New Blog and Book Giveaway

From the Mixed-Up Files is a new blog that focuses on middle grade fiction.

Their mission statement; "From the Mixed-Up Files is the group blog of middle-grade authors celebrating books for middle-grade readers. For anyone with a passion for children’s literature—teachers, librarians, parents, kids, writers, industry professionals— we offer regularly updated book lists organized by unique categories, author interviews, market news, and a behind-the-scenes look at the making of a children's book from writing to publishing to promoting".

Check out their blog, and enter to win nine middle-grade titles (because who doesn't love a chance to win free books?).

Co-author needed for middle grade fantasy

Ian Paulsen wrote to let us know the following:

I have a small time publisher interested in my manuscript for a middle reader fantasy book called the "Ornithspeakers." But I can't quite get the story right and I feel it's time to get a co-author. Do you know of anyone who might be interested in co-authoring a book with me?

If that sounds like it's up your alley, contact Ian at birdbooker AT zipcon.net.

Pacific Coast Children's Writers Workshop

Take part in a team-taught seminar for writers of character-driven MG and YA novels at the eighth annual Pacific Coast Children's Writers Workshop.

It'll be held Aug 20-22 at the Pajaro Dunes private beachfront facilities near Santa Cruz, CA. There are spots for 30 savvy and/or published writers, "active observers," and teen readers and writers.

Faculty includes Kate Harrison, a senior editor at Dial Books/Penguin; Ted Malawer, an agent at Upstart Crow Literary; and author-consultant Laura Backes, publisher of Children's Book Insider.

The theme is "A Novelist's Toolkit: Architecture, Archetypes, and Arcs."

There are open critique clinics, master classes and interactive pre-workshop assignments. For the most critique options and lowest fees, apply by April 10 or asap. Limited enrollment may be open through July.

For more info, or to apply to work in the teen program, contact Director Nancy Sondel through the Children's Writers Workshop site.

The difference between MG and YA

The MiG Writers blog has posted on the difference between MG and YA novels, explaining how length, subject matter, intended audience, and other factors work together to determine where a book belongs:

For those unfamiliar with the acronyms, MG = “middle grade” and YA = “young adult.” But what’s the difference? I’ve come across different opinions, including some authors who don’t like to slot their books into a particular categorization because they’re worried about excluding readers.

Part of the reason for differentiation is marketing, but labels are inescapable. What if an editor or agent asks you if your novel is more MG or YA? Bookstores will want to know where to shelve your book and that means that publishers will be categorizing it as well.

There will always be exceptions to the general guidelines, of course, but as Chuck Sambuchino pointed out in his Word Count for Novels and Children’s Books: The Definitive Post article, you cannot count on being the exception; you must count on being the rule.

Anyway, I decided to investigate this issue online.

Read the rest.

Thurber House residency search underway

Molly Blaisdell sent this along:

Who will be the next recipient of the Thurber House Residency in Children’s Literature?

Are you passionate about sharing your love of writing with students? Do you have trouble carving out time in your busy schedule to focus on researching that new book idea or solving that plot issue? Do you tell the kids you’re running errands and duck into the spare room in order to get some quiet time? Wouldn’t it be great to have four weeks away from your daily routine with nothing standing between you and the characters that are driving you crazy?

Consider this – Thurber House is accepting applications for our Residency in Children’s Literature for 2010. This annual residency, generously sponsored by JPMorgan Chase, is awarded to a talented author of books for middle grade children. We are looking for emerging writers’ (at least one book published and one in contract) who also love to teach creative writing to kids.

The resident will spend four weeks during the summer of 2010 staying in the third floor apartment at Thurber House (where the bed famously fell on James Thurber’s father) located in Columbus, Ohio. As part of the residency, the writer will also spend up to ten hours per week teaching children the joys of writing in both a community-based agency and as part of the Thurber House Summer Writing Camp for children. If that isn’t enough, the resident receives a stipend of $4,000 and the gift of time to focus on his or her writing.

If your curiosity is piqued, then visit our web site at and print out the details on how to submit your application, which is due by Friday, December 11, 2010. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain so start putting your application together today.

Stories from the headlines

The New York Times has a piece on a 6-year-old facing a 45-day suspension from school because he brought a fork/spoon/knife combo from Cub Scouts to school. He wanted to use it to eat his lunch, but the school has a "zero-tolerance" weapons policy (apparently it doesn't apply to lunch ladies who need knives to prepare food).

