Welcome to our annual holiday gift list! We have asked our guest bloggers and contributors about their favorite 2019 writing and illustrating things. Because they are always fabulous, they have provided a fantastic list of practical, frivolous, and fun gift ideas. Happy shopping!

In addition to Lizzy and The Good Luck Girl (Running Press Kids, 2019), Susan is the author of The Upside of Ordinary and numerous picture books. To learn more about Susan, visit her website at https://www.susanlubner.com/. 

Tania de Regil:
​Honestly, the greatest thing I’ve learned this year, both in my writing and illustrating, is letting go! I know it sounds a bit cheesy, but it’s true.  No one should worry about what people are going to think or say about their work, so I remind myself every day that I do this because I love it.   In more technical aspects, I started using the Schmincke watercolors and they are fantastic!

Tania de Regil is an author and illustrator from Mexico City who made her US debut this year with A New Home/ Un Nueva Hogar (Candlewick Press, 2019). To learn more about Tania, and browse her online print shop for some lovely Christmas gifts, visit her website at https://taniaderegil.com/books/

Studio Goodwin Sturges is a boutique artists agency dedicated predominately to children’s trade publishing. They look for artists who have a real sense of a child’s world and how to dynamically depict it. To learn more about Studio Goodwin Sturges please visit them at: http://www.studiogoodwinsturges.com/. 

Kelly Carey is a co-founder of 24 Carrot Writing and her debut picture book, HOW LONG IS FOREVER? launches from Charlesbridge in April of 2020. To learn more about Kelly visit her website at http://www.kcareywrites.com/. 

​Ileana Soon is an illustrator/visual development artist who grew up in Borneo before making her way to Los Angeles where she currently lives and works. NIGHT TRAIN is her debut as a picture book illustrator. Learn more about Ileana at http://ileanasoon.com.

Christy Ewers:

Two things I cannot live without as an agent (and the only things that keep me organized) are:

1. Sharpie Pens. They are the best fine-point pens out there, and anyone who has seen my handwriting knows that a nice clean black line means a lot to me! I use them to hand-address the envelopes when we do promotional mailings. I realize that the fact that I hand letter 250 addresses 3x a year makes me crazy, but the fact that they can withstand that kind of abuse is proof positive that they are awesome!

2. A nice college ruled small notebook with a thick, sturdy cover. I write everything in my notebook. From keeping a to-do list (complete with boxes to check!), to taking notes in meetings or conferences, to jotting down story ideas, to score-keeping my family rummy games, it’s got everything in it. It’s my travel companion and life line. Let’s not talk about what would happen it it was misplaced! Right now, I’m using this one from Madewell. 

Rachel Lynn Solomon is the author of the YA novels You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone, Our Year of Maybe, and the forthcoming Today Tonight Tomorrow (6/16/20), all from Simon & Schuster/Simon Pulse. You can find her online at rachelsolomonbooks.com and on Twitter @rlynn_solomon. ​

Amanda Smith:
My favorite way to keep track of my daily writing tasks, is this day planner by Day Designer. I love the roomy pages, with designated to-do list space, for each day. It also features tabs, and a month overview and has plenty of extra note pages to jot down monthly goals. It comes delivered in a beautiful box, which makes it an ideal no-wrapping- required gift.

Two of your nonfiction picture books involve jazz music: THE LITTLE PIANO GIRL: THE STORY OF MARY LOU WILLIAMS, JAZZ LEGEND and J IS FOR JAZZ (such a fun read)! Can you share what sparked these stories? Are you a musician yourself?  

I can play the sticks if pressed into it. I do love music and still love to dance even though I’m a bit arthritic these days. I got the idea for both books on a day I subbed for my music teacher friend who had an ongoing unit on jazz. I wondered if a jazz alphabet book had ever been written. As I pondered who or what to use for the letter W, my jazz historian friend reminded me of Mary Lou Williams, the First Lady of Jazz. As I began to read about her, I was totally hooked. My sister, Maryann Macdonald, paired with me in the writing of that book. It sold first and about 3 years later, J is for Jazz sold.
​
FAIRY FLOSS: THE SWEET STORY OF COTTON CANDY is another of your nonfiction picture books. What lead you to write this delicious story? 

