update by Anne-Marie Strohman

In January 2023, I had the pleasure of being the guest blogger for The Official SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) Blog. Here are links to the posts, in case you missed them.

CHANGE ONE THING

I wrote this post as an opener for our KidLit Craft October Newsletter (which you can subscribe to here). It's about how to approach an overwhelming project by changing one thing and seeing what space that opens up.

7 RULES OF BOOK CLUB: BEST PRACTICES FOR A WRITERS' BOOK CLUB FOCUSED ON CRAFT

I've helped lead a number of craft book groups, and each group has had slightly different and evolving discussion guidelines to help keep us focused and learning. I've consolidated all I've learned over the years into this post. Feel free to introduce them to your own book groups, whether new or long established.

USING OBJECTS TO COMMUNICATE EMOTIONS

I'm currently working on a project as Scholar in Residence for my local SCBWI region about getting emotion on the page. This post is a sneak preview of one of the best practical tools I've found.

THE POWER (AND PITFALLS) OF VULNERABILITY IN WRITING

For my graduating lecture at Vermont College of Fine Arts, I made an argument that vulnerability is the superpower of the artist. An artist needs training, but then can trust that they've absorbed all the training and let themselves go to vulnerable places in their work. For this post, I had planned to make a similar argument, but when I talked to my teenager about the post, they had a surprising response! I shifted my focus to how to use vulnerability well and not let it overpower your work. I loved being able to talk about the work of Lindsay Lackey, Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, and Natalie Goldberg, some of my favorite authors who engage with vulnerability in multiple senses.