Freeman Ng

About a year ago, I attended a Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators conference where Yolanda LeRoy, an editor with Charlesbridge Publishing, gave a very entertaining talk about the good and bad picture book manuscripts they get in their slush pile.  At one point, she mentioned a classically bad picture book element they often saw: “anthropomorphic alliterative animals”. (more…)

A few years ago, a friend (picture book author, blogger, and bookstore owner Elizabeth Bluemle) was giving me her editing notes on an early draft of my first novel when I stumbled onto a trick that has made my efforts at revision not only easier, but more effective ever since. (more…)

I’ve been writing poetry and short fiction for years now, but have never tried very hard to get any of it published. Toward the end of 2009, something changed in my thinking: I decided not only to start sending many of these old pieces out, but to seek publication in other forms, in any way I could. I decided that 2010 would be the year I push myself out into the world. (more…)