onto the internet super highway I can’t stop myself from checking out Facebook and the super good news everyone posts (hooray!) that often makes me feel like gum on the bottom of a shoe (aw!). (An interjection starts a sentence right.)

My usual course of action is to take the dog for a walk and come back refreshed which I have tried, but I’m so sick of the cold. Yesterday we got a hit of 37 wonderful degrees. People came out of their houses wearing their smiles and their short sleeves. Yes folks, 37 degrees is all it takes to make winter-weary Mainers strip. However, the heat wave was over before it really started. Today we are back in the 20’s and the wind whipped a string of curses from my lips.

Too, with all this snow pack, I know we are up for the longest mud season ever. I shouldn’t be cranky. I’ve enjoyed snow shoeing and skate skiing for lo these many months. I’m just ready to be warm and ready to take out the bike instead.

I’m happy to say that I’ve been hired to plan Maine Share’s annual event. If you aren’t familiar with the nonprofit organization, they are Maine’s statewide payroll donation program (similar to the United Way) for forty amazing groups that focus on economic development, education, the arts, and social justice. I’m excited to bring a creative concept to the event and up the fun-factor on what is often the obligatory rubber chicken dinner. More later about the exciting concept!

If you are a teacher who loves poetry, I urge you to register your classroom to participate in the March Poetry Madness contest at Think Kid Think. Your students will discuss and vote on regular poetry match ups between fabulous poets. Sadly, I will not be participating this year but there were a record number of applicants.

I have a lot to look forward to…a novel retreat weekend at VCFA, time with dear friends, and some time at Kripalu that I won in a United Way auction. Hooray, yoga and vegetarian gourmet cooked for me!

Spring (ha!) is also full of kid events. My older son is the lead in the local high school production of Legally Blonde and younger son is in it as well with a solo and some lines. Leave me a comment if you’d like to know more about tickets!

Baseball season will start the week after the show and older son is being called for pitcher’s week. I’m supper excited for him.

How does one end a ramble?

With a cute dog of course. Lucy says, “Take me for a walk.”

Yoga, poetry, a writing retreat and school/library bookings. Phew!

The last two weeks have been jam packed. This blog is my attempt to explain.

Ahhh… Princess Bride as a metaphor for life.

Okay so summing up:

Last week I went to Kripalu Yoga & Health Center. It was a safe and supported space for my newly-returned-from-deployment husband and I to reconnect.
At the same time, I was deep into Rounds 1 & 2 of the ThinkKidThink.com March Madness Poetry Contest. I’m only disappointed that more people didn’t like my Miss Trumpet poem because I loved it so much. (reprinted below)
From Kripalu, I went to visit with my dear friend and author Meg Wiviott. I was able to revise a few picture books and get some perspective on life.
From Meg’s I went to VCFA for the Novel Writing Retreat. (Deb Michiko Florence is doing a great summary of that on her blog. Check it out.) At the retreat, I met wonderful people, got helpful (and positive) feedback on two novels. Right now, I’m trying to get amped up for another round of revisions on my crew novel.
All this time, I have been building a new business as a school and library booking agent!!! More about this soon but if you are a teacher, librarian, or conference planner I hope you’ll bookmark my site.

For those of you who might have missed my poetry, I’ve posted Miss Trumpet below. Happy Poetry Friday and keep voting over at ThinkKidThink. We are closing in on the final four (without preempting your favorite TV shows.)

Miss Trumpet
By Anna J. Boll

When the jazzy band, plays its jazzy jam
Miss Trumpet steals the show.
She slinks in, buttons down her back,
slender,
shiny.
With a wink she says, “Let my brass gown
glint,
in your eyes.
Let me skip you, trip you, Biddley-bop you, through meadows
Let me Wa-wa you, rock you low, slow, like a hammock in springtime.”
And when you’re even and easy she plunges you, Zweedley- BAM,
into ice cold waters.

I made it to Round 2, Please Vote!

Dear, Readers. I have be absent but excusably so. I had some unplugged time last week while I traveled from health and yoga retreat, to a friend’s home, to the VCFA writing retreat (More about this later.) It was a week of emotional revelations and rejuvenation but through it all, I wrote poetry!

