By Christine Kohler
They lived happily ever after. *shaking head; strike that*
(Second try) The moral of the story is… *ack! Delete*
(Fourth try) So she grew up to be a doctor and her parents were very proud of her. *rolling eyes; Cut!*
(Sixth try) She smiled. Grandpa laughed. *grumble, grumble; Wad up paper, Read More
On my June 26, 2015, blog post I wrote about writing diverse literature. NO SURRENDER SOLDIER is repeatedly selected by reviewers and readers for categories reflecting diverse characters and cultures.
Top Ten Books that Celebrate Diversity at Alex Baugh's The Read More
By Christine Kohler
In 1985, my first four fiction children’s books were published by Concordia Publishing House in a series called Growing up Christian. Those contemporary stories for ages 5-9 tackled social problems, such as attitudes toward disabled people and illness. My main character in two stories is Jennifer, who is white, and her Read More
by Janni Lee Simner
How do we learn as writers? How do we take our work to the next level?
We all know the places we can go to learn. Formal conferences and workshops. Less formal critique groups and beta readers. Reading books about writing, and reading other books—so many other books—by Read More
by Christine Kohler
In the quest for writing character-driven stories, it is easy to fall into the trap of having a character musing to oneself too much. By musing, I'm talking about thoughts, also called internal monologue, or interior monologue.
Often writers write the first draft in too much internal monologue to get the Read More
By Christine Kohler
I do not recommend reading this chapter if you have not read my historical novel NO SURRENDER SOLDIER, set on Guam. But if you have read the coming-of-age story and are curious about the editorial process, you might find this fascinating. In the original version, I wrote this “Stations of the Read More
This article first appeared
Adventures in YA Publishing (March 6, 2015) and Uncommon YA (March 20, 2015)
by Christine Kohler
Imagine you open a book and one character's dialogue is in a foreign language that you do not read. Read More
[Note: This article is revised reprint from a 2012 CHILDREN’S WRITER column, published by The Institute.]
I read a lot of works in progress, between my work as a teacher through the Institute of Children’s Literature, my editorial business, and occasionally acting as a Read More
By Christine Kohler
I’ve always written to holes I see in children’s literature. I got into writing children’s lit in the early 1980s by writing what I could not find to buy for my own children—Christian contemporary “social problem” fiction with multi-racial casts. I sold the Growing Up Christian series Read More
By Christine Kohler
Have you been eating and a pesky fly won’t leave you alone? All I can think of is how that fly used to be a maggot. Dialogue tags can be like that, distracting to the point where you just want to throw your meal away. I have also put books Read More
