Colleen Ryckert Cook

Today I become an official children’s author with the release of Kentucky: Past and Present (Rosen Publishing).

To all you fifth graders out there: THIS is the book you’ll need for that report about Kentucky your social studies teachers will force you to write this year.

Hope you get an A+++!

Quick! Drop what you’re doing and go to Elizabeth C. Bunce’s blog. Share the debut love and win a signed copy of this gem:

Already CROSSING THE TRACKS has received a starred Kirkus review! Even Betsy Bird fell under the spell of its cover

Read it, love it, clasp it to your heart.

So far, 2010 has been good to my fellow writers in Kansas City.

In March, Laura Manivong’s young adult novel Escaping The Tiger (HarperCollins) debuted. In it, twelve-year-old Vonlai escapes the dangers of Communist Laos only to find worse dangers in a Thai refugee camp. That most excellent summary comes from Laura. The story is based upon the experiences of her husband, Troy, his family and many other Lao refugees in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s.

Barbara Stuber celebrated the release of her historical young adult novel Crossing the Tracks (Margaret K. McElderry Books) in June. Barb takes her heroine, Iris Baldwin, and her readers on a poignant journey that shows at heart we’re all hobos – homeward bound.

Find out more about Laura at www.lauramanivong.com

Find out more about Barb at www.barbarastuber.com

Humans need to simplify. We listen closely to those who explain things easily because we assume they’ve figured it out. Sure, there are things in life that are that simple: You gotta eat, you gotta breathe, you gotta move. Clean up after yourself. Honor your commitments. Wash your hands before you eat.

 But much of life isn’t so delineated. Our values can’t be color coded into Blue vs Red. Morality and ethics exist beyond religious labels.

 The goal for a nonfiction writer is to simplify topics to make them readily understood. We adapt a point of view (often determined by whoever pays us to write it), then research, interview, analyze facts, consider differing opinions, write, strip away half of what we wrote, rewrite some more. Eventually, if we’ve done our job, we make that point so concisely readers will say “Aha! I get it!” And we’ll have taught them something new.

 Fiction, like life, is complex. We still adapt a point of view. We research, eavesdrop, ponder, recall, write, strip away half of what we write, rewrite some more. But instead of making our point in two columns, we must layer in fears, longing, smells, tastes, sounds. We veil an essential truth with all the complexities that make us human. If we’ve done our jobs, our readers will say, “Ah. I get it.” They’ll clutch our books to their chests and sigh. And we’ll have made their word a richer, more complex place.

The lovely Dawn Metcalf interviews up-and-coming writers this week at Officially Twisted. Today is my turn. Swing by and have fun at my expense.

And check out Dawn’s YA novel, SKIN & BONES, coming Spring 2011 by Dutton Books!

I will pay it forward sometime in April, but first I must narrow the list of all the great writers I know. Time to pull names out of a hat!