Hunger Mountain, 2012 Submission Calls PLUS The Opening of The Writing Barn

It officially has only been fall for a few days (though the temps in Austin are still 100) but things have been busy on this end. The Writing Barn is soon to open and as YA and Children's Editor of Hunger Mountain, I wanted to let all readers know about our 2012 Submissions Needs.

Hunger Mountain Submissions Call

The Hunger Mountain Children’s & YA page continues to showcase the best and brightest in children’s literature, from new voices to award-winners. We spotlight industry issues as they happen and create a dialogue between writer, reader, librarian, parent, and all interested in kid-lit. 

 *We are also interested in sneak-peaks into new books coming out, deleted chapters from books, short stories, etc.* Hunger Mountain buys first world serial rights and upon publication, the rights revert back to the contributor.  For sneak-peaks, publisher and rights department approval is needed. 

For those interested in submitting, please visit the Hunger Mountain submissions page.

Jan-March 2012

The Mystery & Magic of Identity

Hunger Mountain is actively seeking submissions for the Winter 2012 issue The Mystery and Magic of Identity. We are looking for essays, fiction, poetry, non-fiction and humor that touch on the themes of identity—gender, sexual, ethnic, privilege, author branding, online identity, explorations of self, along with the mystery and magic of world building in fantasy and novels that deal with time travel. For picture books—identity issues as a child, sibling relationships, the magic of word choice, the mystery of the page turn etc.

April-June 2012

The Landscape of Literature

Hunger Mountain is actively seeking submissions for the Spring 2012 issue, The Landscape of Literature. We are looking for essays, fiction, poetry, non-fiction and humor touching on the importance of setting, place, regionally distinct pieces (Not just Southern), use of dialect, heritage—literary heritage as well as author’s heritage, where historical novels now fit, illustrators incorporating setting details in their work, setting as character,  from YA, MG and PB contributors.

Along with our features, each issue we would like to include one or two essays for our regular columns:

The Flipside—two authors various take on one issue.

This Writer’s Life—essays on and about the writer’s life.

INKlings—essays on and about the illustrator’s life and/or techniques.

In Response—an essay adding to or commenting on the conversation from the prior HM issue.

The Toolbox—craft based essays on a variety of topics.

What My Last Book Taught Me—A short essay on what the author’s last book taught them.

New Work—fiction, poetry, short stories, opening chapters of WIP, etc.

Please see our most current issue here: http://www.hungermtn.org/young-adults-and-childrens-literature/

Do not miss the Art & Insanity of Creativity fall issue which will launch later this month.

Do not miss content from the Hunger Mountain C&YA Archives, some highlights include:

Young Adult and Children’s Literature

• Anderson, E. Kristin…Topography (poem) (Spring 2010)
• Anderson, Jessica Lee…Finding Bigfoot (MG Novel Excerpt) (Spring 2010)
• Appelt, Kathi…Blurring the Lines (Winter 2009)
• Atkins, Jeannine…Scrap by Scrap: Turning History into Poems (Spring 2010)
• Auseon, Andrew…The Kid Stays in the Pictures(Summer 2009)
• Brosnan, Rosemary…Missing Norma (Winter 2009)
• Cupala, Holly…Tell Me a Secret (YA Novel Sneak Peek) (Spring 2010)
• Davis, Tanita…Reflected Faces (Spring 2010)
• Dionne, Erin…Contemporary Cinderella: Inner Changes and Transformation Make a Modern Princess (Winter 2009)
• Fagan, Deva…Proactive Princess: Re-Imagining the Fairy Tale (Winter 2009)
• Jahn-Clough, Lisa…So You Want to Write about Sex? (Winter 2009)
• Jones, Carrie…Hunting Bigfoot: Why I Write Fantasy (Summer 2009)
• Knowles, Jo…Helping Inmates Find Their Truth: Using Writing Prompts to Explore Personal Journeys (Spring 2010)
• Lewis, J. Patrick…Can Children’s Poetry Matter? (Winter 2009)
• Mazer, Anne…My Mother, the Writer (Winter 2009)
• Millward, Carol Larese…Star in the Middle (YA excerpt) (Winter 2009)
• Neri, G.…Wahoo! The Incredible Adventures of Chief Wahoo McDaniel: Wrestling Superstar (Summer 2009)
• Neri, G.…Creating The Book: How To Hook Urban (non)Readers (Summer 2009)
• Neri, G.…The Run (YA)(Winter 2009)
• Nuzum, K.A.…Damn it, Jim. I’m a Writer, Not a Paleontologist (Summer 2009)
• Nye, Naomi Shihab…Maximum Security (a poem) (Spring 2010)
• Paterson, Katherine…Fellow Travelers (Summer 2009)
• Patron, Susan…A Lucky Break (Summer 2009)
• Perkins, Mitali…Teens Do Judge a Book by the Cover (Spring 2010)
• Wiles, Deborah…Speaking Through the Veil (Winter 2009)
• Stein, David Ezra…The Making of Pouch (Winter 2009)
• Teplick, Anne…The Quieter We Become, the More We Are Able to Hear: Writing with Teens in a Psychiatric Hospital (Spring 2010)
• Williams-Garcia, Rita…Warning: Characters May Appear as They Are or Why I Write “Realistic” Fiction (Summer 2009)
• Wong, Janet S.…The Poet’s Process (Summer 2009)
• Wynne-Jones, Tim…The Uninvited (YA Novel Excerpt) (Summer 2009)
• Zarr, Sara…Hold On Loosely (Summer 2009)

