Children’s Writing Web Journal

One of my great realizations from last weekend’s Kidlitosphere 2008 conference was that the future belongs to those who band together.  There’s simply too much clutter and background noise for individual authors to make a big splash on their own.  We need to collaborate.

Enter the group blog.

Writers, illustrators, agents, booksellers, librarians, readers — anyone with an interest in children’s literature — are working together to present multi-author blogs that are gathering plenty of attention.  These blogs work because they multiply the promotional power of having multiple authors, reduce the workload for each author and do better at attracting readers who are seeking a “big picture” approach about a particular topic.

You can group together with other bloggers to develop a group blog based around genre of books you write, where you live, where you went to school, common subject matter - or just about anything else.

Here are a few of the top group blogs in kidslit to get your creative juices flowing:

The Longstockings

Readergirlz

Class of 2k8

Disco Mermaids

Edge of the Forest

Guys LitWire

PS:  Wanna collaborate on a group blog?  We’re all ears.  Drop us an e-mail at mail@write4kids.com

Nancy Werlin’s new YA novel Impossible is already creating lots of positive buzz.  To learn a bit more about this talented author, have a look at this excellent interview by Carlie Webber of the Librarilly Blonde blog:

http://blogs.bccls.org/carlie/index.php?/archives/157-Interview-Nancy-Werlin-and-her-Impossible-talent.html

To read Carlie’s review of the book, visit:

http://blogs.bccls.org/carlie/index.php?/archives/77-Its-Impossible-not-to-love-this-book..html

From “Weekend Edition”, author Lauren Child talks about her latest book, Clarice Bean, Don’t Look Now, her “Charlie and Lola” books and their television spinoff.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93906369&ft=1&f=1038

As we celebrated the recent 18th Anniversary of the Children’s Book Insider newsletter, we took the opportunity to look back at some of the many author interviews we’ve presented.  What caught our eye was some of the priceless advice these authors shared with our readers.

Here are two quick — but powerful — lessons from our archives:

Judy Blume on writing from the heart (August 1990):

What happened when I first started–as in Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, which is the first book that was really mine–is I was just telling the stories that I knew. I knew what it was like to be in sixth grade, and to be in Margaret’s body, because that was my body. Slow growing, slow to develop….So that’s what I wrote about, because it wasn’t there for me when I was young. I didn’t know if anyone would publish it, but it was from the heart. The only thing that works with writing is that you care so passionately about it yourself, that you make someone else care passionately about it. Books that are written to order are awful. It can’t work. Children will see through that and they won’t read it. (more…)

The Just One More Book site has a new podcast up, featuring an interview with author Henrik Drescher. Drescher’s credits include Turbulence: A Log Book, Simon’s Book, Hubert the Pudge: A Vegetarian Tale and McFig and McFly: A Tale of Jealousy, Revenge and Death (with a Happy Ending).

Drescher is a skilled and compelling artist, and I suggest a visit to his site — http://www.hdrescher.com/ — as a complement to the interview.  You can find the podcast at http://www.justonemorebook.com/2008/06/16/interview-with-henrik-drescher/

J.K. Rowling was the commencement speaker at Harvard, and she gave a lovely speech. To view it in its entirely, or to read the transcript, visit http://harvardmagazine.com/go/jkrowling.html

Canadian YA (young adult) Sci-Fi/Fantasy Author Simon Rose is profiled in this excellent interview on Carma’s Window (a very useful blog, BTW).

Have a look at:

http://carmaswindow.blogspot.com/2008/05/author-interview-simon-rose.html