Straight talk from the sisters about blood, sweat and ink
I’ve known about The Oxford Inklings for most of my lifetime. However, I didn’t become interested in them again until quite recently. For those of you who don’t know the story, The Inklings were an informal literary society and critique group that started meeting in Oxford during the 1930s. However, they weren’t just any group, …
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I’m obsessed with the meet-cute. If you don’t know what a meet-cute is, it’s those quirky, funny and/or sexy ways two people meet for the first time. This is most often used for a romantic meeting, but it also works for future friends. Most people know the term meet-cute from the movie The Holiday, but …
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Everyone wants a book that explodes off the page like a supernova. The best compliment any reader can give a book is to say they couldn’t put down. It’s not easy to create a bang, which is why too many books open with a few sad sparks and no fully formed fireworks. There are some …
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About nine months ago, long before Lyn Shepherd bashed J.K. Rowling or Ruth Graham issued her condemnation of adults reading YA books, or the Reading Rainbow Kickstarter blasted fundraising milestones, I wrote a post where I advised writers: “…don’t dismiss children’s fiction. Children’s literature is often ripe with what scares society. The 1800s started a …
Continue reading “Kidlit Matters: What History Reveals”
If you haven’t already published a juvenile book with Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) you don’t know they announced a big change on June 2. In a letter to all their children’s book publishers they wrote: “You can now set age and grade categorization refinements to help readers discover your books.” Okay maybe this doesn’t …
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May always makes me want a long slow read. A book I can sink my teeth into. Something that pairs nicely with the last lazy days of spring. When I can still enjoy an hour or two by a sunny window, and the kids are still deeply involved with school friends and functions enough to …
Continue reading “What We’re Reading: Sci-Fi”
Yes, I admit it! I’m obsessed with education. If you follow my blog posts you already know this about me. I’m deeply alarmed by the current downward trajectory of childhood literacy in the United States. Statistics recently released from U.S. Department of Education are not encouraging. In the media rich world we live in, reading …
Continue reading “5 Tips For Keeping the Kids Reading All Summer”
As writers we often find ourselves at various stages with our work. Here are three popular stages and three posts from us to help you find a way through the challenges each stage creates. Stage 1: Just getting started? It is the hardest part. Lucky for all of us Heather has three great ways to …
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I spent most of my life as one of those people who try to finish every book they’ve ever started. Well, no more! I still feel a degree of remorse when I walk away from a well-written book, the ones I should love, but for some reason, they just didn’t spark my interest. However, there …
Continue reading “Guilt Free Book Abandonment”
For some reason my parents gave us gender ambiguous first names. My middle sister has a name that is almost exclusively in the male domain. Where as my eldest sister and I have names that lean toward the feminine side, as does my poor brother’s name. Although, he legally changed his name the moment he …
Continue reading “3 Reasons You Need a Pen Name”