Interviews

• Corcoran, Jill…Literary Agent Jill Corcoran in conversation with Hunger Mountain YA/Children’s Lit editor Bethany Hegedus (Summer 2009)
• LaReau, Kara…Flying Solo: Editor of Bluebird in conversation with Hunger Mountain YA/Children’s Lit editor Bethany Hegedus (Summer 2009)
• McVeigh, Mark…Literary Agent Mark McVeigh in conversation with Hunger Mountain YA/Children’s Lit editor Kekla Magoon (Summer 2009)
• Smith, Cynthia Leitich…New York Times Bestselling Author of Eternal in conversation with Hunger Mountain editor Bethany Hegedus (Winter 2009)

And in Writing Barn News!

A bit about the barn...

The Writing Barn, a writing retreat and book launch party space is available for rental in S. Austin. Operated by author Bethany Hegedus, The Writing Barn, which features floor to ceiling book shelves, cozy loft, large covered porch, free wifi, spacious bedroom with queen-sized-bed, half bath, and kitchenette, is a haven for all book lovers.  For more information visit: The Writing Barn (web site under construction) and/or email bahegedus at gmail.com for rates and availability.

The Barn's FIRST Event... October 16th, 2-4 pm. 

Please join Jeff Crosby & Shelley Jackson to celebrate the release of their newest children's picture book, HARNESS HORSES, BUCKING BRONCOS & PIT PONIES: A HISTORY OF HORSE BREEDS!

Minis and Friends, a charitable organization that benefits disabled children, will be at the event with live miniature horses to pet. Original art from the book will be on display, prints will be for sale, and copies of HARNESS HORSES will be available for purchase and to get autographed. We'll also have snacks, horsey games and more!
  

This event is open to the public. The Writing Barn is located at 10202 Wommack Road in Austin. Parking will be available inside the property and overflow parking is available on Riddle Road and Wommack Road.

 

It's sure to be a fun event for horse lovers, book lovers, and art lovers of all ages!

Inside the Writer's Studio with Uma Krishnaswami

It is my Grand Pleasure to welcome author Uma Krishnaswami to Inside the Writer’s Studio today. Uma began teaching at VCFA after I graduated but the thing about VCFA is its arms reach far out into the writing world. You don’t have to physically be there to be considered family. And, I am honored to be part of the VCFA family with the talented Uma. (And as yesterday was Oprah’s last show I have to make the Letterman joke. Uma—Oprah. Oprah—Uma. THIS is the Uma Oprah should meet.) Recently, Uma Krishnaswami led a craft class at the YA A to Z Conference and I led a Q &A with Uma about the book she is here to talk about today, The Grand Plan to Fix Everything. This inventive book has also been racking up some Grand (aka *starred* ) reviews. 

