Emily Easton: Writing Nonfiction for Children and Young People

Emily Easton is the VP and Publisher of Crown Books For Young Readers. She was formerly Publishing Director of the Walker imprint of Bloomsbury USA Children’s Group.

Emily opens her session with a vision of what she hopes nonfiction will do: teach young people to think for themselves, encourage them to be curious about our world, and to have a reverence for the facts because people need to know what's true and what's not true.

Emily has her finger on the pulse of children's nonfiction, and she share its stats and vital signs. She runs down the nuances of Random House's seven children's imprints, and tells us what distinguishes Crown, including how being social active and looking for diversity is part of their mandate.

She tells us the story behind Lost And Found Cat: The True Story of Kunkush's Incredible Journey,  about a refugee family who lost and then were reunited with their cat. It's a book they published as a way to make the refugee crisis accessible to children.

Emily breaks down the four different markets for nonfiction (Trade, School & Library, Mass Market, and Gift/Special Markets) and then shares about the different publishers in each category.

She runs down lots of great places to find ideas, including:

exploring common core state standards,
next generation science standards, and
national curriculum standards for social studies
What's scholastic book club offering?
what's junior library guild choosing?
What's B&N promoting?
What's face out in the nonfiction sections of Indie bookstores (talk to their staff!)

It's a session packed with much more -- tips, insights, and advice.

One takeaway that's still resonating:

"Your passion is what's going to set your book apart."

Daniel Harmon: Creating Nonfiction For Teens and Young Adults

Daniel Harmon has been working in book publishing since 2003—first developing history projects at Greenwood/ABC-Clio, then acquiring pop culture books for Praeger Publishers, and most recently overseeing the publishing program at Zest Books, an independent publisher of nonfiction books for teens and young adults.

Since joining Zest in 2012, Daniel has acquired Zest’s first book to sell in excess of 25,000 copies, developed Zest’s first three projects to receive starred reviews, and launched Pulp, a new imprint for older readers. He is also the author of the book Super Pop! (which Kirkus called “weird, witty, and endlessly entertaining”).

Daniel shares that the Zest approach to publishing is

franker

fun, and

from cover to last word, working to keep teen readers interested.

He speaks of how they've moved into doing more middle grade, and doing books for all ages. Their tagline is

Books for young adults of all ages.

Explaining what "all ages means," he says

Doing books explicitly for teens is a great way to make sure you get no teen readership.

They're trying to create books teens will want to pick up and adults will want to pick up, too.

He explains their efforts to add art (primary source materials, photos, infographics...), figure out where their books will be placed in bookstores, if it's librarian-bait or more tailored for the gatekeeper/blogger world, their new imprint Pulp that's aiming more new adult, their teen advisory board and much more.

Talking us through a variety of Zest's titles, he explains

"You don't need to dumb things down to make it teen-friendly."

Two upcoming titles:

Unslut
the author's middle school diary of being bullied and shamed for being the school "slut" alongside her contemporary perspective, and

Plotted
A literary atlas, literary maps of treasured books, like Huck Finn and Watership Down.

"Really what we're trying to do is stay surprised ourselves. Doing a book that actually adds something."

David Meissner: Golden Kite Award for Non-Fiction

David Meissner accepts the Golden Kite for non-fiction for Call of the Klondike!

He tells us a couple of hilarious adventure stories, first his five-day hike up the steep, 33-mile trail retracing the trek of so many hopeful goldrushers.

But after the trail hike, David's return to the towns of the Yukon coincided with him being nearly broke. At the time he had nothing but a debit card, so he did what anyone in a financial pinch would do: solicit some campers for gas money, sleep-and-nearly-dine-and-dash at a bed and breakfast, and finally, nearly gamble away his few remaining Canadian dollars at Diamond Tooth Gertie's Dancing and Gambling Hall. It all worked out in the end, David was never thrown into an Alaskan debtor's prison, and we are glad because he is here today to leave us with these four rules:

• Don't ever give depressing acceptance speeches.

• Don't confuse your success as a writer with your self worth.

