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I'm thrilled to announce that Tilbury House has acquired my picture book, MY BUSY GREEN GARDEN. Woohoooo! This rollicking cumulative rhyming story has a tentative publication date of Spring 2017.  I'm so excited to have the chance to plant the seeds of reading in young people's minds with this story.

This morning, I was thrilled to learn that former student Julie Dillemuth has sold her first manuscript! Julie worked on her manuscript with a cognitive-spatial focus in my course, Introduction to Writing Easy Readers. After some declines, Julie revised the story into a picture book format and the story sold! Now, that's what I call having brains and talent!

Congratulations, Julie! I can't wait for 2015, when I can hold a copy in my own hands.

And while we're on the subject, there are still spots available in the upcoming course, Introduction to Writing Easy Readers. Click here for info.

Happy writing!

Yes, it's been forever since I've posted as I've allowed my wrist and thumb to heal, but I just found out who my next advisor will be for my 3rd semester at Vermont College. Drum roll, please........ Julie Larios! Okay, I'll admit it, when I saw my name in her group I let out a whoop. Julie is a fabulous poet, brilliant and just plain delightful. I AM THRILLED!

I'm delighted to announce that Blackberry Banquet has been named on the National Wildlife Federation's Grab Bag list of recommended books.

I've always respected the NWF as a sensible animal conservation organization so I'm very proud to see my book included on their list. AND if you order a book through their website, NWF received a portion of the payment to help their efforts in conserving wildlife. How cool is that???

So please, hop on over and check out their Grab Bag list and learn more about their fabulous organization while you're there.

Yesterday I received two nice bits of news from the publicist at Sylvan Dell. First, I'm the featured author this month at Stories for Children online magazine. Click HERE to read the interview (and surf their website--they have tons of great things, all kidlit related).

And, Blackberry Banquet has been listed live on the USA Book News website!

The Children's Book Council has featured Blackberry Banquet on its 2008 July/August "Summertime Fun" list! Check it out--the ten books are about all kinds of summer fun. Pick yourself a reading treat from the list, pour yourself a frosty glass of lemonade, and settle down into a shady spot for some fun and relaxation.

I just found out from Lee German of Sylvan Dell that Blackberry Banquet can now be pre-ordered and shipped out mid-May. That's a two month jump on it's release date! I feel like I'm going into my eighth month of labor, eagerly anticipating the birth of my baby (only this won't involve any pain and I'll get to sleep through the night :-).

I have a few good things to post. The first, my Snoopy Dance news is that I found out yesterday from my publisher at Sylvan Dell that I will be participating at Book Expo America this year at the LA Convention Center! They weren’t sure if Blackberry Banquet (click here for a sneak preview) would be available by then, but despite its July 10 release date, it will. They’ll have advanced copies available for me to sign, so mark your calendars for the last weekend in May.

I’ve never attended BEA and I’m very excited. It's such a huge event with so many publishers and authors—and to be a signing author is a thrill. My already overactive imagination is running amuck with thoughts of whom I’ll be seated near. I mean, isn’t it every children’s writers dream to get to rub elbows with Jane Yolen or Richard Peck (even if it’s from a distance and a line of people separates our elbows).

The other good news is that I recently heard from Roxyanne Young of SmartWriters.com. She has decided to run the WIN competition (Write It Now) again this year. It will be open for entries beginning in August 2008, so mark your calendars and watch the SmartWriters website for updates.

One last bit of cool information. Author Bruce Hale, of Chet Gecko and Underwhere fame, is offering a 39% discount on the first four CDs in his Teleseminar series on writing and publishing (targeted toward beginning and lower-intermediate writers). Each recording addresses a different aspect of the process. You'll find insider tips from editors and agents, plus time-tested information on how to write, edit, and sell your story. Click here for more info.

Happy Writing to All!

Let's face it: You never know when you'll need a guide to monsters. A Behir or a Chimera could be lurking in any city alleyway and it's wise to be ready. Fortunately, the good folks at Mirrorstone have issued A Practical Guide to Monsters so you'll "be prepared to defend yourself on a quest of your own."

Written by Nina Hess, A Practical Guide to Monsters covers the basics of monster protection and details the types of monsters you may be unlucky enough to meet. Monsters are described in great detail, with particular emphasis placed on their weaknesses or how to defend yourselves against them. Take, for example, this section from the Gargoyle entry:

"Gargoyles are well suited as guards in particular. They wait motionless above the threshold, assuming the face of a sculpture, until a visitor arrives at the door. Then, they swoop down to interrogate the guest. If you're unlucky enough to be deemed an unwanted visitor, be prepared to fight!"