Yes, the March Madness Poetry Tournament continues and I’m still in the brackets. For round 2 I had the word “jam” and I’m up against, wonderful woman and Highlights editor, Marileta Robinson. What an honor. (She had the word “caricature.”) I hope you’ll take a look at our poems and choose your favorite.

(If you are not a good reader of subtext– I just asked you for your vote.)

Many of the commenters noticed that we both used “jazz” in our poems even though that was not a requirement. If you surf around the site you’ll see that this sort of collective conscious phenomenon happens time and again. Super weird!

Jam vs. Caricature

Please share the link widely on Twitter, Facebook, and blogs. Parents, please share with kids and teachers. Teachers, please share with students and other teachers!

“Retreat!!!”

“Retreat!” The command conjures images of troops scurrying away from an onslaught of bullets, bayonets, and cannonballs. Smoke lifts from the battlefield and casualties lay dead and dying.

Last week I felt like a tired soldier– exhausted, bloody and bruised. Truly, the metaphor is a little dramatic but when I arrived at VCFA for the weekend Alumni Mini Residency, I was stressed, and tired, and well… sad. Not only have I been a geographical single parent since January (my husband is deployed with the US Navy) but six weeks ago, I sent my other love, my YA manuscript, out into the world of literary agents and it has been met with an ear-splitting silence. (BTW: No response as a decline is neither courteous nor professional but that has already been hashed and rehashed. Argh.)

Throughout the weekend, the energy and love of friends helped me shed my sadness. I gave and got plenty of hugs, took copious notes at lectures and workshop, and spent way too much money on dinners. Then came the retreat.

Four days of relaxation and writing at an 1828 farmhouse in Sheffield, Massachusetts. A day in the life? We all woke at our own pace. We flipped open laptops and got to work– some writing, some revising, some emailing, some reading. The work was punctuated with laughter, conversation, and questions: “So in the subjunctive…” or “How would a thirteen year old say…” or “Hey, the stuff I wrote yesterday isn’t half bad!” Writer’s bliss.

Garden at Sheffield — Lovely kitchen garden with busy hummingbirds and chipmunk visitors.

Because we all pitched in on meals and clean-up, the place felt like home even though it looked like a high-scale B&B. When things got particularly hot and humid, and the fans weren’t doing their job, we went swimming or took guilt-free naps. (Naps, by the way, are crucial to the creative process. More on this later.)

Coming home, I realized that my shoulders had dropped about four inches of tension. I was happy, relaxed and rejuvenated– ready to face another round of agent submissions and to welcome my children home from sleep-away camp.

Weekend Away

Last night I went to my crit group. During the check in I told them about my great weekend away with my bookclub. “You went away for two weekends in a row?” asked my friend Katie. “No, there was a weekend in between,” I explained. But I didn’t need to defend myself and I don’t feel guilty at all. I always look forward to friends, networking, and learning at the NESCBWI conference. This past weekend was all about relaxing. I ate great food, napped when I wanted to, read without feeling guilty, painted, listened to the thunderstorms rumble off the New Hampshire mountains and enjoyed the ideas, musings, and feelings of good friends. Here’s hoping that June will be a productive month and that summer weather comes soon.

Top: Ellen, Tracy, Katherine, Rachel Bottom: Kim, Me, Penny

Here is my Chocura Mountain painting. (acryllic) It was so amazing to watch it evolve, layer by layer. I’d paint. I’d rest. I’d paint. I’d stop and talk. I’d paint. Fun, fun, fun. I don’t usually work with color on canvas and found myself loving the size and the process, and the big arm motions involved.

Bookclub Retreat

Since everyone is at BEA, noone will even read this but I get a mini retreat this weekend with my bookclub. This means we will:
1. Discuss our husbands and children
2. Drink red wine and margaritas
3. Discuss number one again but not so nicely
4. Eat
5. Go for walks, do yoga on the deck, other active pursuits
6. Eat
7. Drink more red wine and margaritas
8. Hopefull draw and paint as I am bringing my art bin and two blank canvases. (I know, a little ambitious but I can dream.)
9. Eat
10 Discuss the book, Geraldine Brooks, A Year of Wonder. (amazing book)