WordHustler sat down with Fiona to discuss her writing method, how to take real life adventure and spin it into a series of children’s books, and - most importantly - how to market yourself as a writer. Fiona just found out her book has been nominated as a Finalist in the Children’s Fiction section of the USA National Best Books 2009 Awards! How did this plucky writer go from having an idea to an award-winning book, all on her own? Read on to find out!

Also, stay tuned at the end of the interview for a fantastic trivia question! One lucky (and smart) reader will win a FREE copy of The Secret of the Sacred Scarab!

WordHustler: You have an amazing and eclectic background from growing up as a lover of books, to a scholarship winning university stint, then on to journalism. What do you consider your first big break, writing-wise?

Fiona Ingram: Actually, this, my first ‘real’ book. It has been the hardest thing to do, seeing it through from conception to production to (groan) marketing. I’ve been writing bits of fiction on and off for years, but articles-my bread and butter stuff-always came first. Years ago, I started quite a dramatic historical novel, but never took it further. I’ve written two romantic historical novels as well, alas yet to be published. I also recently discovered a hidden cache of short stories for younger kids that I’m hoping to develop.

WH: After 15 years of journalism, what made you decide you HAD to write this children’s book?

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Gather round, boys and girls, and prepared to be transported to a magical world of…publishing success. That’s right. Ann Whitford Paul is the proud author of 19 children’s books and a brand-new, uber-helpful tome: “Writing Picture Books: A Hands-On Guide from Story Creation to Publication.”

WordHustler was lucky enough to be able to sit down with Ann to ask about her writing experiences, being represented, and getting published…many, many times. Stay tuned at the end of the interview for a special trivia question about children’s books- the winner receives a free copy of Ann’s “Writing Picture Books” (and will be that much closer to children’s book success themselves!).

So here we go! Once upon a time…

WordHustler: How did you get into writing? I know you studied Sociology, then decided to pursue children’s book writing after having your own children. How did you actually go about doing it (getting represented, getting published, etc)?

Ann Whitford Paul: Reading books to my children inspired me to try writing books that other grown-ups and children could share.  I thought since the books were short, they would be easy too.  Ha!  Their briefness is exactly what makes them so difficult.  I wrote for five years before I sold my first book (published in 1986 and long out of print).  I did not work with an agent until after I’d sold my second book.  Since then I’ve had several different agents and am now representing myself.

WH: What were some of your favorite books as a child? What were some of your children’s favorite books?

AWP: My favorite books as a child were THE STORY OF FERDINAND and THE SECRET GARDEN, both of which I still enjoy and my children did too.  Their favorite books were CURIOUS GEORGE and they loved Russell Hoban’s FRANCES books, too.

WH: Do you feel like there is a big difference between children’s books today and the books you read to your children?

AWP: There’s a huge difference between the books today and the books my kids loved.  First of all, books are much bigger in size and brighter.  Publishers understand that glitzy covers entice customers in bookstores to pick up a book.  Also I think books are much louder and filled with lots and lots of action.  This is a shame.  Children in this noisy and fast-paced world need slower quieter books more than ever.

WH: Besides yourself, of course, who are some of your favorite children’s book writers out there?

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Announcing The May Essay Contest Winners!!!

The time has come to announce the winners of WordHustler’s May Essay Contest, which centered around the prompt: “What Is the Best Birthday Gift You’ve Ever Received and Why?”

It was a tough decision for the folks at WordHustler- from over hundreds of submissions, we selected three Winners and six Honorable Mentions.

Winners:

T. Katz, Canyon Country, CA

Karen Bumpus, Marshfield, MA

Orietta L’Abbate, Virgin Islands

Honorable Mentions:

Janice Moss, Albany, NY

Lea Schizas, Quebec, Canada

Donna Eggert, Tabernacle, NJ

Colleen Collins, Delray Beach, FL

Christopher Eller, Castle Rock, CO

Ruby Thomas, Gurnee, IL

If you didn’t win this time, you still have a chance to enter the Summer Poetry Contest! Look for contest rules HERE.

The three winning essays are posted below. Read on to see how these three WordHustlers shared their most memorable birthdays in an even more memorable way.