Monsters are classified by type and include Creepy Crawlers, Flying Fiends, Viperous Villains, Sneaky Shapeshifters, Gruesome Goblinoids, Mammoth Monsters, Unsightly Undead (yuck), Otherworldly Outsiders, and my favorite, Awful Aberrations. Each monster has its own fact sheet and several have detailed plans of their "lairs" included. A team of illustrators--Emily Fiegenschuh, Seth Trott, Eva Widermann, and Sam Wood--lovingly depict the horrible monsters, while cartographers provide gorgeous, old-fashioned illustrations of armor and protective equipment.

A Practical Guide to Monsters will appeal both to fantasy fans and to children (ages five to eleven) who love encyclopedic non-fiction. Give it to them with a clove of garlic and an iron stake, and watch their eyes light up.

Just a reminder that the Mirrorstone blog is your source for announcements regarding all of Mirrorstone's books. I'm a little biased here because, of course, I'm talking about my work in particular. But at the Mirrorstone blog we're going to make sure to point out news that relates to all the books we're publishing, the authors who write those books, and even all the editors. Take note of yesterday's post in particular, if you're in the San Francisco area and thinking about going to the local SCBWI conference next month:

A few words from Nina Hess, Mirrorstone’s Senior Editor

Thanks to everyone who has friended Mirrorstone! We're excited to be here on MySpace and able to reach out to people across the country.

A few upcoming appearances, we'd like for you to know about:

I will be speaking and critiquing manuscripts at the San Francisco East/North Bay Region SCBWI conference on Saturday, September 8, 2007. If you're in the area, please stop by! I'd love to meet you. Information available at the SCBWI site.

Stacy Whitman, intrepid Editor, has graciously agreed to step in for me to speak at L.A. Public Library's monthly meeting on September 4 at 9 AM. (The meeting is open only to L.A. librarians.) Thank you, Stacy! I'm sorry I had to miss meeting librarians in L.A., but I'm excited to have the chance to meet with writers in the San Francisco area that same week!

If you can't make any of our in-person appearances, meet me on the Internet! I'll be speaking via the magic of the world wide web on September 28 at 11 AM Eastern time. This "webinar" is hosted by the amazing duo of Susan Raab of Raab Associates and Jeannette Larson of the Texas Public Library. A webinar is a speech broadcast over the Internet. You call in to a phone number to get the audio, and log in to a website to see the power point slides. Pretty fancy, huh? Here's the write-up:

A Practical Guide to Fantasy
Nina Hess is Senior Editor at Mirrorstone, an imprint at Wizards of the Coast, where she edits fantasy fiction for children and teens. She is also the author of A Practical Guide to Monsters (August 2007), which follows the company's New York Times bestseller, A Practical Guide to Dragons.

In her web-based seminar, Hess will discuss the popularity of fantasy for all kids and its value as a means for encouraging more boys to read. She will introduce ideas, including role-playing, costume parties, and fantasy script writing, that can be incorporated into library programs for school-age children and teens.

Though this webinar is primarily aimed at librarians, it should be of interest to any writer intrigued by the fantasy genre, or any published fantasy authors looking for ideas to use in school-visits or local bookstore appearances. There is a fee to participate, but there are discounts for groups of ten or more. Full information and registration available here.

Of course you get all the news you need right here, but if you specifically want to keep up to date on info from Mirrorstone, be sure to friend or subscribe to our blog at http://www.myspace.com/mirrorstonebooks. I'm actually going to keep it up to date, with a little help from my friends. I'm also going to try to work on a nice-looking template sometime in the near future, which goes for pretty much every MySpace I've mentioned to you here that I have anything to do with. Corrine and her friends from Hallowmere need some nice pages, too! 

Hopefully this will eventually find a home at our homepage, www.mirrorstonebooks.com, but even after that we'll continue to mirror it at MySpace.

We're always working on adding content to our site, but I thought you might find it useful and interesting that we now have messageboards. It's just the beginning, so pop over and discuss Mirrorstone books! Get involved in a conversation about using fantasy in the classroom! Do you homeschool? How does the freedom to set your curriculum change the dynamic of teaching reading or using fantasy? Discuss it now.