The Grand Plan to Fix Everything

Hooray for Bollywood. Eleven-year-old Dini is not pleased at all at the prospect of leaving Takoma Park, Md., and her best friend Maddie to live in a small town in southern India for two years. But though she knows it’s ridiculous, bakvaas, as Indians say, she wonders if she might get to meet her idol, Dolly Singh, Bollywood film star. Dini and Maddie are devoted Dolly fans. And, in a series of events as wonderfully convoluted and satisfyingly resolved as any movie plot could be, she does. The fast-paced tale introduces and manages to connect an Indian-American family, a postal worker from Mumbai, a movie producer and his erratic star, a car mechanic, a tea plantation owner, a local baker and assorted monkeys—all coming together for a grand finale party and dance. Set in imagined Swapnagiri (which means Dream Mountain), this high-energy concoction is thoroughly believable and entertaining. The story is told in a third-person present-tense voice that rings true to its protagonist, who sees her life as a movie script. Though Dini and Maddie are halfway around the world from each other, they communicate through cell phones and computer chat, keeping up their friendship while making new ones. Full of references to Bollywood movie traditions and local customs, this is a delightful romp with a fresh setting and a distinctive and appealing main character. - KIRKUS, April 1, 2011, *STAR

The Grand Plan to Fix Everything

Krishnaswami perfectly captures movie-star infatuation, best-friendship, geographical displacement, and youthful determination in this exuberant blend of American tween life and Indian village culture. When 11-year-old Dini's physician mother gets a grant to work at a clinic in the tiny village of Swapnagiri in India, Dini is plucked out of her contented life in suburban Maryland. Distraught about abandoning her BFF Maddie--who truly understands Dini's passion for Indian movie-star Dolly Singh--and their plans to attend Bollywood dance camp, she nevertheless remains optimistic as she tries to plot her new life, and those of the people she meets, as a screenplay. Krishnaswami (Naming Maya) interlaces Dini's story with lighthearted portrayals of the Indian film industry and postal system; she neatly and satisfactorily resolves every dilemma, suggesting elements of magic ("[W]hen you are moving... to a place whose name means ‘dream mountain,' your mind begins to open up in strange ways") while remaining firmly grounded in reality. An out-of-the-ordinary setting, a distinctive middle-grade character with an unusual passion, and the pace of a lively Bollywood "fillum" make this novel a delight.

--Publishers Weekly, April 4, 2011, *STAR

Let us welcome Uma. Now, on to the interview…

Is there a story behind the story that you wish to share? (i.e.: the ah-ha or lightning moment where the story inspiration struck.)

I’m the slow cooker in the story kitchen, so my work always progresses through very long simmering rather than dramatic lightning moments. I take things that happen to me and places where I’ve been, and then slowly, slowly work them into fiction. “How slowly?” you may ask. I will tell you that there is a house named Sunny Villa in The Grand Plan to Fix Everything. The tea estate in the book is named for the house. It’s the place where our star-struck young heroine Dini ends up, and the place where she plans to track down the movie star she admires, so she can fix…you, know, eveyrthing. Well, when I was just a baby (in the last century) my parents lived in a house in these very mountains in south India. A house with a name—you guessed it, Sunny Villa. 

Here it is, this house from my childhood, and it is the house in the story, in a town much like the town in the story. It took me all of five years of trying to get at this story from many, many angles before I realized that this house needed to be in it, and that its red walls and blinking eyelash shutters were telling me something and I had better pay attention. It's a muddled, tedious way of constructing story but it's my way. 

Theme can be seen as a dirty word but as writers I believe we all have something to say, something we want to share with the world. What is that something for you?

 I think it’s the concept of home, and of geographies that overlap and criss-cross in maddening, mysterious ways to create that concept in the heart. I find myself returning to this idea again and again, whether it’s a picture book about a boy waiting for his adopted baby sister to arrive (Bringing Asha Home) or a child’s-eye view of the rain (Monsoon) or, as in The Grand Plan to Fix Everything, friendships that survive and thrive in spite of, or sometimes, in very crazy ways, because of, the vast distances that separate the friends as well as their own often quite muddled internal sense of place. It’s funny stuff, in The Grand Plan to Fix Everything, but it also has a layer of reality to it that I think many children in our fast-paced shrinking world will recognize.

 How important is voice in your work? How does “voice” come to you?