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Remember that saying: “Those who do, do. Those who don’t, teach?” Well, Joyce Sweeney has blown that cliché right out of the water. Not only has Sweeney helped mentor 26 writers to publishing success, she is also a published YA author herself. Her first novel, Center Line, won the First Annual Delacorte Press Prize for an Outstanding Young Adult Novel. She has published thirteen other books, as well as a poetry chapbook.

But Sweeney’s real passion lies in helping would-be writers become successful. As Sweeney herself puts it: “Even more than writing itself, I love helping and mentoring writers.”

WordHustler sat down with Joyce Sweeney to discuss agents, editors, and the teenager inside every YA author. Grab your journal, some junk food, and get ready for the most informative [virtual] sleep-over you’ve ever attended!

WordHustler: How did you get your first big break? What was the first piece of writing you ever published?

Joyce Sweeney: My first novel, Center Line, won the first annual Delacorte Press Prize for a New Young Adult Novel in 1984.  I had an agent and had been submitting the novel for a year…over 30 publishers had rejected it.  Then it won first prize in the contest and I won a contract and got some good publicity for the book.  A good example of why writers have to be persistent and ignore rejections!  The very first piece of writing I ever published was a short story in a magazine called NEW WRITERS.  I was 18 and I got paid $25.  I thought I was on my way!  Then came the decade of hard work to get to 1984!

WH: As an author, why are you drawn to YA novels? Do you pull from your own childhood or from kids that you know today?

JS: All the children’s writers I know seem to have some kind of strong inner voice that reflects a certain age group.  The really great picture book writers have an inner child who’s about five.  The middle graders think like eight to eleven year olds.  All of us YA writers have a strong teenager inside us…we just think that way.  When YA authors get together, it’s totally like teenagers…all we do is complain, make sarcastic remarks and laugh too loud.  For inspiration, I pull from my own adolescence a lot…all my main characters are aspects of me…but I learn a lot from the teens I talk with now.  Often my story ideas come from them or things they are going through, but the emotional core of the book… that has to be me.

WH: Now for the part everyone wants to hear about: how did you land an agent? Was your first book finished at the time? How many agents did you approach before landing one?

JS: I got an agent so long ago it’s irrelevant to today’s world.  I got my first agent in the early 80’s. I wrote a query letter and started sending it out (snail mail of course) in batches of five to all the agents I could find. This part of my story was easy. I got two yeses from the first batch…Dominick Abel and Marcia Amsterdam. I chose Marcia.  She was my agent for the first ten years of my career and it was a great relationship for all those years.  But it took years working with her to sell my first book.

WH: How long did your agent take to get you a book deal with Henry Holt? Or did you just go to Macmillian/Henry Holt directly?

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Pull up a chair, a beanbag, or your neighbor, and take a seat, WordHustlers. Our latest WordHustlerInk interview is doozy! Meredith Zeitlin is not only a voiceover artist, actress, genius, and all-around great gal, she’s also coming out with a funny, honest, entertaining YA book that is going to wow the world. It’s called “This Just In: Kelsey Finkelstein Is Freaking Out.” And we’ve got the sneak peek!

WordHustler sat down with Meredith to discuss her book, her dreams for publishing domination and….wine coolers? Hey, everybody’s doing it.

Buckle in and get ready for some wonderful tips and words of wisdom from an author on the brink!

WordHustler: Meredith, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us. Can you tell our readers how you got your start in publishing and entertainment?

Meredith Zeitlin: Thanks for having me! This is my first-ever interview, so I will try not to screw it up.

I’m a VORACIOUS reader, and have been my whole life. I love, love to read. And I actually come from a family of writers – almost everyone on my mom’s side of the family writes professionally. Growing up, I always wanted to be an author (that, and a prima ballerina) and had this plan to write the most incredible books. I’d get an idea (which was always strikingly similar in theme and style to whatever I’d just finished reading) and occasionally make it to page 5 before giving up. I was much more successful with the angst-filled poetry.