• Writing is like a garden hose, if you put too much pressure on it, nothing will come out.

• Never leave your own country without a credit card.

David before he was not eaten by a grizzly bear

Writing Biographies for Children

Angelica Carpenter, Alexis O'Neill, and Susan Goldman Rubin

People who attended the nonfiction biography breakout session were lucky enough to hear from three nonfiction experts: 

• Angelica Carpenter, a librarian who writes biographies about Victorian authors;
• Susan Goldman Rubin, who started as an illustrator, but switched to writing about art when her when her house burned down and she couldn't draw anymore; and
• Alexis O'Neill - who got her start writing nonfiction biographies for magazines.

They divided the session into three segments: research, writing, and elements of book proposals.

Research: The first thing to do is research which books have been written on the subject already, Angelica said:

• Amazon.com is a good place to start;
• The U.S. Library of Congress is free (search on juvenile);
• Children's Literature Comprehensive Database (you can sign up for a seven-day free trial; and
• Worldcat.com - a librarian's search tool

Research isn't easy. Most primary source materials haven't been digitized, so you can't find them online. But you can find library catalogs and tell what's out there. Your library might be able to borrow microfiche from other libraries.

One more pro research tip: Make friends with a librarian (and bring her flowers on Valentine's Day).

Angelica Carpenter takes notes in Word in chronological order. If you've entered your dates consistently, you can find them.  You have to put a source on every entry in your notes and pictures. She also makes travel notebooks with planning information in them before she goes, and she adds things she picks up on her adventures to these.

Writing: Susan Goldman Rubin doesn't like to be as neat and thorough as Angelica Carpenter. She doesn't do it as she goes, which leads to "three-martini evenings."

"We so want you to think of biography as a wonderful genre for writing," she said. "There's a real need for biography."

You're looking for lively anecdotes that bring a character to life (not to mention people who kids are going to care most about). Biographies can give a student the impetus to know more about the period their textbooks cover, which is especially important in the common core age.

Most of all, "Be passionate. Passion is everything," Susan said. 

Alexis starts her research at home. But then she goes out into the field. "You have to live and breathe your subject to fully understand." It also opens up other avenues of research. She's also hired freelance researchers (one in Nebraska was $25/hour).

Also, "don't trust everything you read." Sometimes misinformation is out there and repeated.

Primary sources--letters, papers, interviews--are vital, Susan said.

Pro tip: "Save your butt and document everything," Alexis said. She writes the date she read her material, where she got everything. If there's a museum that thinks you got something wrong, they won't carry your book or recommend it.

They also gave great advice on negotiating photos and structuring proposals. 

Candace Fleming—Keep ‘Em Turning the Page: Writing Compelling Nonfiction for Kids

Candace Fleming is the author of more than 25 books for children, including Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!, The Lincolns: A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary, and Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart. 

Candace’s breakout session was a full house, but when I walked in, she was chatting with some of the attendees before she started. She also took the time to introduce herself to people individually, asking what they were working on.

Candace started by talking about her process. There is no right way to create your story. Although this was a non-fiction talk, she loves her fiction as well.

For her, writing a biography is a process, requiring years of research. Candace has to feel the book’s absence if she doesn’t write it—that’s the only time she takes on a project. It has to speak to her. Everything has to come from her own place.

Writing is like making a cake. As a fiction writer, she can go to the store and buy anything she wants to make a delicious cake to gobble up. In non-fiction, she has to send someone else to the store, and they pick what THEY want—like spinach and chili peppers and hot chocolate. But she still has to use the same skills to create another delicious cake. She can’t make anything up.

Non-fiction writers are storytellers. And the purpose is to entertain, inform, and enlighten.

Candace did share a few tips for her non-fiction cake:

* Know your reader. Specifically.

* The idea is vital. It’s not just the topic—it’s the vital demand of how the story connects to our human condition. After you discover, you post the meaning.

Candace begins her research by reading everything she can on the subject, except for the things that are too new. She’s trying to find her own opinion. Reading a biography, you learn as much about the biographer that you do about the subject. From there she branches out. 

But research is an organic process, different for each writer.