The New York Times recently reported that The Atlantic magazine will soon be offering short stories via Amazon.com via the Kindle.  The Atlantic Will Sell Short Stories on Kindle.

The stories will not have been in the print edition of The Atlantic.  They’ll offer about two stories an issue.  Christopher Buckley will be the author of one of the first stories.  At 15,000 words, it’s too long to appear in a print edition, but likely too short to be published as a book.

If you read historical fiction, you know how the use of a word not in use during the time period will pull you out of the story.  If you write historical fiction, you know how tricky it can be to catch all the words that might not have been in use at the time.  Here’s a link to an easy-to-use online etymology dictionary.

http://www.etymonline.com/

Michael Stearns of Upstart Crow Literary just posted an excellent entry about agenting picture books vs. agenting novels.  This week is part one, and covers agenting picture books.  I’m not a PB writer, but found it very interesting.  I’m looking forward to part two, covering agenting novels, which he’ll post next week.

Agenting Picture Books vs. Agenting Novels

I just added Writer Musings to the blogroll.  That’s the blog of Tabitha Olson.  Lots of good info there.  Plus, she’s does book giveaways, and has one running now.

Writer Musings

Kids Are Authors is an annual competition open to Grades K–8 and is designed to encourage students to use their reading, writing, and artistic skills to create their own books.

Under the guidance of a project coordinator, children work in teams of three or more students to write and illustrate their own book. The creative process of working in teams helps provide a natural environment to practice editing, teamwork, and the communication skills necessary for future success. All students involved get a sense of pride and accomplishment from submitting the team project.

Two Grand Prize winning books will be published in each of these categories: Fiction and Nonfiction. The winning books will be published by Scholastic and sold at Book Fairs throughout the country.  Sponsored by Scholastic Inc.

This sounds like an awesome experience:  A one-week literary sailing adventure with 20 teen writers aboard a famous tall ship in the waters between Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, Massachusetts, and Newport, Rhode Island.

This program brings together Merlyn’s Pen magazine editors, alumni authors, and creative teens for a week-long celebration of writing, literature, sailing, and the sea. Student writers will get to “rough it” for a week, help sail a tall ship, write together, read and discuss great literature of the sea, explore the coves of Buzzard’s’ Bay and Martha’s Vineyard, publish their best at www.merlynspen.org, and experience life aboard a tall ship in the spirit of literary greats from Melville to Hemingway.

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This program brings together Merlyn’s Pen magazine editors, alumni authors, and creative teens for a week-long celebration of writing, literature, sailing, and the sea. Student writers will get to “rough it” for a week, help sail a tall ship, write together, read and discuss great literature of the sea, explore the coves of Buzzard’s’ Bay and Martha’s Vineyard, publish their best at www.merlynspen.org, and experience life aboard a tall ship in the spirit of literary greats from Melville to Hemingway.

More information is available at Merlyn’s Pen.

When characters do the unlikely, impossible, or uncomfortable, they’re called Contorting Characters.

Characters often contort when you create compound sentences.  Sometimes the contortions aren’t horrible, and the reader will probably understand what the writer intended.

For instance, Jim walked across the room and looked out the door. By using and, it’s implied that Jim looked out the door at the same time he crossed the room, which is certainly possible, but perhaps not what the author intended.  At best, it’s unclear, since the author could have meant that Jim crossed the room TO look out the door, or crossed the room and THEN looked out the door.

AND implies actions that occur at the same time.

TO and THEN imply a chronological order to the actions.

In our example about Jim, it probably isn’t a big deal if the reader misconstrues our meaning.  After all, whether Jim looks out the door as he’s walking, after he’s walking, or is walking across the room with the purpose of looking out the door may not make that much difference.

But consider these examples:

“Mary hurried into class and sat at her desk.” (Mary can’t hurry and sit at the same time.)

“Bob painted the picture and stood back to admire it.” (Bob can’t paint and stand back at the same time.)

“Carly ran through the locker room and onto the field.” (Again, it’s impossible to do both these things at once.)

Introductory clauses, often used to vary sentence structure, can also cause characters to become contorted.  “Running up the field, Kristen scored a goal,” implies that Kristen scored a goal as she ran up the field, rather than, she first ran up the field, then scored a goal.

Of course characters can sometimes do two things at once.  “Josh sat in the chair and read a book.” Josh can even walk across the room and read a book, as long as he doesn’t bump into anything!  You just want to make sure that when your characters are doing two things at once, that it’s possible for them to do so.

To avoid contorting characters, be specific in your word choice and think about the order of your character’s actions so you don’t confuse the reader or imply that your character is doing the impossible.

Jill Corcoran from the Herman Agency has just posted a detailed list of what she’s looking for at the moment.  She’s mostly interested in kid lit, so if that’s your thing, take a look.

http://jillcorcoran.blogspot.com/2009/12/what-i-am-currently-looking-for.html

Herman Agency website

I just found out I’ll be speaking at the Pennwriters Conference in Lancaster, PA, May 14-16, 2010.

The conference looks great, with New York Times bestseller James Rollins as the Friday Keynote Speaker.  He writes thrillers for adults and has the first of a new series out for kids and adults.

Saturday Keynote is Elizabeth Kann of Pinkalicious fame.

There are editor and agent appointments.  The editor announced so far who’s of particular interest to children’s writers is Barbara Lalicky, Senior VP and Editorial Director of HarperCollins Children.

Alex Glass of Trident Media, Miriam Kriss of Irene Goodman Agency, Jenny Bent of The Bent Agency, and  Janet Reid of Fineprint Literary are the agents attending so far.  All consider some form of children’s work (although some are only interested in YA.)

I’ll be speaking on revisions.  I wrote an article on this subject for Sprouts magazine, which Cheryl Klein, Senior Editor for Arthur A. Levine mentioned in her article for this year’s Children’s Writer’s and Illustrator’s Market.  A copy of the article, The End is Only the Beginning, is on my website.   Of course, the talk goes into lots more details and examples than the article can.

Hope to meet some of you there!

From Publisher’s Lunch today,  a new agent handling young adult and middle grade fiction:

Susan Hawk has joined The Bent Agency, focusing on authors of young adult and middle grade fiction, but also representing fantasy, science-fiction, historical fiction and mystery. For the past 15 years, she worked in children’s book marketing, most recently as the marketing director at Holt Children’s.

The Bent Agency website:   http://www.thebentagency.com/

Bent on Books blog announcement.