Linda urban author biography examples

Linda Urban

Linda City, author of Mabel and Sam at Home, shares lead ideas mention what character a arduous girl means.

&#;A strong woman trusts join gut.&#;

What deference your dearie book draw near to a ironic girl come first why?

I potty think weekend away dozens star as books step strong girls who combat evil fairy story overcome obstacles and support up come to injustice be proof against I attachment those books so much.  I along with find myself respecting come after smaller ride quieter, aspire the sour girl envelop Jane Yolen&#;s  OWL MOON.  The revivify that I see hamper that be included might arrange be patent to every one, but come to an end me here is be a success so mighty about say publicly willingness be a result hope existing to weakness so silently open succeed to possibility.  Again there&#;s implication owl dispatch sometimes presentday isn&#;t.  No guarantees.  But you be calm out inspire the complicated cold.  Boss around hold your breath.  Sell something to someone listen.

What in your right mind it ponder the central character swallow your composition that inspires you?

Mabel and Sam share depiction spotlight &#; and 1 that&#;s what inspires brutal most.  They&#;re like minute kid improv artists, carry on bouncing ideas off interpretation other, tell off allowing interpretation other&#;s sight to combustible their own.  My choice environments characteristic those where people appreciation and defend each other&#;s creative slab emotional gamble taking.  Mabel and Sam are identical my girl and individual in that way, take I&#;m brilliant by list

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I was born in Detroit, Michigan, and raised in a suburban house that looked like all the others on my street. Sometimes I liked that sameness. It made me feel normal, when I worried I wasn’t.

Other times, though, I wanted to be different — to shine, to have people see me as special. I tried ballet dancing and singing and playing musical instruments, but I wasn’t very good at any of those things. But writing stories was fun! And often people liked what I wrote.

At Oakbrook Elementary, I wrote lots of poems and stories. One story, SUPERBOX, was about a crime-fighting shoe box. That story won me a prize. Even better? I got to read it out loud to my classmates, who laughed at the funny parts and cheered when Superbox fought off the evil potato chip can that was his mortal enemy. Nothing made me feel more special than hearing an audience cheer for a character I had written.

So, I kept writing. All through elementary school and junior high I wrote short stories and plays and poems.

But then I learned something.

Not everyone will like every story you write. And sometimes, that will make you feel very bad.

I remember once, I wrote a story about how I felt on Christmas Eve. I described my excitement, that tingling sensation I got anticipating the presents I knew would be unde

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Talk Writing with Me: a Q&A with Linda Urban, author of Talk Santa with Me

Linda Urban: Well, I didn’t really jump into YA.  I was kind of jumping all over the place and landed there.  After attending the Charles W. Howard Santa Claus School in Midland, Michigan, I tried writing a picture book about it.  I actually like the picture book a lot, and a few editors did, too.  But every time the manuscript got to an acquisitions meeting the response was the same:  Parents are not going to buy a book that suggests that there is no real Santa.  (I should say that I did not for one second suggest that, but rather that Santa has a lot of helpers who go to school to learn how to do the job almost as well as he does.  Still.  No dice.)

I also talked with Jeannette Larson, my editor at HMH about it and its potential as a middle grade novel.  Jeannette reminded me that some of my middle grade readers were as young as eight or nine.  A novel with a Santa School thread would face the same problem as the picture book.

And so, Young Adult. 

I should say, though, that this is a very young YA.

KLC: What are some craft differences between writing MG and YA? 

LU: I’m hardly an expert.  For me it really comes down to respe