ANNOUNCEMENT: 2018 Golden Kite Award and Sid Fleishman Humor Award

SOCIETY OF CHILDREN’S BOOK WRITERS AND ILLUSTRATORS TO PRESENT 2018 GOLDEN KITE AWARDS AND SID FLEISCHMAN HUMOR AWARD AT 17th ANNUAL NEW YORK WINTER CONFERENCE New Talents and Internationally Recognized Names Claim Top Spots LOS ANGELES, January 2018 – The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) announced the winners and honor recipients of the annual Golden Kite and Sid Fleischman Awards. The Golden Kites are the only children’s literary award judged by a jury of peers. The Awards recognize excellence in children’s literatures in six categories: Young Reader and Middle Grade Fiction, Young Adult Fiction, Picture Book Non-Fiction, Non-Fiction for Older Readers, Picture Book Text, and Picture Book Illustration. The Sid Fleischman Award is for exemplary writing for children in the genre of humor. The awards will be presented at a star-studded gala during the New York Winter Conference on Friday, February 2 at 7pm at the Grand Hyatt Hotel. Featured guest Chelsea Clinton, humanitarian advocate and children’s author, will make a special presentation at the event at 7pm. SCBWI Executive Director, Lin Oliver, said about this year’s winners. “The 2017 Golden Kite winning books were chosen from a field of over 1,000 entries, and show the diversity of creative views, topics and approaches that are re-defining our industry. We send congratulations to the creators of these outstanding books and thanks to the judges who selected them.” GOLDEN KITE AWARD WINNERS Middle Grade Fiction: Jack Cheng - SEE YOU IN THE COSMOS (Dial Books/Penguin Random House) Non-Fiction for Older Readers: Debora Heiligman - VINCENT AND THEO (Godwin Books/Henry Holt and Company)   Non-Fiction for Younger Readers: Carole Boston Weatherford - SCHOMBURG: THE MAN WHO BUILT A LIBRARY (Candlewick Press)   Picture Book Illustration: Kenard Pak - GOODBYE AUTUMN, HELLO WINTER (Henry Holt and Company) GOLDEN KITE AWARD FOR BEST PICTURE BOOK TEXT Picture Book Text: Carolyn Crimi - THERE MIGHT BE LOBSTERS                                                                                           (Candlewick Press) Young Adult Fiction: Elana K. Arnold – WHAT GIRLS ARE MADE OF (Carolrhoda Lab/Lerner Publishing) 🙂Sid Fleischman Award Winner:   CRYSTAL ALLEN , THE  Crystal Allen - THE MAGNIFICENT MYA TIBBS: THE WALL OF FAME GAME (Balzer & Bray/HarperCollins) GOLDEN KITE HONOR BOOKS Middle Grade Fiction: Kimberly Brubaker Bradley - THE WAR I FINALLY WON (Dial Books/Penguin Random House) Ruth Freeman - ONE GOOD THING ABOUT AMERICA (Holiday House)   Picture Book Text: Carmen Agra Deedy- THE ROOSTER WHO WOULD NOT BE QUIET (Scholastic Press/Scholastic, Inc.) Picture Book Illustration: LeUyen Pham - FALLINGWATER (Roaring Brook)   Young Adult Fiction: Courtney Stevens - DRESS CODES FOR SMALL TOWNS (Harper Teen/HarperCollins) Liara Tamani - CALLING MY NAME (Greenwillow Books/HarperCollins) ### About SCBWI The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators is a non-profit, 501(c)3 organization which is one of the largest existing organizations for writers and illustrators. It is the only professional organization specifically for those individuals writing and illustrating for children and young adults in the fields of children’s literature, magazines, film, television and multimedia.

Publishing 101

Hello, Authors!

If you are visiting this page, you may have attended my Publishing 101 session at the Rocky Mountain SCBWI regional conference. Thank you for stopping by to pick up additional resources. It shows you're serious about your publishing career!  If you landed on this page by accident and you're interested in writing children's books, stop what you're doing and join SCBWI www.scbwi.org!

Before reading further, here's the most important thing you need to know: to be a good children's book writer, you need to be a avid kid lit reader first. What's on your bookshelf?

