Craft Articles
Join us in exploring others’ craft and building our own.
Here you will find explorations of mentor texts – articles that dive into specific craft elements in published books, interviews with authors, and tips on growing and improving as a writer.
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Rhythm, Rhyme, and Summertime: A Q&A Peach and Plum, Here We Come! author Tim McCanna
Tim McCanna: "Trusting your intuition has to be earned by running into a lot of roadblocks and successfully finding your way through them. That’s true for any kind of writing."
Stories are Stories: Learning from Early Reader Cat Can Fix It! by Stefanie Hohl
Just because you have to use simple words doesn’t mean the story has to lack emotion or depth. It’s challenging, but early readers can still use all the elements of story—character, plot, setting, etc. In fact, looking to early readers as a model, writers in other categories can see how efficient storytelling can be without sacrificing emotional depth.
Writing Deep Stories with Simple Words: A Q&A with Stefanie Hohl
“Studying craft is the best thing I have done for my writing. I like to write in many different genres, and each one informs the other. Reading and studying books and examining how other authors accomplish their craft has helped me tremendously.”- Stefanie Hohl