Jeanie Franz Ransom's Blog

Revving up for the April 11th release of my new book, COWBOY CAR! Got to take Little Car for a  “test drive” a few weeks ago when visited Ridgeway Elementary in Columbia, MO. The students were excited that they were the first kids to see (and hear) a book that hadn’t even come out yet.

If you’d like to read COWBOY CAR in advance, too, here’s your chance. GoodReads is giving away 100 digital (eBook) copies of COWBOY CAR now through April 10th. Sign up on GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/enter_kindle_giveaway/226328-cowboy-car.

VROOOM!

Just five days til school’s in session! Info on signings and giveaways to come!

My next book, There’s a Cat in Our Class!, is almost here! On August 15th, Miss Biscuit’s all-dog class gets a new

student who is NOT a dog. Will fur fly? Or will the students learn to accept — and learn from — their differences? I’m thrilled to have a book that introduces the topic of diversity to young children, and excited that the illustrator, Bryan Langdo, based some of the characters on real-life pets — including Miss Biscuit (my Sheltie, Nemo) and Holly (my collie, Sadie).

To see the rest of the pets that appear in the book, as well as in other books from Magination Press, read Editor Sara Fell’s fun post on the Magination Press blog.

Check back tomorrow for a sneak preview of There’s a Cat in Our Class! — and to find out how to get your paws on a free signed copy.

Since the beginning of my family’s book club in summer 2013, our annual pick has always been a hotly contested issue. While our three boys tend more toward literary fiction, my husband and I usually prefer genre fiction, and collectively we have to decide on a book that can fit with all of our respective tastes. This year, we’ve chosen the novel “Grief is the Thing with Feathers” by Max Porter. It’s an unconventional book, part prose and part poetry, but it’s slim enough that we’re going to give it a try.

If you’re interested in reading along with us, feel free to grab a copy. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

I’m pleased to have my youngest son, Alex, helping me out this summer, cleaning up mailing lists, researching educator conferences and children’s lit festivals, and updating my website. He’s also writing and posting on various social media, brainstorming book promotions, and doing whatever he can so I can write my next book. “Beach breaks” on Lake Michigan are definitely a nice job perk — for me, too!

Alex will be a junior at the University of Missouri – Columbia, where he’s a journalism major with a minor in English. Alex is a good writer — and a good editor — so he’s been a welcome addition to my “cafe writing” sessions. Next summer, he’s hoping for an editorial internship in New York City, where his two brothers live. Somehow, I don’t think he’ll have “beach breaks” there!

If March comes in like a lion, it’s supposed to go out like a lamb. But I live in St. Louis, Missouri, where March can be lions and more lions, with maybe a lamb or two in between, if we’re lucky. Turns out this old saying is pretty much fiction when it comes to predicting the weather. That being said, it’s true — March is going out – so it’s time for my monthly update!

I’ve become a big fan of virtual school visits, especially after doing multiple Skype sessions last month for World Read Aloud Day. I love them so much, I’m going to schedule more free Skype visits in the fall. More about that next month.

I also love doing school visits in person. Usually, it’s a school librarian or teacher who invites me to the school. So I was surprised when the invitation to visit Old Bonhomme Elementary in St. Louis came from students — third-graders, actually. Learn more about my visit to Brett Kelley’s third-grade classroom — and how it became an opportunity for students to work on a project for “Authors 4 Earth Day” – at www.authorsforearthday.org/jeanie-ransom.html.

And here’s what I’ve been reading this month: MG, YA, and adult fiction and non-fiction, including Pax, by Sara Pennypacker;  The Night Strangers, by Chris Bohjalian; All We Know of Heaven, by Jacquelyn Mitchard; Landline, by Rainbow Rowell; and Cheryl Klein’s Second Sight: An Editor’s Talks on Writing, Revising, and Publishing Books for Children and Young Adults. How about you? I love to get reading recommendations!

I’m pretty sure that February ate January, because the last thing I remember is making snow angels on the beach in Michigan. Then, WHOOSH!

February was on the calendar! At least there’s an extra day this month, which is small consolation for losing January, but I’ll take it!

Here’s what I’ve been up to this month:

I attended my first SCBWI national conference in New York City, where I got to see old friends, meet new ones, and hear some amazing people share their knowledge and experience.

On Valentine’s Day, I threw a “book birthday” party for my newest book child, BIG RED AND THE LITTLE BITTY WOLF: A Story About Bullying, at BookCourt in New York. We celebrated with cake and paw-print cookies, and sang “Happy Birthday.” If you’re ever in Brooklyn, stop by this cozy, well-curated bookstore. The employees are friendly, helpful, and passionate about books, and I’m proud that one of them is my son, Brian Ransom.

This was my first year to participate in “World Read Aloud Day,” and it won’t be my last. On February 24th, I visited nine schools in two countries via Skype. The best thing about the day – aside from getting to “travel” to so many schools without leaving my house – were the questions and conversations sparked by reading my new book about bullying. If there was ever a doubt in my mind whether I could help more kids as a children’s author than an elementary school counselor, I got my answer February 24th. A big thank you to all the teachers, librarians and students who invited me into their classrooms, as well as to children’s author Kate Messner, for helping connect teachers and authors.

This month, I’ve been trying to whittle down the stack of books I got for Christmas, but I’m afraid I’ve added to the pile after my trip to NYC! In the kids-lit department, I just started PAX, which I am reading with a box of tissues nearby. My heart is already aching for the pet fox and the boy he’s been separated from. I’m reminded of the childhood classic, LASSIE COME HOME, another tissue-box book. What book’s grabbed your attention recently?

