Author websites are like kitchens and bathrooms. They need to be updated regularly. Plus, I am now a minimalist. The last website had four layers and thirty-nine pages. This one has 2 layers and 4 pages. That will probably be more meaningful for people who make websites. What it means practically speaking is that it is much quicker for readers to get around. You can learn the basics about all my books on one page, instead of having to go to eight individual pages to get the whole picture. This website will also be a lot less effort to maintain.
It is also a major rebrand for me, something I've been thinking about doing for a long time. I've rebranded as a short story, essay, and humor writer.
Why? And why now?
I Haven't Been a Children's Writer for a Long Time
My last children's book was published eighteen years ago. That means the last time I had one accepted for publication was a few years earlier. It's probably been fifteen years or more since an agent or editor showed any interest in one of my submitted children's manuscripts. I suspect that the longer I go without a new children's book publishing, the less desirable I am to agents and editors specializing in that field.
On the other hand, I have over the last six years made some progress writing short-form work for adults. A website that presents me, to myself, as a short-story writer and essayist not only marks acceptance that my career as a children's writer is over, it gives me some enthusiasm and energy to focus on the kind of work I am interested in now.
You may have heard that we should all dress for the job we want, not the job we have. My website now dresses me for the job as adult short-story writer and essayist that I want, not for the job as children's writer that I used to have. That could mean something to journal editors checking me out after receiving a submission from me.
The Connecticut Childlit Community Has Evaporated, So I'm Not Leaving Anyone
The University of Connecticut is the home of the Northeast Children's Literature Collection, the largest children's collection in the, well, northeast. Speakers used to appear there occasionally. I heard the children's literature historian and critic Leonard Marcus speak there. That was a big deal. Back when the UConn bookstore was a Co-op, it co-sponsored the Connecticut Children's Book Fair, a fundraiser for the Literature Collection, bringing over two hundred writers and illustrators to eastern Connecticut over the years and, at least one year I was told, a couple of thousand visitors to campus. The Fair supported Connecticut authors (I was featured there twice) but also brought in nationally known people. Tomie dePaola came a number of times. I met Suzanne Collins there before The Hunger Games. After Barnes & Noble took over the bookstore, the Fair petered out and then disappeared. We're not talking a pandemic issue. The handwriting was on the wall for the Fair well before Covid arrived in Connecticut.
I mentioned recently that I met Jane Yolen at UConn. I met M.T. Anderson at Eastern Connecticut State University, just up the road, where there was a children's lit course that brought authors in from time to time. I haven't heard about anything going on there in years.
All this activity is gone. Even my NESCBWI writers' group is gone. It's not as if I'm leaving anything locally, because there's nothing left here to leave.
The On-line Childlit Writing Community Seems to Have Changed
The explosion on social media regarding Mac Barnett and his book of essays earlier this year was the end of the road for me. I had never heard of that man before everything hit the fan, and now that I've read a few of his books, I can't say I'm all that fond of them. None of that changes the fact that the way he was treated by some members of the childlit community was shockingly ugly and unprofessional.
I noticed that children's lit people I had known for years on-line or through conferences didn't get very involved in that mess. They had very little to say, if they said anything at all. This leads me to speculate that perhaps we are members of an old guard, one that is still interested in legitimate criticism, and there is a new guard that is interested in something else.
I am not a good fit for the childlit world anymore. And that's okay.
I Never Set Out to be a Children's Writer
When I was getting started writing, I was just interested in writing. I was interested in any kind of writing, none of which I knew much about. Children's writing was not some kind of dream.
However, when I stumbled into it, I thought I had found my material. I was committed. Though I was still interested in trying other kinds of writing, I would have stuck with being a midlist children's writer indefinitely.
Nonetheless, I am not broken-hearted about not considering myself a children's writer anymore. I am what I started out to be, a writer. And I am excited about at last committing to other kinds of work.
