Hockey Readers?

Who knew hockey fans read? Not me. But here's proof.

Lo and behold, David Ward's HOCKEY TREE appeared on a blog for-- surprise!-- hockey books. Scholastic plans a late-09 or maybe late-10 sequel, believing the Winter 10 Olympics will spark even greater Canuck madness. (Naturally, we will have to request a television ad to exploit this bonanza.) Outside North America, however, I find little reader enthusiasm for the sport. Pat Hughes's e-x-t-r-e-m-e-l-y good teen novel OPEN ICE (a head injury threatens a a jock's identity - and his brain function) inspired no foreign interest, even though multiple U.S. houses bid for the manuscript.

Boys Don't Read

Okay, they do. (We did!) But not enough. That's what Gail Giles says in her School Library Journal essay. Originally titled "Boy's Don't Read and We See To It," SLJ went for the sexier Wanted: Male Models. Nowadays, boys (girls too) can listen to Gail's teen novels. All are available on Audible. 

Find out more about Gail and her other titles here.

What I'm Looking For (Me, John)

I'm always asked what kind of work I'm looking for. Of course, I'm eager to read anything well written, plot-driven, stringent, original, etc. - but isn't everybody? One genre I'd like to see more of in particular is sci-fi. Ideally, the otherworldly elements should be used to tell a human story. I'm less inclined to care about an invasion of lizard people if the humans are flat and one-dimensional. Also, it's more interesting to find the strange in an everyday setting. Aliens in space are less exciting than aliens in your sister's closet.

Send query letters and sample pages to jmc.st.ny@verizon.net.

Thanks!

- JMC

HOW TO SAVE YOUR TAIL

Now in Paperback!

HOW TO SAVE YOUR TAIL
by Mary Hanson

*if you are a rat nabbed by cats who really like stories about magic spoons, wolves with snout-warts, big, hairy chimney trolls . . . and cookies, too.

Named Publisher's Weekly Zaniest Title of 2007
Watch the book trailer...




Plus!
Berekley Preparatory School of Tampa, FL,  produced a stage version of How to Save Your Tail, with a script by Dorothy Hershman. (Don't bother with Ticket Master, it was a one-time performance.)

www.ScottTreimelNY.com

The STNY website, which will feature more info about our authors as well as an electronic submission form for manuscripts and permissions requests, is under development. You can see our landing page (which features our submission policies) here. We're in the process of converting to electronic submissions only (Kindles purchased and en route!) . Soon all submissions will go exclusively through scotttreimelny.com. In the meantime, we still accept the ol' fashion way.

-JMC

The Way of Things Today

Poets & Writers interviews the redoubtable Nat Sobel 

". . . evolving today for agents is that they need to be the first line editors for their authors. . . . We have spent years editing nearly every novel we've ever agented. We did that long before we began to discover how little editing was going on in the publishing houses. But today, agents need to be far more proactive in almost every other area of the publishing process. We have to be the marketing directors for many of our books. We have to involve ourselves in the looking at the jacket design, the jacket copy, the catalogue copy. . . . Those are things you never thought about in agenting when I first came into it. You made the deal, you negotiated the contract, and that was it—— the publisher took over."

my rejoinder, to every particular: ditto!

ARCHIPELAGO

Imagine being lost on an island...that's 14,000 years in the past. David Ward's new adventure novel ARCHIPELAGO is now available.

"A nail-biting adventure back into time... a must read!"--CM Magazine, highly recommended

TICKLE MONSTER

Our man Kevan Atteberry does his super cute monster thing for a book + tickle glove (which Kevan designed) for Seattle-based gift company Compendium.

Advice from E.B. White

Place yourself in the background.

Write in a way that comes naturally.

Work from a suitable design.

Write with nouns and verbs.

Do not overwrite.

Avoid the use of qualifiers.

Do not affect a breezy style.

Use orthodox spelling.

Do not explain too much.

Avoid fancy words.

