Uncategorized

This Post Is Not About Running: Why Coral Hart and Andy Weir Are Wrong About AI

I completed a marathon yesterday, in my fastest time ever. It was so easy, in fact, that I might do another one today. The best part? Unlike my previous marathon experiences, this one didn’t require 20+ weeks of training and hundreds of miles of preparation. Hydration, blisters, fatigue? No longer concerns. Race fees and competitive […]

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Publishing

Trading short-term gains for long-term pain? What the SHY GIRL cancellation reveals about publishing.

If you’ve been keeping up with publishing news, you may have heard about Shy Girl by Mia Ballard, a novel that was recently canceled due to its purported use of generative AI. While this post was prompted by Shy Girl, it is not another rant about generative AI (though I’m happy to write those as well!). Instead, I

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KPop Demon Hunters movie poster
Writing

Great Writing Makes Great Movies: Three Takeaways from KPop Demon Hunters

One of the fun parts of being a children’s book editor is that I need to be familiar with youth media. In other words, watching kids movies is part of my job. And if you’re writing for children, I’d recommend considering it part of yours, too. So if you haven’t yet watched Netflix’s KPop Demon Hunters,

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bare tree branches against a cloudy sunset sky in shades of blue and pink
Writing, Publishing

Word Count Worries

I have a love-hate relationship with word counts. (Just look at the word count of this post!) On one hand, word count guidelines offer a concrete metric in an industry that often seems to rely solely on personal taste, timing, and luck. It’s helpful for authors to know that most traditionally published picture books are

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Revising, Writing

How to Give a Good Critique (and How to Spot a Bad One)

Recently I was a guest on Alvina Ling and Grace Lin’s Book Friends Forever podcast to talk about freelance editing along with fellow freelance editor Sangeeta Mehta. Toward the end, Grace asked about giving manuscript critiques to friends, and Sangeeta mentioned the three point method for sharing feedback: Identify a problem Explain why it’s a

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patch of yellow flowers
Publishing

Want Kids To Love Reading? Stop Disparaging Their Choices.

“You’re too old to read books from this section.” “These are for little kids!” “You should be choosing longer books by now.” “Haven’t you outgrown those?” Whether or not you’ve heard these statements from well-meaning adults (or rule-following kids), you probably already know the books they’re referring to: picture books, graphic novels, comics, and other

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