On Children's Books--Every Adventure is Possible

Most of my authors live in another state and a few live in another country. Still I've managed to meet all of my authors, except one who lives on the West Coast of Canada. Go figure! But we're still trying. In the interim, this author and I have this wonderful epistolary relationship aka email. I say all this to say, it's uncommon for me to be able to attend one of my author's book events or launch parties because they usually happen far, far away. I'm no less thrilled and supportive, but it's also bittersweet to experience these first moments of my authors' post-publication journey via Facebook the day after. So tonight was a rare treat where I not only was able to support one of my authors in person, but I was able to do so at my author's very first event ever, his very first time ever reading to an audience. It was a thrill, especially as I helped him pick out the section of his book that he read and he did a masterful job. It was exciting to see the audience respond so well to his reading, to watch their faces as he read from a particularly tense section. It was fun and satisfying to see, live and in person, my author hook a reader. This is a moment both author and editor toil away for. The glory and gosh, I won't lie, it felt nice.

My author was on a stage with three other very talented authors and they read and spoke to a most engaged audience of teens, adults, other writers, journalists, at least one editor (me), agents and even a Swedish publisher. It was a varied crowd and we were rapt. I've said in other blogs on children's books how rich and nuanced the writing is and how surprising the subject matters are that writers engage for children. It was nice to see this in action tonight and now I have a few more great books to add to my reading list. You should add them too, especially if you're currently writing for children:

In a lyrical and hard-hitting exploration of betrayal and healing, the son of a Connecticut socialite comes to terms with his abuse at the hands of a beloved priest.

 

 

 

This chilling satire follows one teenager’s efforts to escape from the reality TV franchise financially supporting her large family.

The author of Endangered (2012) introduces another primate species, offering a poignant demonstration of connection between chimpanzees and humans.

 

Because of the varied audience, the questions for the authors were also varied, but a theme in the answers to these varied questions quickly revealed itself. Each book discussed tonight was inspired in part by something really happening in the world and each book connects it to the inner-lives of children. And in each case, it is an organic connection. Why? Because kids think about the world. They think about the ways in which they might move in the world and they think about the ultimate impact they may one day be able to have on the world. Kids think about themselves outside of themselves if that makes sense. They think about the larger world and consider their place in it. And each book, in its own way, engaged that and also explains why so many adults read literature for children. For that opportunity to think outside one's self, to consider something more than the routine we have built for ourselves, to remember when everything still lay ahead and we were not yet on a certain track and that every adventure seemed possible and real. My goodness, do I love children's books.

Stacey

On Craft--Certainty in Vodka

Publishing people are drinking people. We just are. One of the first things I learned about when I entered this noble profession was the two (three?) martini lunch and the more prosecco the better. Along with the drinking goes the gossiping. Publishing people are the biggest gossips. So when out with another editor, I know there will be two things: lots of drinking and lots of gossiping. And both are renewing. But also, when out with another publishing person, especially when another editor, along with the drinking and gossiping, there is also a lot of craft talk. Tonight was such a night. There was talk of one editor going through over 20 drafts with an author. I confessed I was on my 7th draft with an author. Tenth piped another. Fourteenth piped another. And then the knowing nods and smiles. None of us were saying that there was anything shameful about going through so many rounds with an author or that it was even unusual, just that it was the job and what we do as editors. We read and read and read again. We read and edit and have our authors revise until it's ready. And being ready is the thing. Publishing a book too early can be the death knell of a book and we all know it. Though we've all been guilty of publishing a book early--because of market pressures, in-house pressures, but most especially author pressure. Twenty revisions is not for the feint of heart, but it is sometimes necessary...necessary to ensure that books get starred reviews, get hand-sold by indie accounts, get award consideration and recognition and get the kind of grass roots enthusiasm and support than can assure a bestseller. Waiting for a book to be ready can make or break a book and we all know it.

And when we have been guilty of publishing a book too early, it's most often because an author is fatigued and not quite up for that twenty-first draft or even that sixth draft or even that third draft. Authors will and can sometimes judge a book ready before an editor does and in this moment an editor must face their mortality so to speak. It's not, in fact, our name going on the cover. It's not, in fact, our book. And we have in our hands a book we love and an author who has reached their limit. So we publish. And often these are not the most successful, memorable books, though they could have been.

One of the most successful authors on my list repeatedly forces one promise from me: Do not let me publish a bad book. And I don't. I tell this author when I think the book is not ready and this author listens to me and every book we've published together has received starred reviews, award attention and sold well. This author isn't in a rush, and trusts the publishing team, including me, especially me (author-editor trust is paramount to success) to tell them when they've done their best. For me as an editor, this is an ideal publishing situation and one that has been fruitful for the author, for me as editor and for the publisher, overall.

