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Showing posts with label write. Show all posts
Showing posts with label write. Show all posts

Monday, March 14, 2011

Picture Book Chat

If you are looking for a place to chat about picture books then you need to join #pblitchat. Aussie writers Kat Apel and Karen Collum run a blog called Picture Books Only which is the home to #pblitchat. The chat is held once a week all about picture books is open to writers, librarian's and all lovers of children's picture books. Even though they state "Sorry – no middle-grade or YA novels allowed" they do tend to enter the conversation every once and a while however the main focus is pictures books.

I have found these sessions very informative and entertaining with a very friendly group. We're all learning so no question is ever to stupid to ask and I feel comfortable asking all my "stupid" questions here. Every week there is a different picture book topic and sometimes a special guest. Kat and Karen listen closely to participants of #pblitchat and some of the topics are based on the feedback they get. Some topics in the past have been so popular more than one session has been devoted it.

Topics include:
POV, technology, submission tracking, goals, myths in picture book publishing, plagiarism and copyright, From idea to polished manuscript: How do you get there? and the list goes on.

Special guests such as:
Aaron Reynolds and Neil Numberman (creators of the ‘Joey Fly’ graphic novels) and other published authors and illustrators, publishing consultant Alex Adsett, agents, poetry writers...

Time and Place
The chat is the same day every week but you need to pay close attention to place and time of the chats. To help accommodate the different time zones the time and place of the chat alternates each week.


Every 1st, 3rd and 5th (if there is one) Thursday of the month the chat is held at 7:00 am Eastern Time on Twitter using the #pblitchat tag.

Every 2nd and 4th Thursday the chat is held at 6:30 pm Eastern Time in a Chatzy chat room.

For a full listing of #pblitchat times in each timezone see the About Picture Books Only page. In order to enter the Chatzy room a password is required but don't let that scare you off. Simply email pblitchat[at]skymesh[dot]com[dot]au or pblitchat[at]bigpond[dot]com and request the password. (This was necessary due to some off-topic gate-crashers.)

Miss a chat or what to know more information about a topic previously covered? Kat and Karen happily post the chat transcript on their blog. You can find the transcripts on the Picture Books Only home page. I'm also hoping to summarize the transcript here on my blog.

Picture Books Only: http://picturebooksonly.wordpress.com/
Karen Collum: http://www.karencollum.com.au/
Kat Apel: http://katswhiskers.wordpress.com/

Monday, January 31, 2011

Hiking Up My Socks

I decided to hike up my socks and get to work polishing a picture book manuscript I have been working on-and-off for a long time.

So, last week I pulled it out of the draw and something interesting happened. That same day I had two different volunteer groups come to me and basically say, 'We'd like to use your writing skills. Can you help us? Would you write..." I don't mind helping and of course I said 'yes' but I find it funny that these requests come to me as soon as I decide to put all my focus on one of my bigger personal writing projects. My analytical mind now starts to wonder why this has happened and if there is a bigger meaning?

I think the bigger meaning is, 'you need to write...more...now.' I have finished one of the requests already and the client was very happy. Surprisingly, it wasn't as tough as I thought it was going to be. The other project will not happen for a while.

For now, I am looking to submit some smaller works, mainly poems, to magazines and web sites while I continue to work on my picture book manuscript and get it agent ready. Yay me!

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Easy Letter To Santa Template

Looking for a simple template for you child to use to write his/her letter to Santa?
I have one here: http://home.cogeco.ca/~madelinebarr/letter_to_santa.pdf