Writing for Children

AN INTERVIEW WITH HANNAH HOLT In this rebroadcast, we talk with Hannah Holt, a children's author with an engineering degree. Her books, The Diamond & The Boy (Balzer+Bray) and A Fa...

FOUR WAYS TO LEARN TO LOVE NONFICTION Many writers view nonfiction as less: less creative than fiction, less fun than fiction, less interesting to kids than fiction, and definitely...

LAUNCHING A STORY FROM A TITLE Chances are you fall into one of two camps when it comes to titles: You either love creating them or you dread trying to think up something clever th...

TOP THREE NARRATIVE NONFICTION MISSTEPS Nonfiction is basically broken into two broad types. Expository nonfiction describes, explains, and informs. Narrative nonfiction uses story...

INTERVIEW WITH A CONTEST JUDGE In this rebroadcast, we interview frequent ICL contest judge and longtime instructor Nancy Coffelt. As well as being a multi-published picture book a...

TIPS FOR YOUR WRITER WEBSITE Every author needs a website—yes, even if you're not published yet. In the Internet age, your website acts as your online business card for readers and...

5 QUESTIONS ABOUT AUTHOR PLATFORM A while back I sent out a one-question survey. Writers could submit any one question about author platform and marketing. I learned a ton from rea...

INTERVIEW WITH VICTORIA BOND Victoria Bond is a writer and professor. Her novel, Zora and Me, co-written with T.R. Simon, won the John Steptoe/Coretta Scott King Award for New Tale...

FINDING YOUR CHILDLIKE VOICE Voice is the number one thing that can make or break your children's story. So, let's see how to find a childlike voice that appeals to your audience. ...

AUTHENTIC KID VOICES A while ago on the Institute's Facebook page, someone was asking about dialogue, which made me think again about this important writing tool. Readers love dial...

INTERVIEW WITH MAGGIE TOKUDA-HALL & JAMIE TAN Katie interviews award-winning author Maggie Tokuda-Hall and Candlewick Senior Publicist Jamie Tan about Maggie's latest book THE MERM...

ACTIVE AND PASSIVE VOICE Voice can be a tough thing to define and a tougher thing to master, but when I ran across this article about active voice and passive voice from my old fri...