 I'll answer that by talking about this book in particular. Is it true of everything I write? I don't know. But voice was essential to this story finding its form. The story of Dini, and Dolly the movie star, hung around in my files and notebooks for a couple of years, looking for a voice. It wasn't until a passage about the town arrived in my mind, almost exactly the way it is now, that the voice kicked in, and it was only then that the story began to move forward. It's a slightly loony voice, with a definite omniscience to it. It asserts itself in varying degrees in the scenes with the girls and the eccentric adult characters in the book. It's the voice that links all the various storylines that come together in the end. It is critical to the book. As to where it came from, I think perhaps it grew out of books I read when I was 12 and 13: P.G.Wodehouse, Paul Gallico, and the Don Camillo stories by Giovanni Guareschi. All their story voices poured into my mind long ago, and emerged in some sort of mad fusion in the voice of this book. 

I am keen on examining structure. A favorite quote of mine goes something like this: “We only look at a poorly formed story and call it formula. Structure is the art that conceals itself.” How important is structure to you and what are some techniques that help you build a story?

My quests for voice and structure run parallel to each other forever, and when they begin to converge, I know I'm onto something. I wish I could figure out structure first in some logical way, but I can't, so I have to settle for circling around the story, sometimes for a year or two, before I begin to know the characters enough to understand what's likely to happen to them. In the case of The Grand Plan to Fix Everything, once I had the voice I knew that the story needed to rotate among several micro-settings in which a host of characters are all inching towards each other with Dini desperately trying to corral everyone into cooperation. And once I realized that Dini would see her own life playing out as one of the Bollywood "fillums" she adores, that's when I knew how not only this book but also its sequel (due out next year) would need to be structured. Techniques? I do the usual things--timelines and maps and notes off the page, but I'm terrible at most of them. Still, they're not the art form, the novel is, so I don't sweat it. I just do my best to pay attention to my characters and to the places in which they're moving through time. 

Do you have a favorite craft book? If so, what is it? And what is your favorite take away?

I think Ursula LeGuin's Steering the Craft is my best-thumbed craft book. "An Opinion Piece on Paragraphing" where she dismisses all "rules" about the desired lengths of paragraphs, is just one of my favorite passages. But here's a book that is not really a how-to book but it's just incredible reading. It's Six Memos for the Next Millennium by Italo Calvino. I've read it so often that my copy pops open to pages I particularly love, and there are so many of them that when it's not tidily on the shelf, the book splays permanently open, fanning out to several dozen places just for me.

Describe your main character's favorite meal? And why does she love it?

Dini, in The Grand Plan, eats at a bakery in the little hill town of Swapnagiri, and acquires a taste for curry puffs: pastry crust stuffed with potatoes and onions, and another secret ingredient that you have to read the book to identify. The curry puffs are paired with a luscious chocolate cake and rose-petal milkshake, with or without chocolate sprinkles. My big fear is that someone will ask me for a recipe for those curry puffs, and I have honestly never, ever tried them with that secret ingredient. But I am sure they are quite wonderful and the moment I make them, all my fears will completely vanish and I can make grand plans to fix anything at all. 

In ode to Maebelle, the main character in my new book Truth with a Capital T, who keeps a book of little known facts about just about everything, please share a wacky piece of trivia that has stuck with you or please share a little known fact about YOU.

 

About me? I am addicted to dried mango. The unsulphured, organic kind. Why didn't I make that the secret ingredient? Oh, I am kicking myself but it's too late.

 Do Not Miss

A Grand Giveaway! Three lucky Grand Prize winners will each receive one copy of THE GRAND PLAN TO FIX EVERYTHING along with a starry assortment of bangles and trinkets that Dolly Singh, famous famous Bollywood movie star, would adore! An additional 3 runners-up will receive a copy of THE GRAND PLAN TO FIX EVERYTHING. To enter, send an e-mail to GrandPlanGiveaway@gmail.com. In the body of the e-mail, include your name, mailing address, and e-mail address (if you're under 13, submit a parent's name and e-mail address). One entry per person and prizes will only be shipped to US or Canadian addresses. Entries must be received by midnight (PDT) on 6/30/11. Winners will be selected in a random drawing on 7/1/11 and notified via email.

Today is VCFA Day on Uma’s Grand Plan Tour. Check out other interviews with Uma with Kathi Appelt, Michelle Knudsen, and Sarah Johnson. Thanks Uma for being with us and look for an essay about the art (& insanity) of teaching writing penned by Uma that will appear in the fall issue of Hunger Mountain.

