Once again an agent is seeking to cultivate YA writers for her list. Dana West is a junior agent at the Writer’s House San Diego office, and will be attending the North Central California Region Spring Spirit II Conference in March. The conference features a lot of interesting editors and illustrators, and might be worthwhile if you’re in the area. Something to look forward to in 2006!
Every year one should refresh oneself on the basics of writing. Harold Underdown of The Purple Crayon fame is a nice man who published a guide on how to get out of the slush pile, the ubiquitous place where all unsolicited manuscripts first land. Writers would do themselves a favor to read it at least yearly, so as to avoid the mistakes we’re all apt to make when we get too lazy/sloppy/comfortable with this writing life. Since he has written a fabulous Q&A book about children’s publishing, you can mine the site for answers, and ask him something specific if you can’t already find the answer there.
The Arne Nixon Center for the Study of Children’s Literature, which houses a huge collection of children’s works for study and research, is announcing a Spring event with illustrator Steven Kellog. Now, I know we’re writers, but it’s good to Know Your Illustrators, especially when writing for children. Check it out.
The beginning of the year is very slow sometimes for writers – publishing houses are just getting back online from their two week (plus!) vacations, and it may seem like nothing is going on. Never fear, something IS going on! Only it’s going on with YOU, hopefully. Right now is when it’s a time to get to work! The Writer Magazine has some little workouts for learning how to pace, and a last minute (VERY last minute!) contest from the San Francisco Writer’s Conference Writing Contest. Too late for the contest this year, unless you’ve just got a children’s novel handy, (deadline is the 31st!), but there’s always next year, and the Conference in February. Meanwhile, work on that pacing!
Auld Lang Syne and all of that.
