bad news, good news, hopeful news

  Yesterday I got a very nice handwritten rejection note from Boyds Mills Press.  Darn, I really thought my story was a good fit for them.  But then today, I got a royalty check from Continental for my little leveled readers, and a bear card from Highlights High Five for an action rhyme I submitted.  Bear cards don't always mean a sale, but about 70% of the time, they do.  I should be getting a check soon for the second story I sold to Young Bucks.  These little checks add up!

Having a Senior Moment?

    I have a yellow sheet of legal pad paper, where I keep track of all my submissions.  I check the sheet every night to remind myself of what I've sent, when I sent it and where I sent it, and the result.  But after mailing my Mom Dot Com story to Lee and Low publishers, the sheet has vanished.  I think I may have stuck it in the envelope!  Hopefully they'll use the SASE to send it back.
    There are some disadvantages to having a day job and writing into the late night hours!  And to being old, I guess, although in so many ways this is a terrific time of life.

A Couple of Firsts

     Last month, using the Magazine Markets for Children book we all got at the Highlights conference, I found an online magazine for kids that looked like a good fit for nature-type stories. I reworked my Thunder article about partially burned pine trees so that it was more for kids.  I sent a query, got a yes the next day, e-mailed the article & photo and got an acceptance the next day, had my contract in a week and my check in two weeks!  My first sale of a photo, and my first e-zine credit.
     This month, I sold them another reworked Thunder article and photo on how forest fires affect fish.  These sales are only $25, but they're pretty easy money!  One thing I've learned from Christine at Highlights is that when you sell a story, you only sell that particular arrangement of words, and that its perfectly acceptable to rework a story and send it somewhere else.

Sharing a Memory at High Five

     High Five's facebook page asked for parenting advice we'd received through the years, and I submitted a line from my dear friend, Carol Van Why: "Will they remember the unmade bed, or the talk we had instead?"  This week I got an e-mail from Hilary who runs the facebook page that this quote has been chosen to appear in High Five!  The next day I heard from Kathleen Hayes, editor at High Five:  "I just got an e-mail from Hilary telling me that you are our premier parenting advice columnist!  We will use a photo of a Dad talking to a avery young boy, and your lovely quote.  So, thanks!  It will be great to have you on our cover wrap!"  I wrote back to make sure they use Carol's name.  Carol passed in 1992, twenty years ago, and it will be so nice for her kids and grandkids to see her words and her name on a wonderful magazine for kids.  Her middle daughter Sabrina, who is expecting her first child next month, thanked me for keeping her mom's memory alive.  It feels really good that I can honor Carol this way.