Newbie in the Field

Sheesh. I spy on a SCBWI discussion list one day and think I get a scoop. A new cool children's editorial blog? I'm in! Then the next thing you know everyone and their brother already knows about it. *sigh*

Why promote Editorial Anonymous? Because whoever this person is (I will find you!) they update regularly. Really regularly. I'm a sucker for a good regular writer too. The posts are top notch and in one of them the editor laments the same old, same old. Trends that we've seen over and over in fantasy kidlit. Silly me, I was unaware that sinister YA fairies were a trend. Though now that I think about it . . .

Coincidentally enough, there was a Guardian article (found via Bookninja) that laments the same thing (sans fairies). Two great tastes, and so on, and such.

So You Want to Work in Publishing...

In case you failed to notice, there's a new kidlit editorial blog in town, by the name of Must Love Books. This was apparently a private blog for a long time and only recently has the mysterious T.S. gone public. So the post entitled So you want to work in publishing is a good start. I think it pairs nicely (as Alvina Ling pointed out) with Cheryl Klein's earlier version. So if you've book luvin' teens asking you how one goes about becoming an editor, here's what to hand them. Honest-to-God, this happened to me. A kid I knew asked about this and I printed off Cheryl's advice. Now's he's an intern at FSG. These guys know what they're talking about.

Other Blogger Notes

Yesterday I watched Bridge to Terabithia and The Lives of Others in quick succession. Literally one hour passed between the two. In that state of .... severe mental confusion is the only term that comes to mind, I was not able to write up my Review of the Day (and it's a doozy too) or even scout out much interesting info. So here are just a couple things I saw recently that caught my eye on other blogs as particularly smart/funny.

First up, books you love to hate. Or, rather, the ones you couldn't finish. When Leila Roy saw an article in The Guardian discussing the books your average British reader couldn't get through (check out #2), she opened up the topic and there definitely been some interesting comments. Who knew Francine Green couldn't hold her own?

Your average Pixie Stix Kids posting tends to come in a clump. There won't be anything for a week or so, and then suddenly you'll find yourself inundated with intelligent conversation. The most recent piece of interest? A trendwatch on emerging graphic forms for children. The hypothesis is thrown out that the graphic-centered book is a trend. Which is to say, it may go away. I think it is not a trend. Feel free to discuss. (UPDATE: Oh my God, she wrote even more information on the topic! I feel exhausted just looking at it).

Now I'm always delighted when editors take the time to give some advice to their authorial charges. Cheryl Klein is one of the best, so her recent piece Slush Pile Saturday, Ms. K offers her thoughts on, "The number one problem in novel submissions," poor first chapters, and the importance of killer last lines.

Speaking of advice, here's some from another sector entirely. I'm always terrible when it comes to promoting the latest publication of the online kidlit webzine The Edge of the Forest. Well, it's out now (go, shoo) and MotherReader's Pam Coughlan has a great piece in it entitled Be a B-List Blogger. If you have ever wondered how to increase stats on your kidlit blog, this piece may help.

Sometimes we're so smothered in snark that we have a hard time appreciating the "nice". And I'm talking actual "nice" here. Not ooey-gooey saccharine-filled "nice". So there's this new thing at 7-Imp that they're trying out where every week-end people will, "gather and discuss what Beautiful and/or Kick-Ass Things Happened to You or That You Read or That You Noticed This Week." Sounds good. It'd be cool if there were a blog program that could waver between a blog and a wiki whenever the mood struck you. Technology not having progressed quite so far, this will do in the interim.

Everyone's Favorite Homophones

Where's the helpful School House Rock song for homophones?

In any case, one of the reasons I'm glad that I'm not a children's book editor is that I don't have to deal with authors accidentally mixing their words into a jumble. And Cheryl Klein's posting SQUIDS 101: Commonly Confused Homophones just drilled that relief into me further.

Debut Novel Editors

I don't know how editors will feel about this, but there's a website out there that offers up the names of the editors of children's books who, "have, at least once, bought the rights to first novels by unknown novelists or nonfiction writers." It's doggone fascinating. I don't know where they culled this information but my sources inform me that the list is legit. Take a gander.

UPDATE:
Please check out the comments on this posting and note the inaccuracies found at this site. Good to know, people. Good to know.