This is when I believe in gatekeepers. This is when I believe in the traditional publishing model. This is when I believe in publishing. It can be a well-oiled machine and talent can always shine if it's given the proper time and space to develop. So if your editor is putting you through the paces, don't let impatience overwhelm you or rob you of the time you need to produce the best, most thoughtful book. Craft is also about ensuring that no book is published before it's time. Craft is time and patience and listening to your revision partner--your editor--who is your main cheerleader and wants to see you reach the highest heights (because an editor's career also grows as an author's career grows, so editors do have a particular vested interest). Craft is waiting until your book is ready and embracing each step in the revision process with enthusiasm and not fatigue, even when you really are tired. Give yourself every possibility. Give your craft every chance to shine. Whether that means 3 or 8 or 30 drafts, patience is not only a virtue but when it comes to publishing, it can be the difference between a viable, long-lasting career and getting lost to the mid-list.

So a night of drinking, gossiping and craft has recommitted me to the best of what I do and the certainty of slow and steady wins the race. And the certainty of revision. And also vodka. There is certainty in vodka.

Stacey

In The News--Another Tedious Opinion Piece on Children's Publishing...

This weekend, The NYT published yet another assassination of children's books titled "Our Young Adult Dystopia". The prevailing question asked in response to the opinion piece in my publishing circle is "why do these articles keep getting published?" I wish I knew. But it reminds me very much of the kind of critique I noted of the teaching profession when I was in the classroom. That somehow one did not themselves need to be an actual educator or have any other relevant professional qualifications before offering up critique of educators, that just because someone had once been in a classroom as a student that they had the necessary expertise to tell teachers how to do their jobs. Children's books is like that--a subject where people feel free to dissect and critique without actually being children's books professionals, not even considering that these people may exist and perhaps have something relevant to say about their own industry. So then often the discourse on children's books (a world that is not just picture books and dark YA) is led by people who actually have no idea what they're talking about.

I found this to be the chief quality of the latest attack of my industry--it was written by someone who actually had no true knowledge of children's books or what is going on in the industry beyond three best-selling series and even of those series mentioned in the article, the author seemed to have very limited, surface knowledge.

Below I share my initial response to the article shared in an online discussion with other industry professionals. I don't speak for all of children's publishing (though this comment got more than one pat on the back), but at least here's a word from someone who isn't watching from the cheap seats, but is actually a working professional and understands a few more things about children's publishing than the writer of what I think is an unfortunate Times opinion piece:

Twilight isn't my favorite series, but I won't disparage others who enjoy it. And it did open up the YA market just as Hunger Games and Divergent do and many other great or not so great books do or don't. It's the nature of the beast. Not everyone has the same tastes and just because the market has anointed something that is not your taste for whatever reason doesn't mean there shouldn't be a place for it, especially in the face of millions who decide it should have a place. Publishers can make a book but so can readers (and readers have a better track record in making books than publishers) and in all the cases she cited, I'd say the readers made those books. But the publishers get called cynical. None of these books were acquired and published because of cynicism. Someone loved the story (whether or not we think those reasons are valid) and had a vision for it. The readers either responded or as she pointed out for another case, they did not. If cynicism were a sound marketing ploy, more books would work and publishing wouldn't be as this author also says a poor coal mining town. I agree I don't understand why articles like this get published. I found it rather tedious. We can definitely discuss the literary merits of books in a smart way, and learn and get better, but I doubt the audience for any of these books feel like suckers as this author suggests. The readers who love these books defend their love for them ardently and articulately and in doing so tell us what they want. We'd be wise to listen to them, especially as it's a readership of varied tastes. They read across genre, they read contemporary, they read literary, they read commercial, and they have read far wider than the writer of this article who judges based on three top-selling series. This author is simply not the audience for what she judges and that's fine. But she also sounds like she's making a judgement about something she knows nothing about. And I have to admit this author lost me when she accused book editors of being ageist. I have never once known the age of any author I've acquired and it's not a question I've ever asked before acquiring a book. And I'm sure if she bothered to look, she'd find many successful YA authors across the age spectrum. Her argument just holds no merit, and made me a little angry as you can by now tell by my rant...


As I reread my comments what most strikes me about my initial and immediate and visceral reaction to the article is the question of why can't the readers know best? With so much complaining about gatekeepers, why can't the readers be trusted to know what they like? Because they are children (though the majority of the Twilight audience were middle-aged women who read romance) it's okay to second guess them? That perhaps they don't actually like what they like? Another industry colleague made the very astute point that, for some reason, children's literature is not allowed to be as varied as adult literature, that kids are not allowed to read for pleasure as well as to learn. Reading no matter what age you are is primarily a haven, an escape; and having books that you love to read as opposed to having to read also fosters a wonderful love of reading that allows the critical thinking skills to engage with more technical or academic texts. I've said this before elsewhere on this blog, but in light of the Times piece and for my own sanity, it bears repeating: fiction for children is incredibly nuanced, and yes, varied. Some of it is great and some of it not so great, just like adult books and the reader, whether a teen or a tween or an adult, should get to decide what they like and what they don't without being judged a "sucker". Millions of readers loved Twilight. Millions of readers loved Divergent. Millions of readers shouldn't be dismissed because this writer happens to find Veronica Roth's writing flat. 

