"A getting-started primer for teachers conferring with writers in the K-8 classroom" --

Captivate the hearts and minds of young adult readers! Writing for young adult (YA) and middle grade (MG) audiences isn't just "kid's stuff" anymore--it's kidlit! The YA and MG book markets are healthier and more robust than ever, and that means the competition is fiercer, too. In Writing Irresistible Kidlit, literary agent Mary Kole shares her expertise on writing novels for young adult and middle grade readers and teaches you how to: • Recognize the differences between middle grade and young adult audiences and how it impacts your writing. • Tailor your manuscript's tone, length, and content to your readership. • Avoid common mistakes and cliches that are prevalent in YA and MG fiction, in respect to characters, story ideas, plot structure and more. • Develop themes and ideas in your novel that will strike emotional chords. Mary Kole's candid commentary and insightful observations, as well as a collection of book excerpts and personal insights from bestselling authors and editors who specialize in the children's book market, are invaluable tools for your kidlit career. If you want the skills, techniques, and know-how you need to craft memorable stories for teens and tweens, Writing Irresistible Kidlit can give them to you.

Just graduated? Feeling a little lost? Life After College is like a portable life coach, giving you straightforward guidance on maneuvering the real world--along with tips, inspiration, and exercises for getting you where you want to go. Congrats, you've graduated! You have your whole life ahead of you. Do you feel overwhelmed? Unsure? Deluged with information, but no real plan? Jenny Blake's Life After College gives you practical, actionable advice, helping you to navigate every area of your life -- from work, money, dating, health, family, and personal growth -- to help you see the big picture. It will get you focusing on your goals, dreams, and highest aspirations so that you can create the life you really want. Now in a repackaged edition!

Mettee has brought together over 45 editors, authors and agents to advise on all types of writers, on the skills & business of writing. The book also offers a great list of writer's resources, including lists of writer's associations, web sites and at home writing courses.

In clear language, Fletcher and Portalupi explain the simple principles that underlie the writing workshop and explore the major components that make it work.

Balloons are bright and floaty and shiny and perfect. More than anything else in the whole wide world, Isabel wants a balloon. Everyone will get one on Graduation Day—everyone except the porcupines, because Porcupines + Balloons = Trouble But Isabel isn't going to settle for another boring bookmark. She has a plan. . . .

Blue If Only I Could Tell You is the thirteenth collection of poetry by Richard Tillinghast. Long awaited, the book is his first since Wayfaring Stranger came out in 2012. Melodious, lyrical, these poems of place and displacement are deeply personal at times as they look back over a long and eventful life. Tillinghast also focuses on troubled and troubling aspects of the American story: the Indian Wars of the 19th century and the history of race relations in his native South, from slavery to the country's current racial reckoning. It is rare to see a poet with such gifts for musicality, vivid imagery and finely honed diction address himself so pointedly to issues of social and political import.