​Sonal Fry at Little Bee asked me to write this book. She gave me lots of freedom in deciding what to write. When I learned that the Electric Candy Making Machine was first introduced at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, I was hooked. I did quite a bit of the research at the UMKC Dental School Library since one of the inventors was a dentist. He also wrote books for children. How cool is that?
​

​We’d love to know what you’re working on now. Any projects coming up?

I have some wonderful projects coming up. In 2020, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will release another picture book biography that will be illustrated by the talented Chloe Bristol. Because its publication date is still a year out, mums the word about the subject for now. But I’m especially looking forward to sharing this individual’s unique and curious story. I’m also excited about the recent sale of a new fiction picture book. I’ll be able to share more details in the coming months once the illustrator has been selected. 

What advice would you give to writers out there in the query/submission trenches?

Read the genre of stories you want to write. Study story structure, beginnings, middles, and endings. Study character and voice. Then, keep trying. Be persistent. Persistence is key. As you keep writing, your manuscripts will get better. Don’t be in a rush to submit. Rather, focus on making each manuscript the best that it can be. When it’s irresistible, success is only a submission away.

Thanks so much for sharing your experiences with 24 Carrot Writing, Lori!

Lori Mortensen is an award-winning children’s book author of more than 100 books and over 500 stories and articles. Her upcoming picture book biography, Away with Words, the Daring Story of Isabella Bird (Peachtree), is about a Victorian traveler who defied society’s boundaries for women and became the first woman inducted into the Royal Geographical Society. Recent picture book releases include If Wendell Had a Walrus (Henry Holt), Chicken Lily (Henry Holt), Mousequerade Ball (Bloomsbury) illustrated by New York Times bestselling illustrator Betsy Lewin, and Cowpoke Clyde Rides the Range (Clarion, 2016) a sequel to Cowpoke Clyde & Dirty Dawg, one of Amazon’s best picture books of 2013. When she’s not letting her cat in, or out, or in, she’s tapping away at her computer, conjuring, coaxing, and prodding her latest stories to life. For more information about her books, events, critique service, and upcoming releases, visit her website at www.lorimortensen.com. ​

Hosted by Kelly Carey

​24 Carrot Writing is thrilled to welcome author Jarrett Lerner to the site. Jarrett is the author of EngiNerds, a middle grade series starter hailed by Kirkus as a “boisterous balance of potty humor and geek pride” and a “rollicking young engineer’s adventure”. Its sequel, Revenge of the EngiNerds launches next month and I know my nephew is hoping for more side-splitting fun (and farting robots!).
 
Jarrett knows how to have fun in his writing but he is also passionate and serious about being a contributing force in KidLit and having a positive effect on his young fans. To that end, Jarrett cofounded and helps run MG Book Village, an online hub for all things Middle Grade, and is the co-organizer of the #KidsNeedBooks and #KidsNeedMentors projects.
 
Welcome to 24 Carrot Writing Jarrett! ​

Can you tell us a bit about your journey to the printed page? How did you become a published author? 

I’ve been drawing and writing since I can remember. Growing up, I definitely had other interests and hobbies – I played baseball and guitar and skateboarded. But I was always in the middle of a book or two, and I always had notebooks lying around with stories, sketches, and ideas. And while my interest in those other things waned, my interest in reading and creating only grew, and eventually flared up into a full-blown passion.
 
Even so, it never occurred to me that I could become a published author. In college, I was writing like crazy. And sure, I fantasized about being published. But I truly believed that that’s all such thoughts ever were and ever would be – fantasy. It took an author who I looked up to a great deal challenging me on that and encouraging me to make a go of it before I fully took myself and my work seriously. And then it took years and years to really find myself as a creator, to understand where the stories I wanted to tell “fit.” Or, to put it differently, it took years and years to accept and embrace the fact that I stopped maturing around the age of 10, and that I just wanted to write about farting robots and draw monsters all day long.

Fans of EngiNerds are excited for the sequel, Revenge of the EngiNerds. When did you decide to write a sequel? How did it feel to go back and revisit Ken and his EngiNerd crew in a new manuscript? 