In high school, I worked on the paper and eventually became the Editor In Chief; I worked my ass off and loved everything about it. In college, I couldn’t decide whether to pursue writing or theatre, my other main activity, and I ended up doing both: I was a theatre major at Northwestern University, and also a member of the “Creative Writing for the Media” program, which accepts 12 students each year and focuses on screen/television writing and playwriting. (If anyone would like to read a TRULY terrible play that is a thinly disguised attempt by the author to deal with her unrequited love for a young man in her acting class, do be sure to let me know.)

When I graduated I figured I’d immediately be lauded as the next Bernadette Peters, which shockingly didn’t happen. Through a series of lucky strokes I started auditioning for voiceover work and have been doing it ever since. And it’s through a connection in the voiceover world that I found my fabulous literary agent, so I guess if everyone could join me for a chorus of “Que sera, sera” now, that would be great.

WH: What is Kelsey about?

MZ: Kelsey is about a smart, occasionally insecure, very ambitious 14-year-old girl named Kelsey Finkelstein, who is embarking on her freshman year of high school. She was the editor of her middle school paper, has always written for the paper, even thinks in articles (the book is narrated partly in articles that exist only in Kelsey’s mind), and has decided to rebrand herself in high school by doing something totally different - soccer team, school play…whatever she can think of. Unfortunately there are two main obstacles: 1) her little sister is discovered by a talent scout and suddenly becomes a celebrity and the focus of everyone’s attention and 2) everything Kelsey tries to do is a TOTAL DISASTER.

WH: What inspired you to write Kelsey? Were you reacting to the Gossip Girl brand of books and their lack of reality?

MZ: I wanted to write a book that was sort of a response to the Gossip Girl/Clique/etc. craze - a book about a REAL girl in NYC, who isn’t drinking martinis at the Savoy while clutching a limitless platinum card and having X-rated affairs with half of her school, but who drinks wine coolers in her friend’s living room, has parents that drive her insane, and thinks everyone is having sex but her. A book with a cast of relatable characters like the ones I loved growing up in books by Judy Blume, Lois Lowry, and Paula Danziger, for example. Books that made me feel like I wasn’t the only awkward bookworm in the world.

Also, I wanted to write a book that was challenging to read and funny (I hope). Because most young adult books I’ve read in the last decade - not all, but MANY - are so dumbed down as to be insulting. And that makes me furious! Why aren’t we challenging kids to learn anymore? Or more importantly, THINK?

WH: What was your road to getting published like?

MZ: Long. Longer than I thought it would be, despite repeated attempts to remain rational.

Once I finished the writing part, I had some very smart friends read the draft and give me their very helpful notes. I did another pass and when it was super ready-to-go, I made a list of agents who might be interested in the book. The first four were agents I had a direct connection to, the second group were agents I had a nominal connection to, and the third were agents who I had no connection to and would contact if the first two groups were a bust. I was really lucky to sign with the magnificent Elaine Markson, who was in Group One. Then I waited for a year, receiving “good rejections,” all of which said basically the same thing: they loved the voice, the humor, and the characters, but what was the hook!? I was like, Couldn’t the hook be the voice, the humor…but no.

So the hook became the thing to figure out. My agent and I tossed around some ideas and I came up with a secondary storyline and did a rewrite. We sent it out again. This time, John Rudolph, the delightful man who is now my editor at Putnam, told Elaine that he loved the voice, the humor, the characters… but he thought the book needed a hook. BUT – he wanted to have a conversation with me instead of rejecting the book outright. So we had a lovely phone chat in which I expressed my hesitation to make one of the characters a werewolf, and he said another way to go might be changing the narrative style. I brainstormed about that and came up with an idea I thought would be different enough but still totally true to the spirit of the story. I spent the next month rewriting the first 60 pages, I sent it to John, and then Elaine called me a week later with an offer!

It was extremely rad. But what I didn’t realize then is what an even longer road there is to getting the book finished! The momentum is hard to maintain when people say, “Oh you’re getting published? How great! When can I buy your book?” And you have to say, “Oh…maybe in a year and a half? Don’t forget, okay?”

But…I think it’s gonna be worth it.

WH: What’s your writing process? Outline? Synopsis? Seat of your pants?

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Hey all you children’s and YA authors out there! Yes, we’re talking to you. Sure, you’ve got a great idea for a kids’ book. Maybe you’ve even written it. But how does your story go from your desk to the Best-Seller shelf at Barnes & Noble? Enter Ben Barnhart: children’s book editor and all-around publishing maven.