Sometimes certain things just shouldn't be in the news...

Stacey

Philip Seymour Hoffman--a final round of applause for a great actor and artist

 

“I had insecurities and fears like everybody does, and I got over it. But I was interested in the parts of me that struggled with those things.”

From Adult to YA: Crime to Kids by Theo Gangi

I'm really pleased to have here today one of my favorite writers, he's such a favorite of mine that I acquired his debut novel Bang, Bang. Theo Gangi is an exciting writer. His characters are honest, daring and very human. His writing has equal parts muscle and heart. Theo is also one of the smartest writers I know and I so enjoy talking to him about literature and life. He's passionate about all things, and he injects this same passion into his work making his books an edge-of-your-seat pleasure. So without further ado, I'll step out of the way. Let's welcome Theo.--Stacey

When you’re 19 years old and you go out to a bar, you hope you don’t get carded. When you’re 34, you hope you do. The way we relate to our own ages undergoes many facelifts. Teenagers often brag about their ‘old souls’, while the middle-aged are proud to be ‘young at heart’. No matter how many birthdays we’ve celebrated, we want to be any age but our own.

One of the perks of writing works of fiction is an outlet for fanciful desires. Draw a character, and jump into his or her shoes, or his or her age. When I was in my mid-twenties, the protagonist of my crime thriller Bang, Bang was 38 years old. Why make Izzy 38? I honestly couldn’t say. I didn’t know anyone who was 38. I had no real personal insight into the mind-set of a man two years away from 40. It sounded like a good age to be tired enough of whatever you were doing in life to stop doing it (in Izzy’s case, robbing drug dealers). 38 sounded grizzled and world weary, and likely just enough distance from my own age so that I couldn’t possibly confuse my protagonist with my self.


Seems only right that now that I’m in my mid–thirties, I’m subtracting years instead of adding them. I keep thinking 11 or 13. I’m drawn to odd years rather than even. There is again enough distance from my own age to make the character a separate creation. I’m less romantic about the veiled, edgy dangers of the real world, and more prone to nostalgia. I’d rather spend time with good kids with good hearts than lost causes and small-time drug dealers.

As I read and reread young adult novels,  

certain characters, scenes and dynamics would trigger almost physical memories. Good YA has the power to recall moments that moved your world when you were a child, like Harry Potter’s first birthday cake, or when Bambi was running away, the gunshot fired and you knew (spoiler) that Bambi’s mother was gone forever. A YA novel can make even an adult reader more vulnerable to its story, as the tales recall a time when we were more vulnerable to life. Every experience was newer, more magical, and more devastating. I don’t remember when my parents had that dreaded conversation with me about death. I’m sure they did; they had to. But I do remember when faceless hunters shot Bambi’s mother dead.

It wouldn’t surprise me if most of our earliest exposures to death were presented to us through the fictional lens of our favorite young stories. Kids grow at such a rapid clip, and the stories they digest serve a more vital developmental purpose. They see their heroes leave home, confront their fears, and return stronger—almost a psychological metaphor for getting through 3rd grade. A child’s responsibilities are to read, experience and learn. They aren’t’ reading as downtime from their jobs, right before they pay the house bills. They aren’t taking a break from life when they read; they are living it.

One of my old favorites was a Japanese manga (though I didn’t know that term then) called The Lone Wolf and Cub. It was the story of a father and son, roaming feudal Japan as the baby cart assassin. Something in those stories has influenced most everything I’ve written in one obscure way or another. That feeling of complete immersion is what I’m trying to replicate when I tell any story. I recall those books as a waypoint for my writing. The old style ink-penned, black and white art of the father and son resonates to this day. I even pick up a charcoal stick and draw them from time to time.

Theo Gangi is the author of the breakout crime thriller Bang Bang. His stories have been anthologized in First Thrills, edited by Lee Child, The Greensboro Review, The Columbia Spectator and the Kratz Sampler. His articles and reviews have appeared in Buzzfeed.com, The San Francisco Chronicle, Mystery Scene Magazine, Inked Magazine and Crimespree Magazine. A graduate of Columbia University’s Masters in Fine Arts program, he teaches at St. Francis College and lives in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. You can find him online at: http://www.theogangi.com/index.html

On Children's Books--Award Winners

On Monday, ALA announced the winners of the most prestigious awards in children's books. It's an announcement children's publishing people anticipate all year long. There's a lot of pomp and circumstance and general good cheer. Authors whose names have been bandied about as potential winners don't often sleep the night before wondering if their phone will ring at some ungodly hour--The Call. Their publishers would have contributed to this restless night before THE announcements by asking to confirm their telephone numbers.