FORMATTING YOUR MANUSCRIPT: A properly formatted manuscript is an important step in the submissions process. From Keyboard to Printed Page on the SCBWI website https://www.scbwi.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/From-Keyboard_2014.pdf

Craft Tips:  

Interview with Richard Peck:  Here he talks about his writing process.

Dream Team: Nick Healy, Caryn Wiseman, Andrea Brown, Jennifer Mattson, Melissa Manlove

Craft tips from agents and editors:  Great advice from a writing workshop weekend offered by a panel of Agents and Editors who served on faculty at Big Sur in the Rockies. Article title: "What Agents and Editors Think When Reading Your First Page". The highlights from this article include (1)Don’t rob readers of experiencing the emotional state of a character.

SHOW don’t TELL: Don’t write, “George was upset about his report card.” Write, “George wadded up his report card and shoved it to the bottom of his backpack.”

(2)PB writers: Watch out for clause-filled sentence structure

(3)Avoid over choreography, didactic intentions, and characters with stuff happening to them rather than the protagonist making stuff happen. For the full article, click Craft tips from agents and editors

You can find more craft tips in my 2011 Interview with Matt de la Pena:  The interview begins with me gushing over one of his novels. Dig in further, because within the interview, you will find some gems and inspirational writing and working tips. My favorite piece of advice, "I think voice is WAY easier if you’re 100% honest."  And "Don’t fake it. Don’t chase trends. Be real. If it hurts, it’s gold. If it embarrasses you, it has to go in. If it shames you, it’s the most important ingredient."

Querying Tips beyond my regular tip of sticking with three paragraphs (the hook, the book, and the cook), I advise you visit ASK DAPHNE at KT Literary: KT Literary allows authors to submit to "Ask Daphne" for query feedback. Learn from one another's mistakes!

Agent Interviews:  Reading interviews with agents is one key step to discovering if he/she is the right agent for you. When querying agents, open with why you chose to query them. here are a handful of interviews for your review (you'll find more at Writer's Digest, Absolute Write, and other blogs):

Interviw with Hilary Harwell

Interview with Kristin Nelson

Interview with Shannon Hassan

Interview with Deborah Warren

Interview with Tricia Lawrence

An upcoming webinar Query Workshop:

Professionally Personal: How to Compel Agents in One Page or Less. (Webinar) October 10, 2017 7:30-9:00 PM Eastern time, Hosted by MD/DE/WV SCBWI. ADDITIONAL QUERY CRITIQUE SLOTS NOW AVAILABLE. Agent Hannah Mann of Writers House discusses what to stress for success when it comes to querying agents, including how to stay brief and be heard without coming off as generic, how to strike a balance between broad appeal and agent-specific, and choosing the perfect comp titles. A recording of the webinar will be available for one month after the live event. The recording will be for registered attendees only, so if you can't make the live event, you can register to view the recording. Cost: SCBWI Members: $15 for webinar only; $30 for webinar + query letter critique with Hannah Mann of Writers House or Carrie Howland of Empire Literary; Non-members: $25 for webinar. https://mddewv.scbwi.org/events/webinar-with-agent-hannah-mann-professionally-personal-how-to-compel-agents-in-one-page-or-less/

Important places to turn for information:

KiteTales:  this is the quarterly publication put out by editor Shelly Steig with the RMC SCBWI. To access KiteTales, you must be logged in to your SCBWI account. Here you will find agent interviews and writing and/or illustrating tips.  To enjoy current and past issues of Kite Tales, visit RMC.SCBWI.ORG ( https://rmc.scbwi.org/ ) Log in to your account first (access denied until you log in) and click on the side bar items called "FOR OUR MEMBERS" and then select KiteTales.

EVENTS:  Also under FOR OUR MEMBERS (log into your SCBWI account first) you can follow the Good News, Contests, and Upcoming events link to find out about free events as well as fee-based workshops. 

Insights:  This is an online publication put out by SCBWI headquarters. Every issue of Insights features an agent or editor interview.

The Bulletin:  This is a quartly publication put out by the SCBWI, you can choose to receive it via email or snail mail.