Even my earliest drafts of the first book ended on a cliffhanger (I’m a big fan of them!), and when the book eventually sold, it was bought along with a sequel. So I knew pretty much from the get-go that there’d be this follow-up. Revisiting the crew in a new manuscript was both fun and frustrating. I love these characters, and tossing them into a bunch of new crazy situations was a total blast. But there were times when I wished they weren’t so fully formed in my mind (and in the first book!), when if one or another character was just a little more like this or that it would’ve made the plotting of this second book a whole lot simpler. But that just forced me to challenge myself, and in the end, I think, I produced a better book because of it. 

You just announced the launch of a new series, Geeger the Robot, an early Chapter Book launching in 2020. How would you compare working on your MG books to working on this Chapter Book series? 

Henry James once described novels as “loose, baggy monsters.” He meant it especially when comparing them to short stories, in which there’s less room for detours and digressions and, on the part of the reader, less tolerance for “imperfection.” And if there’s a spectrum for such considerations, then poems would be at the opposite end from the novel. In a poem, a reader might notice (and be irked by) a single out-of-place syllable.
 
I think James was onto something. With novels, I feel more free to take detours or linger in a scene a bit longer than is strictly necessary, just because it might be interesting or enjoyable. You don’t really have that luxury in shorter works. But at the same time, there’s something thrilling about chasing the “perfection” that is (or at least seems) possible in shorter works. I labor over all of my sentences. But the shorter a work is, the fewer the sentences it contains, the more “right” I feel those sentences need to be.

You have taken your passion for writing and used it to fuel the creation of projects and communities like MG Book Village, Kids Need Books, and Kids Need Mentors. Can you talk about how your writing journey lead you to each of these endeavors? 

I think my passion for storytelling and creating has always had a tendency to “spill over.” I read as much, if not more than, I draw and write. I get really, really excited about other people’s work, and want to share it with the world, and I think my involvement in the MG Book Village sprung out of that. And Kids Need Books and Kids Need Mentors – those are both projects aimed at improving and enriching the lives of kids. That’s something I try to do with my books too. While it may look like I’m scattered or that I’ve got too many irons in the fire, I see all of these projects as related.

You have a great natural talent and interest in illustrating. How did you land on MG and Chapter Books and not PBs or graphic novels? Is there a PB or graphic novel in your future? 
​
I’ve been drawing longer than I’ve been writing, and growing up, the two were always linked for me. But I think school – and in particular high school and college – severed them in my mind. There weren’t any pictures in the books we were reading for my literature classes. And if I’d been caught with one that did have them, I probably would’ve been ridiculed for it. And the only time visual art was linked with storytelling was in my Art History courses in college, and then in an extremely scholarly manner.
 
There’s a great quote from Picasso – “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.” I learned a great deal in high school and college. But I think it knocked me off my creative track. I was learning to write like Dostoevsky and Philip Roth and talk about paintings like I was interviewing for a job at MoMA when my heart lay with 8-year-old Jarrett making his own silly comic books in the back of the classroom. Fortunately, it didn’t take me a whole lifetime to reconnect with that kid.
 
And yes – there are some illustrated works in my future. I’m not allowed to talk much about them just yet, but if you follow me on Instagram and/or Twitter, I now and again give some sneak peeks (shhh… don’t tell my publisher!).

You have done an impressive number of author visits in a far reaching number of states. For example, you’ve been to California, Illinois and all over New England. How did you land your bookings? Manage your travel? And how have you planned your presentations to appeal to different audiences? 

I’ve been lucky to receive a number of invitations to schools. And once I have an invitation, I usually start doing outreach to try and turn a single visit into a sort of mini-tour. Last year, for instance, an educator in Chicago expressed interest in my visiting her school. I put out a call to others in the area and was able to get a week’s worth of visits. I’ve organized several other trips in just that way. But I think it’s important to say that I wouldn’t be able to do this as successfully had I not put a lot of time and effort into connecting with educators and librarians all across the country (which is something I continue to do all the time!). I truly believe that kids’ educators and librarians and kids’ book creators are colleagues, and that the more we work together, the better work we can all do. Putting in that time and effort to make these connections has enriched my life in many ways. I’ve learned SO much. I’ve made incredible friends. I’ve grown as a person and as a creator. And, more practically, it’s helped me when it comes to booking visits.

