Notes from SCBWI Winter Conference

I had such a great time talking to everyone at SCBWI Winter Conference this weekend and teaching the multicultural books breakout. In one of my sessions, we didn’t get to this part of my notes, and for the others, we had to go through the list quickly because it was so long. One thing we … Read more

So, a few things have happened recently

In case you’ve missed the tweets/Facebook posts about these things, I thought I’d put them all here for you to refer to. Last week’s #yalitchat on Twitter now has a full transcript. An abridged post, getting to the meat of the discussion and clarifying some of the conversations, will be posted soon. Susan Morris at … Read more

NY SCBWI schedule

If you didn’t already know, I’m going to be speaking at the end of the month at the New York SCBWI National Conference at the end of January. I’m excited to be talking about multicultural books, particularly writing them—pitfalls to avoid, things to consider when you write cross-culturally, maybe highlight some of my favorites from … Read more

Writing diversity: avoiding the Magical Negro

I don’t know that we’ve ever discussed the concept of the Magical Negro here before, or its equivalent in American storytelling with Asian and Native American characters, and I think we need to. With Tu’s emphasis on protagonists being characters of color, I don’t get as many submissions nowadays using this old stereotype/trope, but it’s … Read more

Six Little Sisters by Guadalupe Garcia McCall

Now that it’s been announced in Children’s Bookshelf, I can let you know that I have a new acquisition! Stacy Whitman at Lee & Low Books has acquired world rights to Guadalupe Garcia McCall‘s second YA novel, Six Little Sisters, scheduled for publication in fall 2012 under the Tu Books imprint. In this retelling of … Read more