Anyway, you'd have to adjust the age of the child, but what a great middle grade novel this could be.

Read the story.

Word count for novels and children's books

Chuck Sambuchino has what he calls the definitive post on word counts for children's books and novels.

The most important thing here is to realize that there are always exceptions to these rules. And man, people love to point out exceptions - and they always will. However, if there is one thing I remember from when my wife dragged me kicking and screaming to He's Just Not That Into You, it's that you cannot count on being the exception; you must count on being the rule. Aiming to be the exception is setting yourself up for disappointment. What writers fail to see is that for every successful exception to the rule (e.g., a first-time 150,000-word novel), there are at least 100 failures if not 300.

Almost always, high word count means that the writer simply did not edit their work down enough. Or - it means they have two or more books combined into one.

Get the word counts.

This just sort of seems like a scene...

...from a middle-grade novel.

Secrets and Surprises at Southcenter

There's an extravaganza of middle grade excellence coming up soon at Southcenter. Here are the details:

6 p.m., Saturday, September 19, Southcenter Barnes & Noble in Tukwila
Talk books, play a game, and maybe win prizes — including one of two audio books from Trudi Trueit’s SECRETS OF A LAB RAT series! Meet and talk with three authors of middle-grade books: Trudi Trueit, Thatcher Heldring, and Joni Sensel. They’ll share a few secrets about themselves, their work, and entertaining young readers. Whether you take home a prize or not, you can’t lose!

Good advice on length of MG/YA novels

This comes from Kristin Nelson's blog:

When I was at RWA, I did a workshop with my client Ally Carter. We were the only workshop at that conference that addressed anything in the Children’s realm. Let me tell you, the session was packed (to my surprise).

Anyway, the point of our workshop was this: people who want to write young adult always ask the wrong questions and we want to point that out and explain what the right question should be.

The best part of the workshop was the PowerPoint slides. We’d put up the wrong question on screen and you could feel the in-drawn breath of the entire audience. They had been thinking exactly that wrong question!

So sure enough, Sara got an email today from an aspiring writer asking one of those exact wrong questions. The person asked what is the right word count/length for his/her middle grade or young adult novel.

Gong. Wrong question.

The right question is this: how important is pacing in my middle grade or young adult novel?

See, it’s not about word count (look at the latter Harry Potter and Twilight books for goodness sake). Those books got some meat on them there bones—and it’s not just because they were hugely successful so therefore the author could use whatever length she wanted. It’s about pacing the novel so well, readers don’t mind length.

This September, I’ve got my first middle grade novel publishing. Helen Stringer’s SPELLBINDER is a whopping 372 pages long. And folks, this isn’t in larger print. It’s a long middle grade novel. But the trick is that it can’t feel like it when reading. The pacing has to be absolutely perfect. If it is, readers and editors will not quibble about the length.
So don’t ask me how many words or pages your project needs to be because I can’t tell you. If you are on the low side (like under 50,000 words for YA or under 40,000 words for MG), you might not have developed your story enough. However, I don’t know that for sure until I read it. Maybe you have written the perfect 30,000 word MG novel. I have no idea.

But what I can reinforce is this: asking about word count or page length is definitely the wrong question.

Kids with their small, greasy hands...

They're just waiting to become middle grade novels.

(CNN) -- On July 23, 1969, as Apollo 11 hurtled back towards Earth, there was a problem -- a problem only a kid could solve.

It sounds like something out of a movie, but that's what it came down to as Apollo 11 sped back towards Earth after landing on the moon in 1969.

It was around 10:00 at night on July 23, and 10-year-old Greg Force was at home with his mom and three brothers. His father, Charles Force, was at work. Charles Force was the director of the NASA tracking station in Guam, where the family was living.

The Guam tracking station was to play a critical role in the return of Apollo 11 to Earth. A powerful antenna there connected NASA communications with Apollo 11, and the antenna was the only way for NASA to make its last communications with the astronauts before splashdown. But at the last minute on that night, a bearing in the antenna failed, rendering it nearly useless.

To properly replace the bearing would have required dismantling the entire antenna, and there was simply no time. So Charles Force thought of a creative solution: If he could get more grease around the failed bearing, it would probably be fine. The only problem was, nobody at the station had an arm small enough to actually reach in through the two-and-a-half inch opening and pack grease around the bearing. Read more...