The Dutch version of EngiNerds just launched. How did you balance excitement over a foreign edition with a new illustrator doing the cover and a new title? How can authors and illustrators, who cherish their work, make space to let the creative energy of others add to it? 
​
I fully embrace the collaborative aspect of book-making. Sometimes I feel it’s a bit preposterous that authors get to have their names alone on their book covers! It’s almost always a team effort. I’ve also always subscribed to the idea that, once you put a book out into the world, it’s no longer yours – or no longer only yours. In engaging imaginatively with a work, each reader assumes a slice of ownership of the book too. I think because of all this, I find it thrilling to see what other creators do with “my” work. But that doesn’t mean I can’t question or challenge some of the choices they make – that’s part of the collaborative process too.

At 24 Carrot Writing we are big on goal setting. Do you set detailed writing goals, broad yearly goals or do you fly by the seat of your pants? 

I think I do some combination of both – I set goals by the seat of my pants! I am never working on just one project. I always have two, three, and sometimes even four or five going at once, each of them usually in a different stage of completion (or incompletion). On any given day, I’ll take two things into consideration: (1) what I feel like working on, and (2) about how much time I’ll have to work on it. Given that, I might do some exploratory doodling, or dive into novel revisions, or work on putting together a picture book dummy. Every now and again, though, I really “land” on a certain project, and will give it my full attention and concentrated energy until it’s finished (or a draft or version of it is complete). I guess you could call it “occasionally organized chaos,” but it keeps things both fun and productive for me. And that’s huge. If I’m not enjoying the work, it shows in the results. That might not be true for all creators, but it is for me.
 
Of course, sometimes some of this goes out the window when you’ve got deadlines. But the majority of the time, I meet my deadlines without changing things up.
 
24 Carrot Writing sits on the premise that authors need to set and accomplish both writing goals and the business of writing goals. How do you balance your responsibilities to MG Book Village, Kids Need Books, and Kids Need Mentors with writing your books and hitting your writing deadlines? 

I touched on this in an earlier question, but basically, I think it’s all about perspective, and about how you define your work and your goals. I love, love, LOVE making books. And yes, I could probably do that and only that all day every day for the rest of my life and be BEYOND content. But I don’t see making books as the only aspect of my work as a creator – or, what’s more, as the only facet of what I, as a human being, have to offer during my time on the planet. In addition to making good books, I want to more directly help and inspire kids, and I want to give back to the various communities that have supported and sustained me. With such goals, it’s not so much about finding balance as it is about finding the time to get it all done!
 
What advice do you have for beginning writers?
 
Embrace, explore, and celebrate the things that make you (and your creative output) uniquely you. The weirder and wonkier, the better.

To learn more about Jarrett you can visit him at jarrettlerner.com/ , or find him on Twitter @Jarrett_Lerner. 

You can purchase copies of EngiNerds or Revenge of the Enginerds using these links: www.indiebound.org/book/9781481468725, www.indiebound.org/book/9781481468749, www.amazon.com/EngiNerds-MAX-Jarrett-Lerner/dp/1481468723/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1547132304&sr=8-1&keywords=enginerds , www.amazon.com/Revenge-EngiNerds-MAX-Jarrett-Lerner/dp/148146874X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1547132360&sr=8-1&keywords=revenge+of+the+enginerds . 

And be ready to have Jarrett in a bookstore near you! Jarrett will be at the South Portland Public Library in Maine on February 23rd and at Print Bookstore in Maine on March 12th. 24 Carrot Writers be sure to say hello! 

​What are a few of your favorite books as an adult?
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

We’d love to know what you’re working on now. Any projects coming up?
I’m pleased to share that my next book, a nonfiction picture book biography about Mister Rogers will be published in Fall 2019 by Atheneum. It is called Fred’s Big Feelings: The Life and Legacy of Mister Rogers, illustrated by Brigette Barrager.

I always have multiple manuscripts in progress. Some of the ones I’m working on now involve robots, rabbits, and puppets.