Barnhart is the Young Readers Editor at Milkweed Editions, a reputable and innovative children’s book publisher that is “one of the nation’s leading independent, nonprofit literary publishers.” Impressive, no? But let’s get to the part you really want to know: how does a writer become a published Milkweed author? And what does it take to succeed in children’s books?

Sit back and prepare to profit from this nonprofit editor’s fantastic information. You will soon be informed. Very, very informed.

WordHustler: First of all Ben, let’s get some background on you. How long have you been at Milkweed? And what got you into publishing?

Ben Barnhart: I got my start as an intern at Milkweed Editions during the summer of 2000, and stayed on as an editorial assistant. I’m coming up on nine years at the press, though I’ve been acquiring and editing the books for young readers only for the past five years. Coming out of college (I got my B.A. in philosophy from Cedarville College), I knew I liked writing and working with authors from my time as editor of the school’s literary journal. The internship confirmed my interest, and also gave me a sense that I might actually be good at this kind of work.

WH: Why does Milkweed focus on middle grade books? What is it about that age group that really sparks to reading?

BB: Our founding editor and publisher, Emilie Buchwald, started publishing books for middle-grade readers in 1993 after she identified a dearth of serious, literary books for young readers (eight to thirteen years old). Feeling that this was an age where many young readers cement their lifelong love of reading, Milkweed Editions has continued to focus on this age range with an array of titles from historical to contemporary novels. Of course, several years after we started publishing books for these readers, a young boy named Harry Potter changed the literary landscape and made young readers a much more attractive market for many publishers. So we find ourselves with a lot of competition these days.

WH: How many Young Reader books do you publish a year?

BB: We publish between four and six new books each year.

WH: Does Milkweed ever get Young Reader books put on school curriculums? Does a book have to hit a certain level of popularity before it is approved to be read in schools?

BB: Many of our titles are read in the schools, but as far as I know none have been selected as curriculum. Because most of our titles are fiction, they’re often used in conjunction with a specific segment, like Laura E. Williams’ Behind the Bedroom Wall while classes are studying World War II.

WH: Knowing that you obviously love each of the books you publish, what is your favorite Milkweed Young Reader book from 2008 and why? (If you need to be diplomatic, what are your TWO favorite books?)

BB: I do love each of the books I’ve worked on (not unlike children, actually), but my favorite from 2008 is a debut novel: Julie Crabtree’s Discovering Pig Magic. It’s a novel about three young teen girls in California, each struggling with a problem beyond her control. The characters come amazingly alive, with hilarious, spot-on dialogue. It manages to be light-hearted and serious at the same time.

WH: I’ll have to check that out. Now I must ask about what all of our readers want to know: manuscript submissions. How many unsolicited submissions would you say Milkweed Young Readers gets a month? What’s your turnaround time like?

BB: We get about three hundred manuscripts a year, so close to thirty a month. We advertise a maximum turnaround of six months, though I’m uncomfortable having manuscripts around for more than three months. In other words, we do our best to respond to submissions soon, but it will likely take us at least a few months.

WH: As editor, are you drawn to a specific kind or genre of book? Or are your tastes constantly changing?

BB: I wouldn’t say I’m drawn to a specific kind/genre of book, so much as I’m drawn to a book that manages to come alive for me as a reader. That can be almost any kind of book, in my mind: historical, fantasy, contemporary, urban, etc. I’m continually excited by books that push the envelope of young readers’ taste, recently I’ve been very impressed by Neil Gaiman’s Coraline and Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief.

WH: What are three things about a query letter or manuscript submission that make you want to read more?

BB: It’s almost impossible for me to develop an interest in a manuscript without actually having a sample of the writing. Having a strong premise and outline is always helpful, but I rarely ask for a manuscript if I don’t get at least a few pages to help me develop a taste for the author’s writing ability.

With the writing sample, I’m looking primarily for a strong character voice. That indicates, to me, the author’s ability to fully inhabit their characters, as well as confidence telling the story. Without those two elements, it’s highly unlikely that a novel will work for us.

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