I will be there, and presenting a workshop! More information to follow.

This Wednesday October 28 at 7 p.m., I’ll be presenting a workshop for writers and illustrators at the Barnes & Noble in Manchester, Connecticut with fabulous writer and editor Doe Boyle, and Donita Aruny from the Shoreline Arts Alliance. We’ll discuss writing and illustrating children’s books and give helpful information about the annual Tassy Walden Awards: New Voices In Children’s Literature.

Drop in and say hello!

This Saturday May 16, I will be at the Hudson Children’s Book Festival at the Hudson Middle School in Hudson, New York with over 50 authors and illustrators. From noon to 12:30, I’ll be presenting a workshop entitled “How Many Times Did You Write That Book?” and talk about going from a draft to publication.

The Festival promises to be a lot of fun. Admission is free. You can check out all the authors and illustrators who will be there, as well as the schedule of events. Hope to see you there!

On Saturday April 25, I gave a workshop at the New England SCBWI conference in Nashua, New Hampshire titled “Dealing With White Default.” In the workshop I discussed ways in which to bring to life characters from many different cultures. It’s not complicated: make each character real. That isn’t to say that it’s easy — making any fictional character come to life is work. Hard work. But it’s entirely doable.

At some point I’ll summarize my talk and post it. In the meantime, I gave a hand-out during the presentation which I’ve uploaded (with minor changes, plus links) onto my website. You can see it here.

The conference, by the way, was terrific! The folks at NESCBWI know how to put on a great event.

I’m visiting beautiful Minneapolis and St. Paul in the next few days. If you’d like to say hello, I’ll be doing a book signing at Auntie Em’s Bookstore on Saturday April 19 from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

Hope to see you there!

Karen L. Day and I had a great visit at the Edith Wheeler Memorial Library in Monroe, Connecticut today. We received a warm welcome and had some interesting questions from the audience.

One of my favorites was from a mother: whenever her daughter writes an essay for her teacher, it comes back with lots of notes for corrections. Her daughter always corrects as directed, but when can or should she question those directions?

The answer Karen and I gave was twofold.

First, the teacher is teaching the rules of writing. A writer will break those rules, but on purpose, for a purpose — to create something deliberate with the piece. But before a writer can break those rules s/he has to know them. At school, the teacher’s job is to make sure a student learns the rules — which is what all those corrections are about.

A professional writer also gets corrections and directions from editors. Writers will correct as directed, but they will also build what Karen called “the internal editor.” The job of the internal editor is to have a clear sense of how the writer wants the writing to sound (the “voice” of the story). And sometimes that internal editor will trump the editor’s call.

So if you’re a kid, how do you build this internal editor?

Read, a whole lot, to see what kind of writing you like. Then write, a whole lot, and experiment with breaking those rules. But maybe not at school. ‘Cause you still have to…

Just a reminder that on Monday April 14, at 2:00 p.m., I’ll be appearing with fellow author Karen L. Day at the Edith Wheeler Memorial Library. Hope to see you there!

It’s pretty outside. Large flakes thickly carpet the ground, the trees, the road. And there’s the rub — it’s also very slippery. So the Edith Wheeler Memorial Library had to cancel my presentation today with Karen Day. Bummer.

But don’t worry. We’ll reschedule. In the meantime, back to work!