What advice would you give to writers out there in the query/submission trenches?
If you are serious about getting published, do everything you can to improve your craft, build your personal kidlit community (i.e. critique group), and, importantly, cheer others on. Once your stories are the best they can be, submit, submit, submit! Compile a list of agents and editors you’d love to work with. Track your submissions. Celebrate your rejections. (It means you’re getting responses!) For most people, it takes years to connect with the right agent or editor for your work. Be determined. Be persistent. Be in it for the long haul.

Where can people learn more about you and your book?
You can find me on the web at laurarenauld.com and on social media:
Twitter - @laura_renauld
Facebook – @kidlitlaura
Instagram - @laurarenauld 

Thanks so much for sharing your experiences with 24 Carrot Writing, Laura!

Guest Blog by Susan Lubner

Please welcome picture book and middle grade novel author Susan Lubner to the 24 Carrot Writing blog. We are excited that Susan  is joining us as a guest blogger to share the process that brought her latest middle grade novel, Lizzy & the Good Luck Girl (Running Press Kids, 2018) from idea, to completed manuscript, to its launch onto bookshelves this month.

Welcome Susan! 

One by one I checked off each little box on my get-over-your-idiotic-fears-Susan list I was keeping inside my head. I had one box left to check. I still needed to find my ending.
             
On an evening just before sunset, my agent and I, each sipping adult-camp drinks, sat outside and discussed my unfinished novel.

“What’s at the heart of your story?” Linda asked me. “What does Lizzy want?”

“A sign that everything will be OK,” I answered.

“What does she really want?” she pressed.

“To feel safe,” I said.

Linda asked for more.

I answered again.

But she wanted more. Deeper and deeper I dug inside my character’s heart.

Until she asked, “What do you want? What’s inside your heart?”

I stopped to think. I always dug deep inside my character to get to the want. I don’t remember ever having to dig inside myself. Sure there were pieces of me in the stories I’d written over the years. My Maine settings, my love for animals. But my stories were only slightly salted with my truths. This was Lizzy’s story, not mine! As the sun was setting and my fear of being in the dark woods was rising, I realized that I couldn’t write that ending until I figured out exactly what Lizzy wanted. The heart of my story was missing. Was it somewhere I hadn’t looked? Inside of me as Linda suspected?

On the flight back to Boston, I thought about the loss I had experienced when I was Lizzy’s age—when my dad passed away. It was different from her experience of losing an unborn sibling. But like Lizzy, during that difficult time, I too had looked to the universe for a sign that everything would turn out okay.  It was a way to cope. A way to feel hopeful.

And there it was.

​Lizzy and the Good Luck Girl is a story about family, love, friendship, and at its heart, the power of hope. It’s my fifth published book out of dozens unpublished.  But writing this book, I learned that sometimes it’s important to step out of my comfort zone to get where I need to go: challenging myself with NaNoWriMo; setting a strict regimen of timed writing periods; attending a retreat that at first gave me pause and taking a hard look inside myself rather than my character to find the heart of a story. All of these were firsts for me. All of them crucial to creating this book.

By early 2017, I had a polished manuscript ready to send off to my agent. I decided to wait until February 14, to submit it to her. Valentine’s Day might be a good sign that she and the right editor would love it.

I hoped.
​
I wasn’t disappointed. ​

To purchase Lizzy and the Good Luck Girl go to Barnes and Noble at www.barnesandnoble.com/w/lizzy-and-the-good-luck-girl-susan-lubner/1128113191 or visit Indie Bound at www.indiebound.org/search/book?keys=lizzy+and+the+good+luck+girl . 

To learn more about Susan and her other books, visit her website at www.susanlubner.com/Home.html .
​

Guest Blog by Casey W. Robinson 

I had the pleasure of meeting Casey at the NE-SCBWI conference as she was preparing for the release of her debut picture book, Iver & Ellsworth (Ripple Grove Press, 2018). Since then I’ve been to her launch and watched the buzz of her picture book grow. We are thrilled to have Casey join us to share the lessons she learned as she introduced her debut book  to the world.

Welcome Casey!

When it was all over, I asked my daughters to tell me their favorite part of the weekend. I expected them to say “Cookies!” They said it was seeing me so happy. “You had your really big smile on all day long, mom.”
 