Writer’s Digest:  sign up for their free email newsletter. They regularly feature new agents who are hungry for submissions.

Publisher’s Weekly: stay informed with this publication and agent deals.

Publisher’s Lunch: Free newsletter and a great place to read about new deals. Here you will see one-liners (log lines) about recently aquired books. When reading the one-line logged lines, you might find inspiration for how to word your "hook".

Agent Query:  good place read about agents and possibly vet them. Keep in mind, this is not a fool-proof vetting source, but it's a great place to get started. Here's how they describe themself: "AgentQuery.com offers one of the largest searchable database of literary agents on the web—a treasure trove of reputable, established literary agents seeking writers just like you. And it's free (not because there's a catch, but simply because not enough things in this world are free)."

Preditors and Editors: Another online forum to vet which agents are following best practices.

Follow RMC SCBWI on our closed Facebook page (members only page, so you'll request to join when you first arrive. Here, we post regularly about industry news and upcoming webinars and events.

Follow RMC or me on Twitter:

@SCBWIRockyMtn  this is the RMC SCBWI account

@Bkshelfdetectiv (this is me, Kim Tomsic)

Caleb and Kit by Beth Vrable: Entertainment, Adventure, and Diversity!

Caleb and Kit by Beth Vrable

FROM THE JACKETFLAP: 

"Twelve-year-old Caleb is shorter, frailer, and more protected than most kids his age. That's because he has cystic fibrosis, a diagnosis meaning lungs that fill with mucus and a shortened lifespan. Caleb tries not to let his disorder define him, but it can be hard with an overprotective mom and a perfect big brother.
Then Caleb meets Kit--a vibrant, independent, and free girl--and his world changes instantly. Kit reads Caleb's palm and tells him they are destined to become friends. She calls birds down from the sky and turns every day into an adventure. Her magic is contagious, making Caleb question the rules and order in his life. But being Kit's friend means embracing deception and danger, and soon Caleb will have to decide if his friendship with Kit is really what's best for him--or her."

If Caleb and Kit were a recipe, the instructions would say: mix up a heaping bowl of heart, humor, and adventure, plus add a dash of Because of Winn Dixie and Bridge to Terabithia. This book is a must read not only for the entertainment value, but also for the diversity of introducing a character with cystic fibrosis without reducing the protagonist to being defined by his disease. Author Beth Vrable delivers a cast of interesting and complicated characters and readers will most definitely want to follow Caleb and Kit page after page.

Comparable titles include The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin and Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt.

Don't take my word for it. Look at these fantastic reviews:

"A realistic story with strong, recognizable characters that doesn't reduce cystic fibrosis to a tragedy."
—-Kirkus Reviews

"Filled with smart, witty, and magical writing, Kit and Caleb, and those around them, come to vibrant life in this heartbreaking story about the ties that bring people together, and the difficulties of facing the truth."

—-Booklist

"A compelling story of two struggling kids making their own safe haven."
—- Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

💙💙💙👦 from Caleb:

“I wanted to be like Kit, to see stories everywhere. I wanted to make up a new world, one where I wasn’t sick and she was magic. I wanted that more than anything.”

• Age Range: 8 - 12 years
• Grade Level: 3 - 7
• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Running Press (September 12, 2017)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 076246223X
• ISBN-13: 978-0762462230

Suggestions on places where you can buy a copy:

Amazon

Tattered Cover

BookBar

Second Star to the Right

Interview with Literary Agent Hilary Harwell KT Literary Agency

Hello, Readers!

Today, I have the privilege of giving you a look inside KT Literary Agency with an interview

featuring Associate Literary Agent Hilary Harwell. Hilary was an anthropology major, a jewelry artist, and a Cash Management Analyst until she interned at several literary agencies and found her calling—kid lit! Finally, she joined the team at KT Literary on August 2, 2016 where she is said to bring an editorial eye to the KT Literary slush pile. Hilary is also a writer of dark, whimsical fantasy and atmospheric horror for kids and teens. As a fellow writer, you can trust Hilary as an editorial agent. She is open to queries (instruction at the end of this interview) and her MSWL (Manuscript Wish List) can be found here . Hilary is on Twitter at: @HilaryHarwell 

KT (Kim Tomsic): Hi, Hilary! Thank you for e-meeting with me and for agreeing to answer my “fast five” questions. 

