No Voice Too Small by Lindsay H. Metcalf

What do you do to shake the rust off or get new ideas? It took another year and a half to sell my first book. That was probably the best day of my kidlit career thus far.

Then in 2017, on the same day I won a mentorship through Tara Luebbe and Becky Cattie’s Writing with the Stars contest, I had “the call” with my agent. I subscribed to newsletters such as KidLit 411 and joined writer-focused Facebook groups such as Sub It Club while following every kidlit blog I could find. In the meantime I signed up educational webinars and participated in ReFoReMo, Storystorm (which was called PiBoIdMo at the time), KidLit Summer School, and other free craft challenges. I learned the basics in Susanna Hill’s Making Picture Book Magic course, began to thread nonfiction narratives in Kristen Fulton’s Nonfiction Archaeology course (which is no longer offered, unfortunately), and refined my craft in Renee LaTulippe’s Lyrical Language Lab. I began to understand what I had to do: attend more conferences and small, craft-focused workshops collect critique partners and devour craft books such as Ann Whitford Paul’s Writing Picture Books. Fortunately, all those rejections included glimmers of kindness and encouragement. I submitted that first story to all the editors and agents on faculty at my first regional SCBWI conference in 2015. Pretty pompous, eh? Picture books spare no one, and my learning curve was steep! Tell us about your road to publication, what did that involve for you?īecause I had been writing daily for many years, I hoped my trajectory would be shorter than others who had less experience in writing. I read up on how the heck people got published, and later that fall, in 2015, I found SCBWI and my first critique partners. But I couldn’t stop scratching the itch to write. The day my youngest son went to preschool, I snuggled up with my Cavalier King Charles puppy in a cozy armchair and drafted the picture book of my heart, which spilled out way too long, descriptive, and didactic. I wanted to try writing one, especially for my oldest, who was born with microtia/atresia-a malformed ear and no ear canal. The irreverent, funny new picture books we found surprised and delighted me. In those early years caring for my sons, we read together constantly. I had left my job as a newspaper reporter and editor a few years earlier to be a stay-at-home mom. I knew the day my youngest went to preschool and I finally had a few hours to myself. When did you know you wanted to write picture books? My whole family lives here now, so my kids are blessed with abundant grandparent and cousin time. I live in rural Kansas, just three miles from the wheat, corn, and soybean farm where I grew up.

No Voice Too Small by Lindsay H. Metcalf