Don’t forget your book, your story, your day will also be special and significant to others who get to be a part of it. Whatever the format, whatever the size, mark this moment in time and celebrate together. HAVE FUN. You only get one debut!
​

To learn more about Casey please visit her at www.caseywrobinson.com. To order a copy of Iver & Ellsworth go to www.indiebound.org/book/9780999024911.  

Thanks for joining us Casey! 

Congratulations on your debut non-fiction picture book WE ARE GRATEFUL: OTSALIHELIGA (Charlesbridge, Fall 2018)! Writers find inspiration and motivation to write from a variety of places. You have commented that you were motivated to write your book because you were struggling to find contemporary and culturally accurate books about Cherokee and indigenous people to share with your son. Can you talk about how this search turned into a desire to become an author?

Wado (wah-doe)! “Thank you” in Cherokee. I am beyond thrilled for the publication of this book.

I have an extensive picture book collection with many featuring Native American Nations, their cultures and traditional stories. After I had read those to my son, I thought why aren’t there more books showing Cherokee and other indigenous people in modern life. I found some, but a small amount compared to those centering life pre-1900.

As a Native American Studies major in college, I most enjoyed studying history, law and politics of post-1900 life as experienced by Native Nations in the United States. After researching that there was plenty not told in children’s books (or textbooks for that matter), I realized I could be busy the rest of my life writing books and recruiting other Native creators to do the same.
 
Your first foray into writing began as the author of legal codes, testimony for Congressional hearings, federal budget requests and grants. Once you decided to write a contemporary Cherokee story, what helped you find your picture book voice and what skills did you borrow from your grant writing days?

I’m grateful for all the editing I received in my undergraduate, graduate and legal education. It helped my professional writing immensely. Writing starts out solitary, but ultimately it’s a collaborative process once it is to be shared with the world. The more trained eyes on a grant application, graduate thesis, legal code or brief and books for children, the better. I do a lot of self-editing before I give it to others to read, but my work always improves when great editors (critique partners, my agent, book editor) read it.

​I have a couple of hopes. First, I hope that Cherokee children will enjoy seeing their contemporary culture reflected in the book and want to learn and do all the things featured in the book, including speaking our language (if they don’t already). For other children, I hope it provides them a window into a culture they may not be too familiar with because the Cherokee and other tribal nations are mostly invisible in modern U.S. culture. We’re still here, yet most children aren’t taught that we exist after 1900—either in their own homes or at school. I hope the book helps all children think about their cultures and teachings, whether that be about gratitude or some other value, and how cultivating those could be helpful to them in navigating daily life.  ​

Wado Traci! 

Hosted by Kelly Carey
​
Tami Charles' debut middle grade novel launches this month and the buzz is already high for LIKE VANESSA (Charlesbridge).  The novel is a Junior Library Guild selection and has earned a Kirkus starred review that praises the work as "a treasure: a gift to every middle school girl who ever felt unpretty, unloved, and trapped by her circumstances".

24 Carrot Writing is thrilled to have author Tami Charles join us for a candid interview exploring her path to publication, networking and marketing advice, and some thoughts on how she approaches working in different genres and with different editors. 
​
A big 24 Carrot Writing welcome to Tami. Thank you so much for joining us. 


Congratulations on the publication of your debut middle grade novel, LIKE VANESSA (Charlesbridge, Spring 2018)! Can you tell us a bit about your journey from teacher, to freelance writer, to author of a Kirkus starred review middle grade novel? (With ahem…more happy buzz and more books on the way!)

First of all, thanks so much for including LIKE VANESSA on your blog! I was a teacher for 14 years, beginning as a substitute teacher and then an elementary teacher of third and fifth grades. I’d always loved to read and write as a child. As I grew older, I sort of forgot about my dream of becoming an author. Once I became a teacher and started reading wonderful books with my students, my passion was reignited and my students encouraged me to write again. I’m so thankful for them! So, I started writing stories, picked up a few freelance article gigs along the way, which taught me discipline, and once I finished writing LIKE VANESSA, I knew I had to take the plunge.

