KidLit Craft: Summer Update 2024
Find out what's next for the KidLit Craft podcast, and exciting upcoming offerings from KidLit Craft.
Links:
Find more information on the Writing MG for PB Authors class here.
Our next podcast book: THIEVES’ GAMBIT by Kayvion Lewis
The KidLit Craft Podcast is hosted by Anne-Marie Strohman and Erin Nuttall.
Support KidLit Craft
Buy T-shirts and sweatshirts, tote bags, and drinkware (click on “small logo” or “big logo” for a range of styles)
Email us at podcast@kidlitcraft.com
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Transcript:
[00:00:00] Erin Nuttall: Besides our general awesomeness? They probably already know that, so we're good.
[Music intro]
[00:00:05] Anne-Marie Strohman: Welcome to the Kid Lit Craft Podcast. We're here for a little in between season update. I'm Anne-Marie Strohman and I write for children and young adults as well as short stories for adults.
[00:00:18] Erin Nuttall: Hi, I am Erin Nuttall, and I write for children and young adults. Mostly those fun young adults.
[00:00:25] Anne-Marie Strohman: At Kid Lit Craft, we look at mentor texts to discover the mechanics of how writers do what they do, so we can apply it to our own writing. And we wanted to let you know what's coming up for Kid Lit Craft over the summer and fall.
[00:00:41] Erin Nuttall: First, we are super excited to have an interview with Martine coming up. It was such a treat to talk to her and find the answers to all of our burning questions, and hopefully all of your burning questions too. So keep an eye on your feed for that one.
And Anne-Marie has some really exciting news. She has been quite the busy bee over the last year and she is ready to dish.
[00:01:04] Anne-Marie Strohman: So this past year I've been developing and teaching an eight week class called Writing Middle Grade for Picture Book Authors, and it's designed for experienced picture book authors who want to explore writing a middle grade novel. And the class assumes that you have knowledge of things like story arc and character arc, and it focuses on those skills that you need to build to write a novel that are different from the skills you've developed in picture book writing.
I went through the process myself, starting to write a middle grade novel after about four years of studying and writing picture books, and I realized in my first semester of my MFA program that I didn't actually know what a scene was, much less how to write an effective one. And so this course starts with scene writing and then moves into how to structure a novel.
My goal for writers who take this class is that they'll come out with a collection of tools they need to go into writing a novel with competence.
[00:01:55] Erin Nuttall: And I'm just going to interject here, Anne-Marie. and say that if you really want to learn this stuff from someone who is a super nerd about construction, then you should totally do it with Anne-Marie because she has a very analytical mind and, she really likes to focus on this stuff and has a good time with it. I am giving her class two thumbs up, which I know is all anyone would need to verify that that is in fact what they wanna do.
[00:02:26] Anne-Marie Strohman: I'm offering the course this summer starting next week, and I'll offer it again in the fall, starting in early September. And to find out more information, you can email me at editor@kidlitcraft.com and I will send you the info for that. So, Erin, you've been getting ready for our next season of our podcast. Tell us what you have in store.
[00:02:49] Erin Nuttall: Yes, I am super excited about our coming season. Once again, we're going to be taking a single book and exploring all the different ways that the author used excellent craft techniques to create an engaging and interesting book. The point of this is of course, to help us become better at what we do as writers. The book that we are going to be exploring, drum roll please, is, is the Thieves’ Gambit by Kayvion Lewis. It's been described as The Inheritance Games meets Ocean's 11. So yeah, pretty much the opposite of Buffalo Flats. Our listeners know our enduring love for Buffalo Flats, but we're also super excited to go in a new direction.
There's so much excellent writing in the world, and we're pumped to get super nerdy and explore more of it. Some of the topics that we'll be diving into in season two are introducing a big group of characters, shifting desire lines, complicated family dynamics. One I'm super excited to look into is how to write an action scene.
And, the other one that I think will be really fun is how to plan a heist. Because this book is a series of action and heist and high octane and go, go, go. And it's just a lot of fun and I think that the coming season will be way fun. There'll be a lot of other topics that we look into and I hope you'll have time over the summer to read the Thieves’ Gambit by Kayvion Lewis and you too can nerd out with us as we figure out what she does to make such a fun book.
[00:04:35] Anne-Marie Strohman: I am so excited for this book. I haven't read it yet. It is on my summer vacation reading list. And listeners, I invite you to put it on your summer reading list and read it too ahead of our conversations, which I'm guessing we'll probably start releasing in the fall sometime.
[00:04:54] Erin Nuttall: Yeah, I think that sounds about right. And it gives our listeners time to read the book and yes, it is a great summer read for sure.
[00:05:03] Anne-Marie Strohman: So we also have some fun in store this fall that we're not quite ready to announce yet, and we'll post an update in this feed when we've got more news for that. In the meantime, you can be sure to get all the updates and info by subscribing to our newsletter. There'll be a link in the show notes or you can go to kidlitcraft.com/newsletter to sign up for that newsletter.
Any other things people should know, Erin?
[00:05:28] Erin Nuttall: Well besides our general awesomeness? They probably already know that, so we're good.
[00:05:33] Anne-Marie Strohman: Awesome. That's it for our update today.
[Music outro]
[00:05:39] Anne-Marie Strohman: If you're enjoying this podcast, you can find more content like this at kidlitcraft.com. Find us on social media @KidLitCraft, and you can support this podcast on Patreon. As always, we have T-shirts and now tote bags and drinkware that you can find at Cotton Bureau, and there'll be a link in the show notes.
[00:05:59] Erin Nuttall: Download episodes. Like, rate, and review us on Apple Podcasts. Of course you wanna know when we have new episodes coming. Let your writer friends know about the podcast and we can't wait to nerd out with you.
[00:06:10] Anne-Marie Strohman: Thanks for joining us, and we'll see you next season.
