Weebeasts Plight is published by Greenleaf Book Group, March 2009. Previous books include Weebeasts Origins published March 2008 by Beast Stew and Weebeastology a collection of artwork from the series published October 2008 also by Beast Stew. Currently I am working on Weebeasts Quest, the next book in the series with a 2010 release date in mind.
2. How long have you been writing for children?
Writing stories in one form or another for fourteen years; first creating scripts and story branches for video games and now for the past two years writing books.
3. How much time do you spend each week writing and/or revising? And how much time on other writing-related tasks such as promotion, researching markets and so on?
For the most part I try and concentrate on the creative aspect of writing and illustrating during the day and leave an hour or two in the evening or early morning to catch up on the computer. Typically I would say about 60 hours of creative work and 10 hours of related business tasks per week.
4. How much time do you spend reading children’s books? And what are you reading right now?
My daughter is still very young so the books I am reading right now are pop up peek a boo books. Otherwise I go to various libraries several times to stock up on children’s books, graphic novels and audio books which I enjoy listening to when I draw and paint.
5. What advice would you give other would-be children’s writers, or share with other professional children’s writers?
Create what you would have enjoyed to read as a child.
6. What is your favourite online resource for children’s writers? Why?
http://www.scbwi.org/ or Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, a member section that is updated frequently and helpful blogs for both local and events abroad.
7. Do you have a website or blog? What else do you do to promote your published works and/or your writing skills?
Yes, Weebeasts website can be found at http://www.weebeasts.com/ and I do also keep blogs for new Weebeast events http://beaststew-weebeasts.blogspot.com/ and for new artwork at http://beaststew.blogspot.com/
Other ways I promote the Weebeasts is to attend festival and conventions as well as arrange book signings at bookstores, libraries, and schools.
If YOU would like to be featured here, and share your answers to my seven questions, drop me a line.
Ransom Noble has always loved stories. She’s been an avid reader and writer as long as she can remember. Believing determination can help one attain any goal, she set her sights high and achieved many goals. Her love of the sciences led her to a career in mechanical engineering and often pushes her imagination into the speculative fiction realm.
Ransom’s work includes “Qui’s Contract,” a short story that appeared in Ruins Metropolis in June 2008 and The Art of Science, which will be published in 2009.
1. Ransom, can you tell us a little about The Art of Science?
The Art of Science is a story about a girl named Janie as she starts junior high. She has plans for her activities, but her plans are thrown off when she gets into a special program that her mother decides isn’t optional. She tries to find a new balance between the things she loves and the requirements placed on her.
I wrote this six years ago as part of a course and stuffed it in a drawer. I know that’s not the way to do it, but I didn’t think about it for a long time. I heard about a contest through 4RV Publishing, LLC, and remembered the manuscript. With encouragement, I polished up the book and sent it to the contest – and won! Exciting new info on the book: the cover is on my web site now!
2. Tell us about what has happened since acceptance to prepare the book for publication?
In the last year, I’ve worked with editors to improve the story. I chose what the illustrations would be (the illustrator is taking care of the rest, and he’s great). We worked to put a study guide together. I hope it is used in classes.
3. One of the biggest challenges for new authors is promoting both their books and themselves as writers. What are you doing to promote yourself and your forthcoming book?
While starting to promote myself, most of my presence has been online so far. I keep a daily blog, participate in the virtual blog tour, and have a Facebook page. I have also attended a science fiction conference as an author. While it didn’t promote my upcoming book, it did promote a project for a similar age group and got my name out there. Soon I’ll be going to schools and bookstores.
4. Why do you write?
Because I love it and I can’t stop. Ideas pop in my head, even while writing other things. I don’t want to let them escape and I enjoy sharing them with others.
5. How old were you when you first started writing?
I’m not sure. I remember in 4th or 5th grade I was chosen to be part of a journal because of my story about a dragon and a mouse. I think they took the best elementary submissions from all over Iowa, but it’s been awhile. I know I started making up stories around 1 year old, because we got a TV around that time. Mom would catch me watching it (when it was off) and asked me what I was doing. Apparently I told her it was more fun to watch when it was off because I was making up my own shows. Through junior high I made up several stories to fill the required journals for English class and continued because my classmates loved to read them (and I loved to write them and thrived on their participation). Somewhere toward the end of junior high and into high school I switched to poetry, then back to prose when I began college classes (during high school). I had to keep my first Physics notebook from college because it had too many story scenes where I got bored during lectures. When I got out of college, I took a couple correspondence courses because I wanted to learn more and give myself an excuse to write, but work often made me too tired to do it on my own. Still, I finished my first novel while working as well as several short stories and some unfinished novels. Now I write full-time, as well as being a stay at home soon to be mom.
6. Can you tell us where to find more information about you?
http://www.ransomnoble.wordpress.com/
Thanks for joining us, Ransom, and good luck with your first book.
Ransom will be back here next week, answering my seven questions. In the meantime, the other members of the Virtual book tours group are also hosting fellow authors today. You can visit these sites by clicking on the links in the Virtual Book Tour blogroll on the right. Enjoy.
There’s been lots happening with my forthcoming titles. Earlier in the month, Virginia, my editor at Walker Books sent me through a new, slightly revised cover for my verse novel, Pearl Verses the World. I loved the old cover but adore the new one, tweaked slightly to really highlight the delightful Pearl. Pearl will be released in May, and I can’t wait! Check out the beautiful cover:
Illustrator Heather Potter has done a wonderful job with it.
