I have so many notes. I’m not going to try to give a blow-by-blow. You all need to go to Chautauqua and take your own notes and make your own friends.

But I’ll try to give you as much as I can, as I go back through and try to read my own writing. Please don’t take anything I say I learned as direct quotes from the speakers. I was not taping sessions and I was writing fast.

Today I’ll give you some of my notes from the question and answer time with Highlights editors. I’m skipping the science and history stuff, because I don’t write those so my notes are a little sloppy in those areas.

• Q. Illustration wish list?
  • A. We don’t buy illustrations seperate from writing. Send samples. We’ll assign projects. All of it is work for hire.




• Q. What tense and pov do you prefer?
  • A. Younger fiction often works best in present tense. We want dialogue–not a lot of narration or scene settting. Illustrations can do a lot of that.




• Q. Simutaneous submissions?
  • A. Yes, but if you sell it, please let us know.




• Q. Wish list?
  • A. Updated on the website every six months (under current needs link). Also if you go to highlightskids.com and search the index, you will see what’s been done already. You can work some of those topics over and give them a fresh approach. The Highlights audience grows up. Since there is a new audience every six years or so, you can reuse some topics that have already been done but are still of interest. Thomas Edison, for instance, will be of interest to every new audience. But each topic has to be done for today’s audience.




• Q. Holidays and Religion?
  • A. We are always looking for holiday material and it can be submitted any time of year. We can introduce people to the religions of the world. We have readers from every walk of life. Christmas is hard because we want to do it for readers who are Christian and readers who are not Christian. We want the real meaning of Christmas but we can’t proselytize. The same goes for Easter.

OK that’s it for today. Obviously there was much more said and the thing about sitting in the sessions and listening to the editors speak is that you really get a feel for the editors as people and for what they might like. I have very distinct impressions about Andy Boyles and Carolyn Yoder and Christine French Clark and what kind of people they are. I don’t know them well, so some of my impressions may be wrong, but I know them better this week than I did before the conference. I have a sense of voice from them and a sense of what kind of voices might appeal to them.

All that to say: If you can go to Chautauqua, you should go to Chautauqua.

I’m jamming, trying to get an application in to the SCBWI WIP grants dealy. I have to mail it by tomorrow to get it there in time. So I’m just going to throw up a couple of links today and save the discussion about high concept for another day.

First link:

I love what The Writer magazine is up to. They have really worked hard to set a great web site. I don’t know anyone that works there so I’m don’t have any ulterior motive here. The thing is, this is a magazine who is doing it right, in my opinion. They are embracing technology. They are going online. They are offering quality help to writers. I LOVE this idea. I don’t want paper magazines anymore. I want it online. I want it on my iPad (which I don’t have yet, but which I’m confident that I will have after I hint and hint about it before my birthday this year ).

Well now we can all get a sneak peak at what The Writer offers subscribers. It’s like getting a free issue. From March 19-26, 2010 they’re opening up the site to everyone. Go check it out.

Second link:

Contest! I love contests for several reasons.

• They give me a deadline and force me to jam some work out.
• They force me to plan my stories and write synopses.
• They give me an opportunity to get feedback from professionals.
• They are just great fun—like playing games with your brothers and sisters at Thanksgiving. Everyone has fun, everyone is happy for the winners, everyone enjoys the friendly competition. (Well, in a perfect world, I guess. The truth is, though, that I have fun, I am happy for the winners, and I enjoy the friendly competition. And it’s all about me, so who cares what the other people are doing. )

So here is the latest cool contest:

• Katherine Paterson Prize for YA
• deadline=June 30, 2010
• entry fee=20$
• judge=Holly Black

I don’t know if I’ll have time. But I sure am tempted to give this one a shot.