In November, I was on a humorous picture book panel at NCTE with Josh Funk, Marc Nobleman, Erica Perl, Liz Garton Scanlon, and Audrey Vernick. Our moderator, Susannah Richards, gave us a list of questions to think about as we prepared for our session. Since I loved Susannah’s thought-provoking questions …
Mike Boldt and I have a new book entering the world TODAY. The flap copy sums it up beautifully… GOOD NEWS! Your mom’s hatching a baby! BAD NEWS! Babies take their sweet time. And when they finally do hatch? They don’t even know how to be a dinosaur. That’s where …
Writers write for lots of reasons. We love words. We love telling stories. We love living in our heads. We love sharing our thoughts. We love seeing what we’ve written out in the world. But no matter what else drives us, I think all of us, on some level, hope …
Please Please the Bees, written and illustrated by Gerald Kelley Benedict the bear lives a very sweet life. Every morning the bees leave him three jars of honey on his porch. Benedict’s bear existence revolves around eating and enjoying his honey. It is everything to him. So, when one day …
The past several years I’ve posted a New Year cartoon featuring a pair of characters I’ve been working on for years. I call it Two Unlikely Friends. Last year I posted one here about losing and finding one’s mojo. This may be nothing more than musings, but I enjoy creating …
Happy 2018 everyone! 2017 ended with us, here in Alberta, in a deep freeze over the holidays. Now that we’re finally thawing out, I’m excited to see what this year has in store. This post, I’m looking back at one of my most memorable moments in publishing as it gets …
Every January 1st I take a little time to appreciate the wonderful writing opportunities, invitations, and surprises from the past twelve months, then I jot down a few goals for the coming year. As an author it’s easy to spend a lot of time on fun, useful activities such as …
When I guest post here on Picture Book Builders, I tend to use the space to bring you some of my favorite people, editors! I guess it’s because picture book editors possess the most control over the many parts of the publishing process. As a certified control freak I’ve always …
This post should probably be holiday themed… but it’s not… not really? Well, perhaps it is in the fact that Andrea Zuill’s wonderful picture book, Dance is for Everyone has a beautiful message of inclusion. And kindness. Acceptance and encouragement. Which are all messages I would like to see come …
“What process do you follow to write your stories?” I’ve heard that question more frequently as I’ve sold more picture books, and I never quite know how to answer. The people asking usually look as if they’re waiting for a golden ticket to inspiration. Like, maybe I’ll say that I …