I was also busy with Aussiereviews in January, adding forty new reviews. I also started a blog to complement the site, The Aussie Reviews Blog. This was to take the place of the Yahoo Group I had set up through which to send website updates. The use of a blog is quicker and easier, and seems to have been well received. If you wish to be alerted about updates to Aussiereviews, you can sign up to the blog.
2. How long have you been writing for children?
I’ve been writing poems and stories since I was a child myself, but I started to focus on writing for children about five or six years ago when I took the Institute of Children’s Literature Course in Writing for Children and Teenagers. I’ve focussed on writing for children since then.
3. How much time do you spend each week writing and/or revising? And how much time on other writing-related tasks such as promotion, researching markets and so on?
That’s a difficult question to ask as no two weeks are the same. Sometimes I’ll spend a whole day working on one particular story. At the moment I’ve just started a fantasy novel and my aim is to write 500 words or so, 5 times a week. I do try to do some writing every day, but have to admit sometimes I get sidetracked. I set weekly goals for both writing and marketing/promotion, but sometimes one thing has to take priority for one reason or another.
4. How much time do you spend reading children’s books? And what are you reading right now?
Again this varies. I devour books in one sitting wherever possible as once I start reading I don’t like to put a book down before I’m finished. Right now I’m re-reading Michelle Paver’s Wolf Brother. I spend a lot of time reading stories in magazines and publications I want to get published in. This will probably change though as I’ve just started writing a middle grade fantasy novel. I spend a lot more time reading children’s books than books aimed at adults.
5. What advice would you give other would-be children’s writers, or share with other professional children’s writers?
Enter competitions! They’ve opened doors for me. Seek out, or ask for editors’ and publishers’ needs. Offer what they want, but provide them with a little extra.
Read, read, read and seek out other children’s writers as mentors, friends and critics (constructive critics, of course) .
6. What is your favourite online resource for children’s writers? Why?
I can’t say I have a favourite. I do read a lot of blogs and author websites to see what’s going on in the world of children’s writing. I like Write4kids, the Children’s Writers’ Coaching Club site etc. I also subscribe to a lot of online newsletters and a few listserves.
7. Do you have a website or blog? What else do you do to promote your published works and/or your writing skills?
Yes, I have a blog: www.kidsbooksuk.blogspot.com. I teach classes and workshops on Creative Writing in my local community. I’m hoping to break into school visits in the near future and have just applied to an organisation who arrange school visits. I’m a member of the Children’s Writers’ Coaching Club and SSWAG (Seven Stories Writers’ and Artists’ Group) SSWAG are currently touring with an exhibition entitled Work in Progress, showing how writers and artists work, from ideas, notes and sketches through to publication. I promote myself through my local press too.
I’m a member of several list serve groups such as Children’s Writers and Wordpool and have recently joined Facebook. I attend workshops, roadshows and conferences too. I just to be shy about networking and promoting myself, but now I love it.
Soon I’ll have one of my stories recorded as a podcast by a TV presenter. I’m very excited about that. I’ve been asked to speak about this experience to local community groups.
Thanks so much for sharing your experiences with us, Dorothy.
If YOU would like to be featured here, drop me a line and I’ll send you the questions.
So, drumroll please, for my list of Wonderful Australian Books, as nominated by blog readers.
Picture Books/Early childhood
Ca-a-r Ca-a-a-a-r, by Geoff Havel
Possum Magic, by Mem Fox and Julie Vivas
One Hungry Spider, by Jeannie Baker
The Magic Hat by Mem Fox
Diary of a Wombat by Jackie French
Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox.
Samantha Seagull’s Sandals by Gordon Winch
Shy the Platypus by Leslie Rees
Wombat Divine by Mem Fox and Kerry Argent
The Story of Rosy Dock by Jeannie Baker,
The Frog Who Wouldn’t Laugh, Celia Egan’s
Edward the Emu by Sheena Knowles
A Bush Christening by A.B. Patterson
The Bunyip of Berkeley’s Creek, by Jenny Wagner
The Old Man Who Loved to Sing, by John Winch
The Bilby’s First Easter, by Irena Silby
The Galah, by Pauline Reilly
Bobbie Dazzler by Margaret Wild and Janine Dawson
Children’s
You and Me Murrawee, by Kerri Hashimi
The Terrible Underpants, by Kaz Cooke
Wanda-Linda Goes Berserk, by Kaz Cooke.
The Tram to Bondi Beach by Libby Hathorn
Okra and Acacia by Libby Hathorn,
Harry and the Anzac Poppy by Lockyer
Illustrated Poems by C.J. Dennis
Magic Pudding, by Norman Lindsay
Seven Little Australians, by Ethel Turner
The Family at Misrule by Ethel Turner
Blinky Bill by Dorothy Wall,
A Little Bush Maid by Mary Grant Bruce
Stories of Henry Lawson
Quinkin Mountain, Percy Trezise
Australian Poems to Read to the Very Young edited by Yvonne Perrin
Dot and the Kangaroo, by Ethel Pedley
Tashi stories, by Anna Fienberg
Minton stories by Anna Fienberg,
Playing Beatie Bow by Ruth Park
Pigs Might Fly by Emily Rodda
Young Adult
Polymer, by Sally Rogers-Davidson
Witchbank, by Catherine Jinks
Chain of Charms series by Kate Forsyth
The Arrival by Shaun Tan.
Tomorrow series, by John Marsden
The Red Tree, by Shaun Tan
Abhorsen, by Garth Nix
Thanks to all who contributed to this list. There is still time. If YOU have a favourite Australian book to suggest, leave a comment and I’ll add it to the list in future.