Many writers (if not all writers at one time or another) secretly dream of having a book become a bestseller. In reality, only a handful of books of the thousands published each year become bestsellers. For your book to land on the New York Times Bestseller List, you have to sell around 10,000 copies, usually […]
At VCFA, the Writing for Children and Young Adults program is famed for its ability to open doors in the world of kidlit. For Kelly Dyksterhouse and Callie C. Miller, an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults opened two different doors which led to two different paths: those of literary agent and author, […]
Bath Spa Residency is BACK! Originally developed to offer students the opportunity to explore the literature and culture of England while broadening their understanding of our two separate cultural approaches to writing for young readers, the Oxford/Bath Spa Residency is a popular residency option open to 17 students and alumnx each summer. Packed with excursions […]
It has been said that writing for children is an exploration of liminal spaces: the gateways between early childhood and adolescence, adolescence to adulthood, and, beyond age group and into genre, between reality, fantasy, science fiction, and other creative liminal spaces ripe for exploration. If there’s one author who is unafraid to venture into the […]
As the national conversation turns toward AI and the unrelenting, onward march of technology, AI writing tools like ChatGPT are at the forefront of the list of concerns writers have about publishing in the time of artificial intelligence. To offer insight and advice (and a pretty delicious toast recipe) we’ve looked to an author who […]
As Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once said, “Music is the universal language of mankind.” It has been compared to breath, to life, and is generally understood as something mankind simply cannot be without. In celebration of this universal language and amazing women who contribute to it, VCFA alums Ashley Walker and Maureen Charles combined forces […]
Hello! I’m Kate Pentecost (aka Ceredwyn Bagley, the Program Assistant for the Writing for Children and Young Adults Program) and I’m excited to introduce our Publishing Crash Course blog series. This blog series, which will have multiple, detailed installments, is meant to help demystify the process for alumnx and current students preparing to begin their […]
If there’s anything the past few years has taught us, it’s that stress is something that can no longer be pushed aside and ignored or accepted as simply part of being human. In her newest nonfiction book, Dealing With Stress, author, artist, mental health advocate, and VCFA alumnx Christi Cognevich tackles the topic of dealing […]
Throughout the past several months, challenges and outright bans of books (most frequently books with LGBTQIA+ themes and/or books by BIPOC authors) have swept the nation, beginning in pockets of unrest and spreading like disease. According to PEN America, nearly 140 school districts in 32 states across the US have issued more than 2,500 book […]
In increasingly Unprecedented Times, we often look to the past to inform our actions as we move into the uncertain future. Historical books, especially books for young readers about people who have thus far had their particular histories unsung, have been and continue to be invaluable to education, not only on the subject of history […]