The Beginning: Or as Nike Advertises: Just Do It.

 The Art & Insanity of Creativity is the theme for the fall issue of Hunger Mountain, so here on my blog, I am going to spend May and June reading and thinking about art: how we create it, why we create it, and what are the blocks (fears, worries, concerns) that stand in our way. 

I am a new reader of the seminal book Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles & Ted Orland. How and why I never picked up this book before a few months back, I don’t know; but I am a firm believer that when the time is right the book will find me. Or perhaps when I am ready I will find the book.  So here I sit with Art & Fear in hand.

The opening of Art & Fear outlines a few assumptions about the artistic life. These are creeds I wholeheartedly believe in:

1.       Artmaking involves skills that can be learned.

Ah, so going to grad school to learn story structure had a point.  So does the building of the Writing Barn where I will soon be teaching and inviting other novelists to come share their work and wisdom.  So does the reading of blogs and writing my Reading Like a Writer essays.  Writing is a constant and consistent study and the study yields constant and consistent rewards.

2.       Art is made by ordinary people.

Oh, I love this one. It reminds me of the Anne Lamott quote, “Plumbers don’t get plumbers block.” The ordinary is extraordinary. That is what observation, which all art making involves, is.

3.       Making art and viewing art are different at their core.

So, this is why “to all viewers but yourself, what matters is the product: the finished artwork. To you, and you alone, what matters is the process : the experience of shaping that artwork. “ And Bayles and Orland even go on to add, “The function of the overwhelming majority of your artwork is simply to teach you how to make the small fraction of your  artwork that soars.” 

I agree. I throw away pages, I do major revisions, I turn picture books into novels and I take my time—ten years from inception of idea to the “final product” of a book is not uncommon for me and it is also not something I am ashamed of. Art takes it’s time. Even when I forget and I want to rush and just get it done and off my plate so I can move on to the next thing or have the semi-momentary feeling of acceptance surge though my veins art is there always to remind me:  take your time, don’t rush, go deeper, be more honest, did you hit the wall yet?, did you breakthrough? Did you learn something new?  Did you allow yourself to where you needed to be?—angry, distraught, frustrated, hopeful, encouraged, devastated. Process is about processing and process is introspective, alarming, uncomfortable but it is ultimately freeing. 

4.       Artmaking has been around longer than the art establishment.

This is why in the Passion for the Picture Book piece that I did for Hunger Mountain has two wonderful writers, and wonderful friends—Kathi Appelt and Cynthia Leitich Smith—going back to the cave paintings as the beginnings of where art and text began to merge to tell one whole new  and newly complete story.

Beginning with the drawings on cave walls, humans have been pairing story and art for as long as we’ve been standing upright.  When we read a picture book in its current form, a “package” of illustrated pages and text, bound between covers, we’re experiencing not only the story in front of us, but we’re also sharing that long human legacy of storytelling that includes two dimensional art.

Kathi Appelt

We all begin with the language of images. We all began that way as babes in arms. We all began that way as members of the human family, starting with the earliest cave drawings. Perhaps even before those. The picture book builds on that early, almost instinctive, visual literacy and fosters our vocabulary, introduces concepts, and nurtures emotional bandwidth. Moreover, the picture book does all this while entertaining, informing, and delighting readers of all ages.

Cynthia Leitich Smith

I loved reading these two quotes from those two fine writers and seeing the similarities there—that both reinforce that art began before the art establishment did whose intention is to judge, to quantify, to declare something “dead” or “over.” Artmaking for the sake of self-expression (an essential component to sanity) is reason enough. It is where all art begins.

Hunger Mountain, Young Adult & Children's--Submission Call

Calling Children’s Authors and Illustrators

2011 Submissions Needs for Hunger Mountain Young Adult and Children’s page.

The Hunger Mountain Children’s and YA page is now going to be rolling content, updating the site with new work every few weeks. We will still have themed issues. The next two issues themes are below.
*Also interested in sneak-peaks into new books coming out, deleted chapters from books, short stories, etc.* Hunger Mountain buys first world serial rights and upon publication, the rights revert back to the contributor. For sneak-peaks, publisher and rights department approval is needed.