Do not take shortcuts at the cost of clarity.

Prefer the standard to the offbeat.

Make sure the reader knows who is speaking.

Do not use dialect.

Revise and Rewrite.

Timothy Roland's COMIC GUY Series

Petey, STNY's official dog

New Gail Giles Available on Audible

PLAYING IN TRAFFIC and DEAD GIRLS DON'T WRITE LETTERS are now available for download at Audible.

More Foreign Covers

The Dutch edition of RIGHT BEHIND YOU by Gail Giles



THEORIES OF RELATIVITY  by Barbara Haworth-Attard won the Prix Livrentete, the  French edition, that is

Foreign Covers

FROM CHARLIE'S POINT OF VIEW by Richard Scrimger, from Korea
&
SHATTERING GLASS by Gail Giles from the Netherlands

HOUSEFUL OF CHRISTMAS

Barbara Joosse's HOUSEFUL OF CHRISTMAS is now available in paperback from Squarefish Books.

"Every Christmas, Granny’s house is full of family and festive cheer—carols and presents, and plenty of food, bows, and gift wrap for Fat Cat to play with, and lots of company for Granny and her dog, Edgar. When snow starts to fall, the family doesn’t mind at all. Because even during a blizzard, there’s no place better than Granny’s house for Christmas."

FROONGA PLANET

Earth is in danger, and only Lunchbox, the super-intelligent basset hound, and his boy, Nate, can help them save the planet...


Art by our own Kevan J. Atteberry.

BENEATH THE MASK by David Ward

BENEATH THE MASK, the sequel to Escape the Mask and the second book in David Ward's Grassland Trilogy is now available from Amulet Books.

Barbara Joosse Interview

Last weekend Barbara spoke at Fairytale Town in Sacramento. Here she is on Sacramento's NBC affiliate, KCRA.

THEORIES OF RELATIVITY wins Prix Livrentete

Barbara Haworth-Attard's THEORIES OF RELATIVITY a winner of the Prix Liverentete award (Published in France by Editions Thierry Magnier).

Check out the U.S. and Canadian editions...

KITCHEN DANCE Trailer

JOLTED Review

Arthur Slade's JOLTED is reviewed by author Tim Wynne-Jones. Read it here.

Jolted: Newton Starker's Rules for Survival will be available in the U.S. March 2009.

KITCHEN DANCE in Kirkus Reviews

"Scrape! Splash! Clunk! Clang!...I hear kitchen sounds..."

Maurie Manning's KITCHEN DANCE received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews. Members can read the full text here.

Barbara Joosse's IN THE NIGHT GARDEN in PW

From Publishers Weekly:

In the Night Garden Barbara Joosse, illus. by Elizabeth Sayles. Holt, $16.95 (32p) ISBN 978-0-8050-6671-5

Three girls perform their best animal imitations by the light of the moon in this fittingly dreamlike bedtime book. Trees, plants and picket fence in the yard provide the shadowy, silver-lit backdrop for one girl, who forages and roars like a bear; a second, who floats and sings like a whale; and a third, who howls as if she's a sleek sled dog in the snow. Their imaginative romp is temporarily interrupted by an unseen adult's call of “Bedtime!” but the girls simply move the game inside, staying in character as they tuck themselves in and soon nod off. Joosse's (Mama, Do You Love Me?) poetic text captures striking animal characteristics with vivid adjectives and fun-to-sound-out words like “How-how-howl” or “Eeee-eeee-eeee.” Sayles's (I Already Know I Love You) blend of acrylics and pastels, dominated by shimmery blues, greens and whites, have a gauzy look, suggesting a quasi-magical time where waking slips into peaceful sleep. Her girls and wild creatures joyously sweep and swirl across the pages, offering readers a jumping-off point for their own dreams.

Ages 4–8. (Sept.)

Giles Titles Available on Audible

These Gail Giles titles now available on Audible.com.
Coming soon: Dead Girls Don't Write Letters and Playing in Traffic.