HH (Hilary Harwell): You bet! I’m happy to share. Thanks so much for having me.

KT:  Question number one, the oh-so-important ice breaker: Imagine it’s Saturday night and you MUST sing karaoke. There’s no backing out—the very life of your agency depends upon it; the life of your pet waiting at home depends upon it! What are you going to sing? (and by the way, what kind of pet is waiting/or do you wish was waiting at home?)

HH: Oh boy, I think I’d have to sing (rap?) some old school hip hop – a little Biggie or De La Soul perhaps? If I was forced to actually sing (for my cats’ lives), many of you would be in tears but I’d be yowling to the Lumineers. Their song Angela, specifically.

KT:  Yes! I love that you chose a Denver-based band!  Okay, moving on--luckily for querying authors, KT Literary’s website features query tips and the opportunity for authors to submit their query for public review and feedback. Examples make the rest of us wiser! (Readers, if you’d like to climb inside Hilary’s mind, you can read her very specific feedback  AT THIS LINK)  Since we have no query as part of this interview, what are the fast-five pieces of advice you can offer authors about successful querying? 

HH: 1. Make it concise and clear –edit and pare it down as much as possible 2. Make sure you give enough plot for the reader to understand what your story is about without giving the ending away 3. Personalize if you can – and by this I don’t mean, ‘I see from your website you’re open to YA.’ I get this too often and it doesn’t add to the query. I’d prefer to see you’ve done a little homework and that you have a specific reason for querying me. Otherwise, just skip it.  4. Choose 2 good comps – show me where your project will sit on the shelf and that you understand the industry.  5. Hook me! Make me care enough about your protagonist’s plight to want to read the opening pages. This includes what’s at stake if your protagonist fails. It’s a challenge, but if you can execute and provide a solid query and good opening pages, I’ll definitely be requesting more!

KT: Amazing advice found above!!!

KT Question three: I am a huge fan of Freaky Friday and any Freaky Friday-type book (like The Swap by Megan Schull). If you could have a Freaky Friday moment with any literary character, whose shoes would you step in and why?

HH: Honestly? Kaz Brekker aka Dirtyhands. I adore him and would love to crawl inside his shady little mind.

KT Question four: How do you divide your time between wearing your two hats—writer and agent? Also, it seems I opened this interview boldly claiming that you are an editorial agent, is that true? Lastly, what are books on craft that you recommend? (Yes, I’m sneaky—I just asked three questions, but who’s counting?)

HH: I am an editorial agent – I love partnering with authors to develop their projects as much as possible. I try to provide open-ended feedback (lots of questions and what ifs) that help authors engage and come up with their own solutions to the suggestions I make. After all, it’s your baby.

Craft books? Definitely The Anatomy of Story by John Truby. Another favorite is Stephen King’s On Writing. Oh, and Mary Kole’s Writing Irresistible Kidlit.

As far as managing my time, at the current moment my own writing has taken a bit of a back seat while I build my list at the agency. It’s not something I’ll ever let go of completely, but my passion for representing the work of others has my full attention.

KT Question five: What’s the difference between an agent and an associate agent AND what do you hope to find in your slush pile?

HH: An associate agent is basically the same as a junior agent. It’s the title given to a person who’s just getting started at an agency. A full agent is someone who has a longer tenure, but specific titles and the weight they carry can vary from one agency to the next.

Right now, I’d love to see some original dark fantasy – a la Leigh Bardugo and Maggie Stiefvater’s THE SCORPIO RACES. I love atmospheric horror and thrillers – please, please make me sleep with the light on. Beyond that, I’m always looking for stories told from diverse perspectives, am LGBTQ-friendly, and am hungry for these types of projects.

KT: Hilary, thank you so much for taking time for this interview!  

