Cathy C. Hall Writes

Oh, I’m so excited to have Melissa Goodwin here today as part of her WOW! Blog Tour! She’s the author of a delightful middle grade novel called The Christmas Village, and she’s generously giving away a copy to one of my lucky commenters! Plus, she’s generously sharing her tips for entering the children’s magazine market! (I know that’s a lot of exclamation points, but I’m really excited.) So, heeeeere’s Melissa!

I began writing for children’s magazines about 10 years ago, after spending almost 30 years working in a corporate environment. After having focused so long on honing taut business writing skills, writing for kids demanded that I loosen up and rediscover a sense of playfulness in my writing style. I also wanted to build a resume that would later show agents and publishers that I had worked hard at my craft, persisted and succeeded. Since then, more than 50 of my stories, articles and poems have been published in children’s magazines and my middle grade novel, The Christmas Village, has just been released. I’d like to share some resources I used and some steps I took to get started, in the hopes that they will boost you along your writing path too.

Resources to Help You Get Started

Today, there are many blogs and websites with information for writers in every genre. But the two that helped me the most continue to be at the top of my list for writers trying to enter the children’s market:

Write4kids.com: This site has a terrific archive of helpful “how to” articles and videos, from which I mined a tremendous amount of information. They also have an e-zine called Children’s Book Insider, which provides market leads.

SCBWI: Similarly, The Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators has a newsletter with publishing leads and articles about writing for kids, along with information about the market.

Figuring Out Where to Submit Your Work

I put this before “Figuring Out What to Write,” because many magazines provide Theme Lists that are a huge help with that part – it’s great when you don’t have to guess what a magazine might want! So here are my suggestions for finding magazines to target:

Go to Amazon.com and search on children’s magazines. You’ll get a comprehensive list,.

Pick the magazines that seem like the best fit for you, based on the age group you’re interested in writing for and the type of writing you’d like to do (fiction, non-fiction, poetry).

Order several sample issues of each magazine.

Study the stories and articles. I mean really study them. Make note of the tone – is it light and fun, or a little more serious? How many words is a typical piece? Does there seem to be a consistent format to the articles?

Get the Theme List, if they have one.

Figuring Out What to Write

I wrote many pieces for the Fun for Kidz family of magazines, which consists of Fun for Kidz, Boys’ Quest and Hopscotch for Girls. This gave me the chance to write for both boys and girls. Sometimes I came up with ideas for their themes right away, but often I came up blank. One theme was “Fun with Rocks,” and I thought, I’ll never come up with anything for that! Then I did a search on “famous rocks.” The next thing I knew, I’d sold an article called, “If These Rocks Could Talk,” about The Blarney Stone, The Stone of Scone and The Black Stone of Mecca. So, if you don’t have an idea right away, don’t give up! If I could write about rocks, you can probably write about sticks!

There’s so much more that we could talk about here, but I hope that some of what I’ve shared will help you along your path to writing and publishing your work in the children’s market. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and continuing the conversation.

GREAT tips from someone who knows her stuff! And now, I’ve just got to share a little something something about Melissa and The Christmas Village.

I don’t always get my copy of a book that’s on tour in time to read it, but Melissa sent The Christmas Village early and I’m so glad! It’s such a charming story, and a cozy tale that will appeal to all ages. Jamie, a 12-year-old boy, dreams of escaping his troubles and wishes he could live in a simple town like Canterbury, his grandmother’s Christmas village that is spread under her tree. When his wish comes true, Jamie finds that all is not so calm and bright in the village, and it’s up to Jamie and his new friends to make a happy Christmas for all. And then Jamie is ready to go home again. But how?

I know you’ll enjoy this holiday story! It’s a fun mystery, and a perfect read for a winter’s night. Oh! And Melissa has promised to stop by today if you have anyquestions about entering the children’s magazine market, or writing a novel, or…you know what? I bet she’ll answer just about any question you have. Hmmm…maybe I’ll ask her what I’m getting for Christmas!

(P.S. You can get your own signed copy of The Christmas Village for the holidays if you leave a comment! I’ll draw a winner this time, next week!)

As so often happens with me, the writer, I digressed in the middle of writing. It happened this time right in the beginning of this post. Fortunately for you, the reader (and writer), I have made my way back.

I started at Literary Traveler. I fell in love with the concept of this site that I stumbled upon in a market listing and thought that you writers might like it, too. It’s basically an e-zine that combines travel stories with the stories of literary greats. And while I was perusing the writer’s guidelines here (because just about every place can claim a literary great, right?), I thought, Let me just zip around and read one of these literary articles, to see if I have the right stuff for writing up an article in Literary Traveler.

And so I checked the names of literary greats until my little eye spied Edward Gorey. Now, I am a big fan of Edward Gorey. Long ago, I fell in love with his illustrations at the beginning of what used to be Mystery Theater (on public TV). And so I absolutely had to read all about old Ed and creepy Cape Cod.

And then, I clicked on the Facebook link of Literary Traveler, whereupon I came across a rejection letter of Kurt Vonnegut’s at Letters of Note.

Now, I am a big fan of letters. Not so much me writing them. More like me reading other people’s letters. So you can see how Letters of Note was perfect for me. It probably comes as no surprise to you that I got totally caught up in reading letters. I mean, how could I possibly pass up STAR TREK/Casting? (I am a really big fan of STAR TREK.)

The only reason I ever made it back to the blog to write about all these finds was that the Beneficent Mr. Hall started to yell something about dinner.

I may never quite make it to my writing, but I always make it to dinner. (I am a HUGE fan of food.)