May-Sept 2011

The Varying Shades of Shadows

We would love to see pieces that play with light and darkness (figuratively and literally), a fabulous piece with an unreliable narrator (or on the delicate balance of writing an unreliable narrator), or pieces where secondary characters are shaded so well that they not only support the main character but truly help flesh out the work. 

*Please note, I am looking to do more with illustrators and will be debuting a Inside the Illustrator’s Studio column—taking an inside look via photos at a WIP by an illustrator. We are featuring Don Tate in the column premiere.

Sept-December 2011

The Art (and Insanity) of Creativity

We will be looking for pieces to address: tapping in to your inner artist, what we do artistically outside of our writing/illustrating to keep creative, the joys and pitfalls of leading a creative life, can writing be taught?, the elusiveness of artistry, hitting the creative wall and breaking through, the sacrifices (time, sleep, television) we make to get the work done, etc. 

Along with our features, each issue we would like to include one or two essays for our regular columns:


The Flipside—two authors various take on one issue.
This Writer’s Life—essays on and about the writer’s life.
INKlings—essays on and about the illustrator’s life and/or techniques.
In Response—an essay adding to or commenting on the conversation from the prior HM issue.
The Toolbox—craft based essays on a variety of topics.
What My Last Book Taught Me—A short essay on what the author’s last book taught them.
New Work—fiction, poetry, short stories, opening chapters of WIP, etc. 

If you are a published author or have met me in person, you may email content or pitches for essays/articles to me at bahegedus at gmail.com. If you are a yet-to-be published writer, please submit using the Hunger Mountain online submissions manager. See here for details: http://www.hungermtn.org/submit/

Please feel free to share these submission needs with local SCWBIs and/or other writer organizations in your area. Thank you!

Visit the Hunger Mountain Young Adult and Children's Literature Archives.