​In an online article, you credited your husband with the quote “If you want to be great at something, you have to surround yourself with people who are doing it and doing it better than you.” How did you act on that advice and how has it made a difference both for your pre-published self and for you now as a debut author?

My husband is one of the smartest (and funniest) people I know. When he told me this, I did the research and found the SCBWI and Women Who Write. Who knew there were organizations out there that supported aspiring writers? I had no clue! Joining these groups put me in touch with critique groups where I had the opportunity to have my work read by other writers. This level of feedback was crucial to improving my craft. I’m certain that being in a critique group played a role in my publishing journey. To this day, I still have online critique partners. The give-and-take is invaluable.

You once wrote “Having the talent is a HUGE part of making it in this industry, but don’t rule out the power of networking.” What is your networking advice? Can you give the 24 Carrot Writing crew a do’s and don’ts list?

To me, networking is everything! My grandmother used to say, “Closed mouths don’t get fed.” And she was right! You’ll get what you need to progress if you have the courage to ask for it.  My two cents on networking: A thank you note goes a long way (this can be hard copy snail mailed or a quick email). Study the bios of who will appear at writer’s conferences. Get to know the editors’ and agents’ work to see if they’re the right fit for your work. Last but not least, don’t be pushy. Your work should be able to speak for you. If you get a rejection, take it with a grain of sugar. More craft, more work, and your time will come!  
 
​What do you wish to accomplish with LIKE VANESSA?

I’d love for readers to take away that no matter what hardship they may face in life, there’s always something beautiful waiting for them if they stay focused on the journey. This, I feel, is what Vanessa learns in the story.  
For a bit more on LIKE VANESSA, check out this Author Discussion video. 

At 24 Carrot Writing we are big on goal setting. Do you set detailed writing goals, broad yearly goals or do you fly by the seat of your pants?

How about all three? Ha! I do make it a habit to wake up, Monday through Friday, at 4:30 a.m. This is my best time to write when the whole house is sleeping and no one is bothering me for a snack. If I’m on a deadline, I do set (and try to stick to) my goals. But if not, I absolutely just go with the flow.  

How have you approached marketing your debut book? What lessons have you already learned? What are you going to do again and what might you avoid next time? Has your experience as a teacher helped you construct school relevant material and visits?

Being a teacher for 14 years really guided my marketing decisions. Ultimately, I write for children, so I knew I wanted to incorporate a strategy that involved young readers and their responses regarding what they got out of the book. I learned a lot in creating this campaign—how to write a script, secure participants, budget, and edit. I don’t regret a second of it. Moving forward, I’m sure I will come up with new ideas.  

In the meantime, I’d love to share a reader’s response video below: ​

You write both fiction and non-fiction, both PB and MG, and I hear that a YA is in the works. Can you talk about the different skill sets you employ to write in those different genres and for those different age groups? 

Let me just say that I haven’t written a new picture book since last summer and I MISS THEM SO BADLY!!!! I’ve been busy writing MG and YA these days. And you’re right, I need a different mindset for those. For my current YA, it’s set in 1984, so I had to research slang, clothes, fads and watch way too many old school movies to capture the essence of the story. 
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Voice is important no matter what you write. To fully immerse myself, I can only work with one category at a time. I find the voice to be snarkier with middle grade than YA. With YA, I can cross certain lines that I can’t with middle grade. There are times I’ll write a swear word and I’ll cringe just a bit, but then I remind myself it’s totally allowed in YA.
 
With picture books, I have to become a student to capture the inner child as best as I can. This involves reading lots of mentor texts and Disney watching!

How did you find your agent? What have you found most surprising, most rewarding, and/or most daunting about working with an agent?

I found my agent the old fashioned way. I queried her. I can’t say enough about Lara Perkins. I have no clue how she manages to carry her client load and still make me feel like I’m her ONLY client, which I know isn’t true. She has quite the roster of successful authors! Lara is a cheerleader and she gives me a good kick in the literary butt when I need it. Her advocacy for my work has been the greatest reward!  

So many writers spend years writing without the input from an editor. How did you find working with an editor? Did the experience differ between editors? And has the experience with your MG been different from working on your PB, FREEDOM SOUP (Candlewick, Fall 2019)? 

