Kristin Wolden Nitz

Author: Kristin Wolden Nitz

  • What Really Happened to Humpty? He won!!

    —

    by

    Kristin Wolden Nitz
    in

    My friend Jeanie Franz Ransom just received some eggs-citing news! Her picture book WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO HUMPTY just won the New Mexico Land of Enchantment Award for best picture book narrative.  So right now her eggstremely funny book is sitting on a website just to the left of THE HUNGER GAMES.   I’m proud to be an…

  • Finished Again

    —

    by

    Kristin Wolden Nitz
    in

    Stories are fluid things until they’re typeset.  That’s when most tinkering stops except for minor word tweaks and punctuation fixes.  The Monday before Thanksgiving I finished Calyn’s story again and sent it off to my agent.  My hope is that I’ll get a chance to finish it three or four more times with an editor…

  • Before and After Harry Potter (Grades 3-5)

    —

    by

    Kristin Wolden Nitz
    in ,

    It was such fun to see SAVING THE GRIFFIN turn up on a master list of fifty or so books for kids to read before and after Harry Potter.  Susan Fichtelberg and Bonnie Kunzel pulled this list together for their June, 2011 ALA presentation.    A quick cruise through Susan’s website, Encountering Enchantment, made it clear that she’s…

  • Writing the Chapter That Doesn’t Want to Be Written

    —

    by

    Kristin Wolden Nitz
    in

    I’ve known for some time that Calyn’s story came to an end rather abruptly.  More than one critique group has told me so.  But I was defeated every time that I tried to come up with one more chapter.  Every possible scene seemed to be wrapped in cotton candy while the cutesiest unicorns and bunny…

  • Parenting Characters

    —

    by

    Kristin Wolden Nitz
    in ,

    I was one of the writers who shared a few techniques in Sue Bradford Edwards article,  “How to Avoid Parenting Your Characters.”  It was the lead piece in the 11/1 WRITER’S DIGEST e-mail newsletter.  Congratulations, Sue!

  • An Interview on Swagger

    —

    by

    Kristin Wolden Nitz
    in

    When my good friend Gina asked me to do an interview on Swagger, I couldn’t say no. Feel free to buzz on over if you’d like to check out my answers and maybe even win a ten-page critique.

  • Saying “No” to NaNoWriMo

    —

    by

    Kristin Wolden Nitz
    in ,

    Thousands upon thousands of writers are gearing up for National Novel Writing Month where the goal is to produce at least 50,000 words of a first draft.  It’s described as Thirty days and nights of literary abandon. I won’t be joining them.  And it’s not just because I’m in the middle of finishing the latest round of revisions to Calyn’s…

  • Swagger?

    —

    by

    Kristin Wolden Nitz
    in ,

    A friend of mine, a writer who managed to make me laugh AND get teary eyed at the same moment,  has started group-blogging as Swagger. This bunch of writers came together at a Highlights Foundation retreat and really bonded. Collectively, they’re an interesting bunch. Rich Wallace, for example, has written lot of great middle grade and YA novels. (On a…

  • Finding Metaphors

    —

    by

    Kristin Wolden Nitz
    in

    At some point, the SCBWI Bulletin will publish my poem, WORD WRANGLING, which has the opening line of “Never force a metaphor.”  While I fully support that recommendation, I would argue that you can play with metaphors and maybe even have them over for dinner.  An extremely useful metaphor dropped into my lap after a trip to Yellowstone that ought to…

  • Some thoughts on writing from Donna Jo Napoli

    —

    by

    Kristin Wolden Nitz
    in , ,

    I’ve been collecting quotes from writers and editors for the past 18 years or so.   In fact, I just delivered a talk at the Michigan SCBWI’s fall conference on Mackinac Island that shared the quotes that I’ve been collecting for the past 18 years.  I had about two pages worth of them from various events…