• Alamo, Kobbie…Flying For Food (YA Fiction) (Spring 2010)
• Anderson, E. Kristin…Topography (poem) (Spring 2010)
• Anderson, E. Kristin…Grief at Lake Travis (poem) (Spring 2010)
• Anderson, E. Kristin…On a Hot Texas Sunday in Autumn (poem) (Spring 2010)
• Anderson, E. Kristin…The Pendulum and Its Shortcomings (poem) (Spring 2010)
• Anderson, Jessica Lee…Finding Bigfoot (MG Novel Excerpt) (Spring 2010)
• Angelella, J. R.…Alpha House (YA Fiction) (Summer 2009)
• Appelt, Kathi…Blurring the Lines (Winter 2009)
• Atkins, Jeannine…Scrap by Scrap: Turning History into Poems (Spring 2010)
• Auseon, Andrew…The Kid Stays in the Pictures(Summer 2009)
• Babich, Mordena…Beautiful Beast (MG fiction) (Summer 2009)
• Barton, Chris…I’ve Gotta (Not Just) Be Me (Spring 2010)
• Bauer, Marion Dane…Anything Is Possible. Everything Is Possible (Winter 2009)
• Bazzett, Michael…Marley Barbeau (MG Novel Excerpt) (Spring 2010)
• Brooks, Regina…Play by the Rules? (Winter 2009)
• Brosnan, Rosemary…Missing Norma (Winter 2009)
• Chikamatsu, Annie Donwerth…The Clearing (YA Flash Fiction) (Summer 2009)
• Clarke, Pauline…Jumping Rope (Poetry) (Summer 2009)
• Clarke, Pauline…Matching Game (Poetry) (Summer 2009)
• Clarke, Pauline…Darn (Poetry) (Summer 2009)
• Cupala, Holly…Tell Me a Secret (YA Novel Sneak Peek) (Spring 2010)
• Davis, Tanita…Reflected Faces (Spring 2010)
• Demas, Stefanie…Something From You (YA Fiction) (Spring 2010)
• Dionne, Erin…Contemporary Cinderella: Inner Changes and Transformation Make a Modern Princess (Winter 2009)
• Doering, Jennifer…Ping Pong Is Better Than Poetry Because… (poetry) (Summer 2009)
• Doering, Jennifer…Does Future Sound Like Future? (Poetry) (Summer 2009)
• Fagan, Deva…Proactive Princess: Re-Imagining the Fairy Tale (Winter 2009)
• Fink, Mark…The Summer I Got a Life (Winter 2009)
• Hegamin, Tonya Cherie…Over the Edge (MG fiction) (Summer 2009)
• Hegamin, Tonya Cherie …Baby Boxer (Poetry) (Winter 2009)
• Hegamin, Tonya Cherie…Vicarious Traumatization (Poetry) (Winter 2009)
• Hertenstein, Jane…Cloud of Witnesses (YA Novel Excerpt) (Spring 2010)
• Jahn-Clough, Lisa…So You Want to Write about Sex? (Winter 2009)
• Jones, Carrie…Hunting Bigfoot: Why I Write Fantasy (Summer 2009)
• Knowles, Jo…Helping Inmates Find Their Truth: Using Writing Prompts to Explore Personal Journeys (Spring 2010)
• Lewis, J. Patrick…Can Children’s Poetry Matter? (Winter 2009)
• Lurie, April…Organically Grown Thrillers (Spring 2010)
• Mazer, Anne…My Mother, the Writer (Winter 2009)
• Millward, Carol Larese…Star in the Middle (YA excerpt) (Winter 2009)
• Neri, G.…Wahoo! The Incredible Adventures of Chief Wahoo McDaniel: Wrestling Superstar (Summer 2009)
• Neri, G.…Creating The Book: How To Hook Urban (non)Readers (Summer 2009)
• Neri, G.…The Run (YA)(Winter 2009)
• Nuzum, K.A.…Damn it, Jim. I’m a Writer, Not a Paleontologist (Summer 2009)
• Nye, Naomi Shihab…Maximum Security (a poem) (Spring 2010)
• Paterson, Katherine…Fellow Travelers (Summer 2009)
• Patron, Susan…A Lucky Break (Summer 2009)
• Perkins, Mitali…Teens Do Judge a Book by the Cover (Spring 2010)
• Potter, Alicia…A Pretty Fortune? Publishers Make Over Their Lists With Timely “Cosme-Readers”: Humor (Summer 2009)
• Sorenson, Margo…Dark Corridor (YA Novel Excerpt) (Summer 2009)
• Spanos, Cheryl…Bones in the Cellar (YA/MG) (Spring 2010)
• Wiles, Deborah…Speaking Through the Veil (Winter 2009)
• Stein, David Ezra…The Making of Pouch (Winter 2009)
• Teplick, Anne…The Quieter We Become, the More We Are Able to Hear: Writing with Teens in a Psychiatric Hospital (Spring 2010)
• Williams-Garcia, Rita…Warning: Characters May Appear as They Are or Why I Write “Realistic” Fiction (Summer 2009)
• Wingate, Shoshanna…Dear Henry (YA novel excerpt) (Winter 2009)
• Wong, Janet S.…The Poet’s Process (Summer 2009)
• Wynne-Jones, Tim…The Uninvited (YA Novel Excerpt) (Summer 2009)
• Zarr, Sara…Hold On Loosely (Summer 2009)

Interviews

• Bransford, Nathan…Nathan Bransford, Literary Agent with Curtis Brown Ltd., in conversation with Hunger Mountain YA/Children’s Lit editor Bethany Hegedus (Spring 2010)
• Corcoran, Jill…Literary Agent Jill Corcoran in conversation with Hunger Mountain YA/Children’s Lit editor Bethany Hegedus (Summer 2009)
• LaReau, Kara…Flying Solo: Editor of Bluebird in conversation with Hunger Mountain YA/Children’s Lit editor Bethany Hegedus (Summer 2009)
• McGhee, Holly and Emily Van Beek of Pippin Properties…in conversation with Hunger Mountain editor Bethany Hegedus (Winter 2009)
• McVeigh, Mark…Literary Agent Mark McVeigh in conversation with Hunger Mountain YA/Children’s Lit editor Kekla Magoon (Summer 2009)
• Smith, Cynthia Leitich…New York Times Bestselling Author of Eternal in conversation with Hunger Mountain editor Bethany Hegedus (Winter 2009)

Thank you and I look forward to your submissions!

How to Succeed in Children’s Publishing, Without Really Trying In Six Easy Steps

Hmm. That doesn’t sound right does it?