As a children’s author, I’m often asked how someone can get their book published. I used to try and cram as much information that I’ve learned over the past ten years into ten minutes or less. Then my husband came up with a brilliant solution.

He suggested that I give people the title of the book I refer to as “The Bible” for getting published in the children’s market. It’s Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market, and it’s available in the reference section of just about any bookstore, or online. You also can find it at many public libraries, but usually not the newest edition. And if you are serious about submitting your work to publishers, you must have the newest edition. Things change in the publishing industry in the blink of an eye, so it’s essential that you have the most up-to-date information. This year’s edition offers an online database of all listings so you can do a search to double-check that a particular publisher is still open to submissions, or that an editor is still working there.

So, why do I consider Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market to be the one book to get for anyone who wants to write for children? First of all, it contains detailed information for hundreds of book publishers and children’s magazines. But even more important, in the case of those who are new to the world of children’s publishing, are the helpful articles on genres, formatting, submitting, agents, and such. It’s a one-stop way to research a market for a book or article you’ve already written, or to get an idea of the places you want to target once you’ve written something.

The 2010 edition of Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market is priced at $29.99, but with online or bookstore coupons, you can get it for less. It’s not too late to get one for the holidays for someone you know who has always wanted to write for children, or to make sure it’s on your own list. Update: The 2016 edition is still priced at $29.99, and there’s now a digital version for less than $10. 

This week’s post is from Christmas past, about finding inspiration in everyday life. It’s from a December 2010 post I wrote for Storytellers Unplugged, a multiple-author blog about writing, publication, and the creative life.

You know that one question people seem to always ask writers? Not the one about how much money you make. I’m talking about the OTHER question: “Where do you get your ideas?”

It always amazes me that people think that writers have the inside track to story ideas. Like we have some source from which we score the best plots, the most carefully crafted sentences, the most interesting characters. We do, I guess. It’s called our imagination. But everyone has one (at least in theory), and as Spongebob Squarepants says, they just need to use it.

Every day, there are people we meet, places we go (even in our dreams – especially in our dreams), and opportunities galore to create some amazing stories, whether to share with others in person or on paper.

I work two part-time jobs, and in each, I encounter people and situations that make me laugh, shake my head, or humble me. My Starbucks job has proven to be the most fertile ground for character development. But you don’t have to be a barista to get the same results. Talking to people, listening to others (without being a total creeper), being open to what you hear, what you see, and most of all, what you feel, are all ways to mine your everyday life for the kind of characters and conflicts found in successful stories.

There’s a reason why authors like Jodi Picoult sell millions of books. Their plots ring true, because they’re usually taken from real life – bits and pieces of news stories, childhood memories, personal experiences, or someone else’s experiences, woven together to create a compelling narrative.

Of course, I wouldn’t recommend using your sister’s ugly divorce or your neighbor’s dirty laundry aired over the back fence as the basis for your book. And you shouldn’t need to. There are so many other opportunities for ideas, without compromising your relationships. (Unless you want to write a memoir, in which case, you’re on your own!)

Which brings me to Grandma’s story, perfect for this time of year. One Christmas Eve years ago, my family (Mom, Dad, my two sisters and me, plus my grandmother) came out of church to find that the weather had taken a turn for the worse. Snow covered the cars and the wind made it hard to keep our eyes open as we skated across the parking lot to where my dad had already started my grandma’s big new Buick and was valiantly trying to chisel through several layers of ice on the windshield. I saw my dad duck his head inside the car for a moment, just before my mom opened the passenger-side door. There was a strange woman sitting in the front seat. I thought maybe we were giving her a ride home from church. How nice, I thought. After all, it was Christmas Eve. Just as we were about to get into the car, my dad yelled at us. “Get away from the car!” The stranger shut the door, and several seconds later, took off with my grandmother’s new car.

Thankfully, someone else – not a stranger – gave us a ride home, where presents took a back seat to the police questioning and my grandmother’s panic. Apparently, the strange woman in the church parking lot had climbed into the car while my dad was scraping the windshield. When he saw her, the woman said she had a gun and that my dad was going to drive her where she wanted to go. My dad told her she could drive herself, and yelled at my mom and me to get away from the car.

Eventually, we learned that the woman had started a fire in the trashcan at a nearby hospital where she was a patient in the psychiatric unit. She drove my grandmother’s car, complete with iced-over windshield, through one of the worst snowstorms ever, from St. Louis to Oklahoma City.

You can’t make this stuff up. Well, you could. But when real life offers you so many ideas – both in your waking life and in your dream life – why not start there, and see where you end up?

For this week’s “Throw Back Thursday,” I chose a blog post from three years ago. Two reasons why. The first is that the mild fall we had this year in St. Louis reminded me of the weather we had that year.

The second is that shortly after Thanksgiving that same year, one of my two loyal “office assistants” — Luke — passed away unexpectedly. Luke’s the “sweater head” in the photo on the right. Nemo’s the other guy. And here is the post from the past:

Fall has always been my favorite time of year.  The start of a new school year feels like a fresh start for everyone, and the cooler weather is a welcome change from the hot summer– especially this year, with the 100+ degree temperatures here in St. Louis.

Although the heat seemed reluctant to relax its grip this fall, it’s finally what I call  “sweater weather,” perfect for sitting on the front porch with my two “office assistants,” Luke and Nemo.

They’re now able to wear their own “sweaters,” courtesy of a trip I took to Iceland this past summer. I don’t know how long they’ll keep them on, but I know from experience that they’ll keep sitting on the front porch with me until it’s too cold for me to write outside. I draw the line on typing with mittens on!