Hilary’s blog can be found at: https://haharwell.wordpress.com/

Hilary’s query tips: https://haharwell.wordpress.com/2017/02/16/query-tip-clarity/

HOW TO QUERY HILARY:

“I’m now open to queries, so please send me all your lovely middle grade and young adult projects. I have a penchant for fully-developed characters who leap off the page and into my heart (even if they’re not always the most lovable), for tightly plotted stories that show me new ways to look at the world, and for elegant prose. It is incredibly important to me to find stories told from diverse perspectives so that more children and young people can find themselves inside the pages of the books we help create.”

Hilary’s query guidelines can be found here.

I love when agents list books they love. Here’s Hilary’s reading list:

Books she loves: The Hate U Give, Exit Pursued by a Bear, Frost Blood, Caraval, The Diviners, The Blackthorn Key, Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda, Out of My Mind, The Thickety, Anna and The French Kiss (and ISLA and LOLA), Open Road Summer, The Duff, We Were Liars, The Night Gardener, Rules for Stealing Stars, Salt to the Sea, The Wrath and The Dawn, The Scorpio Races, A Curious Tale of the In-Between, Seraphina and the Black Cloak, The Grisha Trilogy, I’ll Give You The Sun, Splendors and Glooms, A Snicker of Magic, The Graveyard Book, The Mysterious Benedict Society, An Untamed State, The Bourbon Thief, The Girl on The Train, Crank (anything by Ellen Hopkins)

Old Books she loves: Bridge to Terabithia, The Hobbit, Black Beauty, The Black Stallion series, Hatchet, The Call of the Wild, White Fang, Island of the Blue Dolphins, The Westing Game, James and the Giant Peach, THE BFG, IT, A Wrinkle in Time, The Secret Garden

Picture Books she loves: The Giving Tree, Dragons Love Tacos, The Day The Crayons Quit, Sir Pancake and Lady French Toast, Journey, What Do You Do With A Problem, The Secret Staircase, The Three Questions

Movies she loves: The Neverending Story, Willow, The Princess Bride, Usual Suspects, Reservoir Dogs, Silence of the Lambs, Tommy Boy, Monty Python’s The Holy Grail, Braveheart

More Starred Reviews for Melanie Crowder: Three Pennies

“Never, under any circumstances, tell anyone that you’re waiting for your mother to come back for you.” That’s Marin’s motto in ThreePennies by Melanie Crowder.

With her I Ching, three pennies, and a ceramic piggy bank, eleven-year-old Marin travels from foster home to foster home until she meets Dr. Lucy. The sweet, honest, earnest Dr. Lucy would love to adopt Marin, but only if Marin will let her in her heart, and the heart is a very important organ. Even though Dr. Lucy is a surgeon, she has a less-than medical explanation for the four chambers of the heart. She says she likes to, “…think each chamber is responsible for a different kind of love. One for family. One for friends. Maybe another for pets and really special teachers…” Dr. Lucy’s fourth chamber is saved for romantic love and that space is full, but Dr. Lucy goes on to say, “…the other three chambers of my heart still have lots of room left—the family chamber, and the friends one, and the one for pets, too. What about you? Do you have any room left? Not in the chamber you have saved for your mother, of course. But what about the pet one?”

Still, as much as Dr. Lucy tries, Marin just can’t let someone else be her mother, can she? With the clock ticking down to the court meeting for adoption proceedings, Marin starts a secret and clever hunt for her birth mother. Readers will fall in love with Marin, which makes it all the more worrisome as she dives head-first into danger!

Crowder’s writing is beautiful and engaging. If hearts had a chamber for loved books, then Three Pennies would fit perfectly in that chamber.

Don’t take my word for it. The stars shine bright from the reviewers, too:

STARRED REVIEW FROM KIRKUS: “As tectonic plates shift underneath San Francisco, 11-year-old Marin rearranges the spaces in her own heart for the woman who wants to be her mother. A beautifully written and thoroughly modern family breaking-and-making story. (Fiction. 9-12)”

STARRED REVIEW FROM SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL: The language of this short and intense story is spare and evocative, and the chapters are brief and impressionistic. VERDICT This tender tale of human frailty tugs at heartstrings and will satisfy tweens who like to read with a tissue handy.

