Kristin Wolden Nitz
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SUSPECT was one of ten books picked for the High School KSRA 2011 YA book award . Students can vote on their favorite title as long as they’ve read at least four of the following books: Bamboo People by Mitali Perkins,…
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Over 7000 Words
It felt like I was back to my old plodding ways. On April 19th, I was at 5600 words. Yesterday, I was hardly 1000 words further along as I struggled to get my character from Merano to the Alpe di Siusi–or as…
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Dori Wins the Edgar!
My writer friend Dori Hillestad Butler has had quite a year. First, she was nominated for the Edgar for her book, THE CASE OF THE LOST BOY, which is part of her BUDDY FILES series. Then she found herself in…
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The PSLA YA Top 40 (or so)
Suspect made the Pennsylvania YA Top 40 (or so) list. I’m afraid that “or so” means closer to 200 books, but it’s still a lovely honor. Here’s the review from the librarian who nominated it: Seventeen-year-old Jen goes to help her…
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Another Blank Book
Back in March, I opened up a fresh blank book that I’d gotten for Christmas last year and started scribbling away on what I’d been calling the Italian chase novel. The black and white cloth cover was attractive enough. I…
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Over 5000 Words Already?
In general, I tend to work quite slowly. Dialgoue might flow easily, but then I have to smooth all of the details that bring a story to life with action, description and movement. That’s why I’m just a bit surprised to…
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Chapter 2: Roughed In
Every novelist approaches projects differently. My technique is usually to get what I call a semi-polished rough draft in place for one chapter before moving on to the next. In my case, that means that I’ve got most of the…
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If THE LIAR SOCIETY Looks Interesting…
It was fun to find SUSPECT in Kirkus again. This time it accompanied THE LIAR SOCIETY review in the “similar books” section. Nice!
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The Terrors of Revising and Submitting
You can find Jeannie Mobley’s extremely amusing post on Zen and the Art of Manuscript Submitting at Emu’s Debuts. I had to laugh when Norse mythology was added to the fruit salad of literary allusions.
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Plotting and Planning with Jennifer Mattson
Last weekend I made my usual pilgrimage back to Missouri for the annual SCBWI retreat. One of the guests was Jennifer Mattson, an agent with Andrea Brown. She joked that she was “celebrating the nerdiness within” as she prepared her speech because it…
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Kristin Wolden Nitz 