Getting THE call that you have won an ALA award can be life-changing for many authors and put them in a different bracket of author than they had been in previously. Suffice it to say, ALA Awards are a big freakin' deal. For the editors and agents and publishers, it's also a validation of tastes and all the work that goes into a book before it appears on a shelf. It's a time we get to pat ourselves on the back and sigh with relief that someone noticed all our toiling away. Yes, awards are nice.

For me as an editor, especially this year, it was also an opportunity to hear about many wonderful books I had not previously heard about or gotten a chance to check out because my head was always buried in a manuscript. The morning of these award announcements is a great time to raise my head and look around. And while many great books I'd heard of and read were recognized, there were many others I had been hearing about for the very first time. This is what's great about these awards. Even when busy editors aren't paying attention, you can bet busy librarians are. So of the award winners, those I'm most eager to check out that are new to me are:

Newbery Honoree

Morris Award Honoree

Odyssey Award Winner

Printz Award Honoree

And I'm so thrilled for a book I was most familiar with and just loved, loved, loved:

Stonewall Award Winner

For a full listing of the Awards:  http://www.ala.org/news/press-releases/2014/01/american-library-association-announces-2014-youth-media-award-winners

On Craft--Consistency of Theme

One of my favorite parts of the editorial process is the way narratives are enriched just via regular old conversation. This may sound strange at first. After all, isn't it expected that authors would talk to their editor? Yes, but conversations between editors and authors don't often happen until after an editor has done the work of going through a manuscript line-by-line and turned around an editorial letter. And the conversation at that point is often a brief check-in with the author before the author heads off into revision land for a few weeks or months. Ultimately, because of the ease of technology, I think we often forget to talk to each, voice-to-voice no matter what the task or collaborative project or relationship. Email just becomes easy. And then add to that social media making us feel like we are seeing and talking to each other often even when we aren't; it's not hard to understand how voice-to-voice contact could be left behind. I know people who don't even use voicemail anymore and eschew telephone conversations...okay, I'm one of them.  Texting tends to be my primary mode of conversation even with those closest to me.

And not because I don't enjoy talking to my friends or colleagues on the phone, but in the day-to-day grind, efficiency becomes paramount and I don't often even realize how much I'm missing that voice-to-voice connection, especially with my authors, until a day like today when I spend 45 minutes on the phone with an author I not only love working with because she's so talented, but is also someone whom I adore personally. We spent at least half the time on the phone today catching up on our respective families and laughing a lot.

And then we got down to the business at hand, last round revisions, meaning this author is one step away from being publication-ready after going through several rounds of revision. She's so close and we both found ourselves energized by being so close. How do we know she's close? The characterization is strong (as both a reader and editor I really care about these characters--they mean something to me as if they were real people); the pacing is well-executed and the book reads as if the author wrote the narrative in one effortless breath; the conflict is compelling and not something easily or neatly solved; the writing is memorable; the conclusion satisfying. So what's left you might ask? One never knows. What's left when all the must-haves for any novel are all in place actually differs from project to project and it's often in this final conversation where author and editor find out what's left.

Today's "what's left" happened to be consistency of theme, which ranged from something as minor as ensuring the main character's dog wasn't forgotten by the narrative to something slightly more complicated like ensuring the idea that a character is struggling with the concept of unfulfilled dreams doesn't suddenly appear in the last third of the narrative without being developed and consistently so earlier in the narrative. And in this examination of craft there is also another pitch for outlining--and not just outlining plot points or character growth but use of theme, clarifying for yourself how you want themes and their accompanying details to develop and appear in the narrative and to make sure it's done purposefully and seamlessly (we don't want to be heavy-handed with narrative themes, but we also don't want themes to be too subtle to resonate or awkwardly introduced too late into the narrative.)

Forgetting to properly integrate themes is a common craft concern, especially for my seat-of-the-pants writers out there. But clearly establishing the themes you want to explore in a narrative and always having those themes at the forefront of your mind when writing character descriptions, scene details and dialogue will save you from having to go back and rework everything to ensure themes read as a seamless part of your narrative's foundation. It's not impossible to revise for theme and make it feel seamless after the fact, but it's a lot harder and can involve a great deal of dismantling and rebuilding of narrative elements you are by now married to. Even if it's heavy-handed to start, it's easier to peal away layers than it is to build those layers. So today's advice on craft? Go into your narrative not only with a mind on character and story, but theme as well. Make it an organic part of your narrative from word one. You'll thank me in the revision process later. Here's hoping your "what's left" is little more than the words The End.