Where to buy:

Second Star to the Right

Book Bar

Boulder Bookstore (EVENT!  Book signing with Melanie Crowder, Tara Dairman, and Jeannie Mobley September 26, 2017 at 6:30 pm. Boulder Bookstore, Pearl Street, Boulder CO)

Barnes and Noble

Amazon

• Age Range: 8 - 12 years
• Grade Level: 3 - 7
• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers (May 2, 2017)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1481471872
• ISBN-13: 978-1481471879

The Great Hibernation by Tara Dairman

Author Tara Dairman (All Four Stars series) has another great book coming out this fall. 
In The Great Hibernation, (Wendy Lamb Books/Random House Kids, September 12, 2017) all the parents and teens in the town of St. Polonius fall fast asleep in a mysterious state of hibernation, and science-minded Jean Huddy can’t help but wonder if there’s a strange illness…or worse, a curse—a curse that Jean has brought upon the town.

With parents and teens out for the count, Magnus, the son of the Mayor, proclaims the town charter requires the children of St. Polonius must take over their parents’ jobs, especially since St. Polonius is remotely located on a fjord and a blizzard has hit thereby preventing access to help. Naturally, the twelve and under crowd step up and start running things.

Almost everyone is excited: The daughter of the librarian wants to throw out the Dewey Decimal system and file books by color; Axel Gorson, who is only eight, now drives the snowplow; and six-year-old Annemarie Hammerstein (the daughter of the local doctor) starts practicing stitches on her dollies! But it’s not all fun and games, because Magnus the Mayor is ready to run things with a Mafia-esque iron fist.

Jean, her brother Micah, and a sheep named Rambo lead this story in adventure and hilarity, but also woven in are a handful of beautiful yet subtle devices in which this story deals with cultural differences and prejudices. For example, after a horrible kitchen incident where Jean doesn’t know what to do or how to act, Isara, the now proprietor of the restaurant whose family moved to St. Polonius from Thailand, comes to rescue. He offers a kind hand and says he knows what it’s like to, “be in a place where nothing makes sense. Were you don't know the rules. Sometimes, you need someone to show you the way.”

The Great Hibernation delivers page-turning doses of intrigue, adventure, and humor with one fun-filled complication after another, a truly can’t-put-downable book!

Buying Links listed alphabetically:

Amazon  

BookBar (a beautiful independent bookstore)

Second Star to the Right (a beautiful independent bookstore)

Boulder Book Store (signing event at this bookstore in September!) 

Barnes and Noble

The Great Hibernation fall book tour

Books of Wonder – New York, NY
Sunday, September 17, 1 pm
Middle-grade panel and launch party! (with Jessica Lawson, Tracey Baptiste,  & Allison Cherry)

The Voracious Reader  – Larchmont, NY
Monday, September 18, evening (time TBA)
Science & magic! A middle grade event with Sarah Albee, & Corey Ann Haydu

Trident Booksellers & Cafe – Boston, MA
Tuesday, September 19, 6:30 pm
Super middle-grade panel! (with Debbi Michiko Florence, Ammi-Joan Paquette, Jen Malone, & Katie Slivensky, moderated by Dana Alison Levy)

One More Page Books – Arlington, VA
Saturday, September 23, 3pm
Kidlit panel! (with Tracey Baptiste, Caroline Carlson, & Jessica Lawson, moderated by Madelyn Rosenberg)

Boulder Book Store – Boulder, CO
Tuesday, September 26, 6:30 pm
Middle-grade book launch party! (with Jeannie Mobley & Melanie Crowder)

BookPeople – Austin, TX
Sunday, October 8, 2 pm
A Triple Launch Party! (with Christina Soontornvat & Jeannie Mobley)

Author:	Tara Dairman
Publisher:	Wendy Lamb Books / Random House Childrens Books
Date Published:	September 12, 2017
Street Date:	September 12, 2017
Format:	Hardcover
Length:	272 pages
Language:	English
ISBN:	1524717851 / 9781524717858
Categories:	Kids & Teens / Fiction & Literature / Family & Social Issues / General
	Kids & Teens / Fiction & Literature / Health / Illness & Injuries
	Kids & Teens / Fiction & Literature / Family & Social Issues / Friendship
Audience:	Children's - Grade 4-6, Age 9-11