THIS SITE HAS MOVED. Inkygirl posts are now part of DebbieOhi.com.
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Debbie Ridpath Ohi reads, writes and illustrates for young people. Every once in a while she shares new art, writing and reading resources; subscribe below. Browse the archives here.
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*NEW!* Also see my Broken Crayon resource
Writer comics by Debbie Ridpath Ohi are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
More details: Comic Use Policy
Welcome to Inkygirl: Reading, Writing and Illustrating Children's Books (archive list here) which includes my Creating Picture Books series, Advice For Young Writers and Illustrators, Writer's and Illustrator's Guide To Twitter, Interviews With Authors And Illustrators, #BookADay archives, writing/publishing industry surveys, and 250, 500, 1000 Words/Day Writing Challenge. Also see my Inkygirl archives, and comics for writers. Also check out my Print-Ready Archives for Teachers, Librarians, Booksellers and Young Readers.
I tweet about the craft and business of writing and illustrating at @inkyelbows. If you're interested in my art or other projects, please do visit DebbieOhi.com. Thanks for visiting! -- Debbie Ridpath Ohi
Don't have enough writing time for NaNoWriMo & looking for an achievable daily goal challenge? Try my Daily Words Challenge.
Mark Gottlieb is a literary agent at Trident Media Group. Mark is actively building his client list, including those who write picture books, middle grade and young adult. For picture books, Mark prefers representing those who both write and illustrate rather than those who write only or illustrate only (see his comments below). Mark was kind enough to answer a few questions for Inkygirl.
I've started working on a new picture book idea (YAY!). After I pick an idea I'm excited about, I start writing the text. Because I tend to think visually when writing, I also usually start paging out the manuscript and scribbling stick figure thumbnail sketches to help me figure out pacing.
You can read more about my process as well as download some free picture book thumbnail templates.
On rejection: Don’t lay blame on yourself/others. Negativity is unproductive. - Juliet Marillier
Thanks to Robert Lee Brewer and Brian Klems of Writer's Digest for inviting me to be on their new WritersMarket.com podcast! I talked about how I started writing and illustrating books for young people, what I've learned so far, my middle grade novel, meeting Judy Blume, how much I love illustrating Michael Ian Black's stories for kids, board gaming, musical instruments and much more.
I was nervous but ended up having a lot of fun; both Robert and Brian are such nice guys. I used to work with both Robert and Brian for Writer's Digest (a daily publishing news column as well as articles for the magazine) and I hope to finally meet them in person someday!
Lucy Ravitch is the author The Pancake Menu, a children's interactive book that helps kids practice math skills as they play restaurant. The book won the 2016 Bronze Independent Publisher Award in the Children's Interactive category, and was also the bronze Reader's Favorite award for Children's Concept Books for 2016. Lucy says she has loved math since she was young and love showing kids that learning is FUN. Lucy launched her own company (Enjoy Learning Something) to publish her books and blogs at KidsMathTeacher.com. She lives in sunny Southern CA with her husband and five children.
I usually focus on traditionally published authors in my blog, but I was so impressed by Lucy's enthusiasm, business acumen and success in her indie publishing ventures that I thought Inkygirl readers would be be curious to know more. Thanks so much to Lucy for taking the time to answer a few questions!
Who could not want to read a book with a title like Sheldon Unger vs The Dentures Of Doom? This new book comes out from Star Crossed Press on October 1st, 2016. You can find more info about Jeff Szpirglas at Twitter and Facebook, and more about Sheldon Unger vs The Dentures Of Doom on Goodreads.
CLARA HUMBLE AND THE NOT-SO-SUPER POWERS is the first novel in a fun new middle-grade series written by Anna Humphrey and illustrated by Lisa Cinar, coming out from Owl Kids this week.
Congrats to my friend and agency sister Hazel Mitchell today on the launch of her debut solo picture book, TOBY, which comes out from Candlewick today. Even though I've never met the real-life Toby in person, I've been following Hazel's photos and posts about this sweet rescue dog via social media. And like many other Toby fans, I was genuinely distressed when I heard about Toby getting lost and I cheered out loud when he was finally found, safe. You can find out more about the real-life Toby's adventures in this post by Hazel.
Just read the first two books in Marcie Colleen's debut chapter book series, SUPER HAPPY PARTY BEARS (just launched from Imprint/Macmillan) Omigosh, I am in love with these books. Here are just a few reasons:
- So many laugh-aloud moments, for both kids AND adults. What I especially loved: the humor aimed at adults is NOT the "nudge nudge wink wink, we gro
Last year, I mentioned how much I enjoyed The Blackthorn Key by Kevin Sands (as Kirkus said, "a spectacular debut") from Aladdin/Simon & Schuster. I'm excited that the sequel, Mark Of The Plague, launches today!
Last week, I asked you:
"In the past year, how have you read books? Check all that apply."
424 people responded. I opted for a multiple choice rather than "which do you prefer" for this poll to cut out the need to decide on a preference, plus it gets complicated because I would need to include different categories of reading; someone may prefer picture books in print, for example, but opt for a digital version of a novel for older readers.
Saturday, October 15, 2016 at 11:25 AM