The movie, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1967) directed by David Swift or the newly remounted Broadway show, starring Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) and John Laroquette is a comedy but is pursuing a career as a children’s author a comedy or a tragedy? Maybe creating a career in the kid’s biz of publishing is a dramady—a bit of the comic and a bit of the tragic. But the only real tragedy, as we read last Monday, is not trying.

But how do we create a career? You got me? I am still figuring it out but I have learned a few things in my ten year pursuit to publish and my now two years on the shelves.  And here they are:

  1.  Put writing first.             

No, this doesn’t mean to ignore your family and friends, to not do well at your day job, or to let the laundry pile up until it buries you alive. But what it does mean is keep creating as a top priority.

2.     2.  Keep reading.

It can be hard to find the time to read when there are school visits to book, presentations to create, blogs to write and read. But keep reading. Read critically. Read for pleasure. Just read.

3.      3. Attend the biz of writing workshops/read biz of writing blogs

Do we twitter? Facebook? Blog? V-log? Create fliers? Audio clips? Podcasts? Social media is here and it is here to stay. Go learn from PR professionals but remember your first priority is not to run a social media empire. It is to write. So write and pick the couple of business tools that feel good to you. 

Greg Leitich Smith works the tech for the Holler Loudly About Alien Invasions and Truth with a Capital T Book Party

4.   Create Community.

We are not in this alone. Even if you live in the Artic tundra or on the equator and you think there are no other children’s authors or illustrators around, look. Are there any in your town? Your state? Becoming an Austinite was easy. We have a thrilling and thriving kid-lit community here but even if you aren’t in Austin tap into the creative people in your area. Together you can lick wounds, celebrate successes and keep the solitary confinement to times when you are deep in the cave. 

5.     5.  Pay it forward.

All artists have mentors. When a writer whose work we admire sees something in us—believe them. They have been where you are. They are lending a helping hand. Take it. Listen. Be grateful and don’t forget to pay it forward. When your time comes, and you see a talented newer writer—reach out.

6.       6. Develop a split personality. 

Author Jenny Shank, who I mentioned in last week’s post on perfectionism, advises:

“You can’t stop looking if you want to publish a book; you just have to compartmentalize the looking. I turned my publication-seeking activities over to a fragment of my personality…let’s call him Johnny Business—while the rest of me didn’t think about it, worry about it, and went about my days without pining over it. What Johnny Business does is none of my business.”

So how does that work?  Well, the business side of you keeps sending out work while the creative side of you is creating. The business side of you thinks about ways to raise your profile while the creative side is creating. The business side of you works a business plan, makes contacts, follows them up, while the creative side of you is creating. Think of it as the yin and yang or rather the Biz and the Whiz. The biz side of you is necessary but without the inner whiz- kid creating there would be nothing for Biz to do.

Creating a career is not a knee-slapping musical comedy—not even if Harry Potter appears and dances across the stage.  The title of this post should be: How to Succeed in Children’s Publishing, While Really, Really Trying.

 It takes more than six easy steps. It takes a lot of trial and error. It takes a lot of chocolate and wine. It takes a lot of work and even more access to one’s inner whiz-kid.  Simply put, it takes what it takes.

And speaking of community, check out the Awesome Austin Goings On:

From Publisher's Marketplace:

Jo Whittemore's D IN DRAMA, about a group of drama school losers who are perpetually cast as trees and nameless villagers, but hatch a plan to upend the status quo and create their own starring roles, again to Alyson Heller at Aladdin, by Jennifer Laughran at Andrea Brown Literary Agency.

Philip Yates's A PIRATE'S TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS, companion to the popular A PIRATE'S NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS, to Sterling Children's, for publication in Fall 2012, by Quinlan Lee at Adams Literary (World).

 

 And,

Alvina Ling at Little, Brown has bought world rights for Chris Barton and Tom Lichtenheld's companion picture book to Shark vs. Train, for publication in spring 2013. Erin Murphy at the Erin Murphy Literary Agency is the agent for the author, and Amy Rennert at the Amy Rennert Agency is the agent for the artist. 

For  an interview with Chris Barton about his latest non-fiction offering head on over to Kathi Appelt's blog where she has interviewed an in-depth interview titled: The Real Chris Barton.

Also, since March Madness is upon us look for an Inside the Writer's Studio Interview Tuesday through Thursday this week.