Picture books are a different animal from middle grade. A lot of the work is in the hands of the illustrator and that takes time. I find the editing to be heavier with middle grade because there are no pictures to rely on. I’ve done some edits on FREEDOM SOUP and there will likely be further small edits once the art is in place. On the other hand, the edits for Vanessa were pretty ongoing and extensive. May I also add that I adore both Karen Boss and Carter Hasegawa? It’s been a great experience!

What is up next for you? And where can readers find you and your books? 

Right now, I am revising the follow up to LIKE VANESSA. This will be a companion YA novel featuring Beatriz Mendez, who is a secondary character in LIKE VANESSA. She comes across as a bully in the first book, but in the follow up, we learn her backstory and see her passion for dance reignited. I also have a middle grade novel, DEFINITELY DAPHNE, publishing with Capstone in October. 

Thank you Tami. We wish you continued success with LIKE VANESSA and in all your writing endeavors.

If 24 Carrot Writers would like to purchase a copy of Tami's debut novel LIKE VANESSA, please click on the links below. To learn more about Tami, please visit her website at https://tamiwrites.com/ .  
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~ By Amanda Smith

We are excited to visit with author and illustrator Matthew Cordell at 24 Carrot Writing.

Matthew  has illustrated poetry, novels, and picture books for children including Special Delivery by Philip Stead and the Justin Case series by Rachel Vail. He has also written and illustrated several picture books himself, including Another Brother, Hello! Hello!, Wish, and Dream.

Matthew’s books have been recognized as Best of the Year selections by The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe, and his first wordless picture book, Wolf in the Snow, was awarded a 2017 Boston Globe-Horn Book honor award.

Thank you, Matthew, for answering all our questions about the making of a picture book from an illustrator's point of view. We are honored to learn from you. 

What advice do you have for writers who are walking around with a wordless book in their hearts?

I imagine it must be an unusual undertaking to be a writer and envision, write, and even pitch a story like this. Much less one with no words at all. But I know it can be done, obviously, and done well. One of my favorite recently published picture books is a wordless book, Sidewalk Flowers written by JonArno Lawson and illustrated by Sydney Smith. If any author is ever on the fence about doing a wordless picture book, I say get off the fence and go for it. Some picture books simply function better with no words at all, and there’s really no better way to do it.

Yes, the dreaded illustration note question: We’ve read agents’ opinions on illustration notes. As an illustrator, what is your take?  

When a manuscript is on submission, I think illustration notes are quite helpful. A picture book text, in the end, should not spell out every single twist and turn that is meant to be seen in the book. If it did, it would be working overtime and be terribly redundant as the pictures are already doing some of this work and filling in gaps. As an illustrator, I don’t mind the occasional illustration note, especially if there is no text to describe a critical element to the story. But if a manuscript is riddled with notes, I think it can be a bit overwhelming and stifling to my own interpretation and decision-making I’ve been hired to deliver. But most editors I’ve worked with strip the manuscript of most, if not all, notes to see how I might interpret the story. Unless, again, there is some critical description that must be seen by the illustrator.

When you are not working on an assignment, what do you do to grow your craft/art? 
 
If I’m not on deadline, I like to use any free time to develop any story ideas that have been sitting around, or simply just to draw for fun. I think it’s important to continue to draw when there’s no pressure of contracts and timelines and expectations for specific books or jobs. Whenever I work on a book, there is a lot of extended planning involved: Image research, sketches, sketch revisions, pencil drawing, and then by the end, I break out my pen and bottle of ink.

When I’m drawing for my own pleasure, a lot of the pressure and expectations are stripped away and I can sometimes stumble upon new ways to solve problems and use the pen and line to do what I never knew it could do. I like to skip any time and labor involved with sketches and the pencil and just attack the paper straight away with the pen, which can be a little intimidating, considering ink is incredibly unforgiving. But often times the best drawing is the very first one that’s been put to paper. Sometimes the very first sketch has so much more energy than a final drawing—one that’s been drawn 3, 4 or more times. So it’s fun to just go at an ink drawing with no planning at all. It’s fun to just draw without limits or expectations.