2018 MG DEBUTS by Joy McCullough

As a debut author with my first book releasing in March, I have the wonderful privilege of being a part of the Electric Eighteens, a group of MG and YA authors who all have debut novels releasing this year. There are some VERY exciting new middle grade voices this year and I wanted to take this opportunity to give you a glimpse at some of what is headed your way!

So here’s a calendar of just SOME of the awesome MG debuts headed your way!

JANUARY

Anna Meriano | LOVE SUGAR MAGIC: A DASH OF TROUBLE

Walden Pond Press/Harper
MG Fantasy
January 2, 2018

Jackie Yeager | SPIN THE GOLDEN LIGHT BULB
Amberjack
MG Magical Realism
January 9, 2018

Margaret Mincks | PAYBACK ON POPLAR LANE
Viking Children’s/PRH
MG Contemporary Humor
January 30, 2018

FEBRUARY

Kamilla Benko | THE UNICORN QUEST

Bloomsbury

MG Fantasy

February 6, 2018

E. Latimer | 
THE STRANGE AND DEADLY PORTRAITS OF BRYONY GRAY
Tundra/PRH
MG Gothic Fantasy
February 13, 2018

Brad McLelland & Louis Sylvester | 
LEGENDS OF THE LOST CAUSES
Henry Holt & Company
MG Adventure
February 20, 2018

Sayantani DasGupta | THE SERPENT’S SECRET
Scholastic
MG Fantasy Adventure
February 27 2018

 

MARCH 

Tae Keller | THE SCIENCE OF BREAKABLE THINGSPenguin Random House
MG Contemporary
March 6, 2018

Jen Petro-Roy | P.S. I MISS YOU

Feiwel & FriendsMG ContemporaryMarch 6, 2018

Diane Magras | THE MAD WOLF’S DAUGHTER
Kathy Dawson Books/Penguin Young Readers
MG Historical Adventure
March 6, 2018

Jonathan Roth | BEEP AND BOB
S&S/Aladdin
Humorous sci-fi chapter book
March 13, 2018

Daniel Wheatley | THE ZANNA FUNCTION

Jolly Fish Press
MG Fantasy
March 20, 2018 

Kheryn Callender | HURRICANE CHILD
Scholastic
MG Magic Realism
March 27, 2018

APRIL

Henry Lien | PEASPROUT CHEN, FUTURE LEGEND OF SKATE AND SWORD 

Henry Holt & Company
MG Fantasy
April 3, 2018

Will Taylor | 
MAGGIE & ABBY’S NEVERENDING PILLOW FORT
HarperCollins
MG Contemporary Fantasy
April 3, 2018

Lauren Abbey Greenberg | 

THE BATTLE OF JUNK MOUNTAIN
Running Press
MG Contemporary
April 17, 2018

Laurie Morrison | EVERY SHINY THING
Abrams
MG Contemporary
April 17, 2018

MAY

 

A.M. Morgen | THE INVENTORS AT NO. 8
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
MG Adventure
May 8, 2018

J.H. Diehl | TINY INFINITIES
Chronicle Books
MG Contemporary
May 8, 2018

Jeff Seymour |  NADYA SKYLUNG AND THE CLOUDSHIP RESCUE 
G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers
Fantasy Adventure
May 15, 2018

Kelly Yang | FRONT DESK
Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic
MG Contemporary
May 29, 2018

JUNE

Samantha M. Clark | 
THE BOY, THE BOAT & THE BEAST
Paula Wiseman Books/S&S
MG Magic Realism
June 26, 2018

Mae Respicio | THE HOUSE THAT LOU BUILT
Wendy Lamb Books/Random House
MG Contemporary
June 12, 2018 

Melissa Sarno | JUST UNDER THE CLOUDS
Knopf
MG Contemporary
June 5, 2018

JULY

Cindy Baldwin | 

WHERE THE WATERMELONS GROW
Harper Collins Children’s
MG Contemporary
July 3, 2018

K.A. Reynolds | THE LAND OF YESTERDAY
Harper Collins Children’s
MG Fantasy
July 31, 2018

 

AUGUST

 Saadia Faruqi | YASMIN SERIES
Capstone
Chapter Books Contemporary
August 1, 2018

Brigit Young | WORTH A THOUSAND WORDSRoaring Brook Press/Macmillan
MG Contemporary
August 14th, 2018

Ben Langhinrichs | 

DANGER TASTES DREADFUL
Clean Reads/Astraea Press
MG Fantasy
August 14, 2018

Lija Fisher | THE CRYPTID CATCHER
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
MG Adventure
August 21, 2018 

Ann Braden | THE BENEFITS OF BEING AN OCTOPUS
Sky Pony Press
MG Contemporary
September 4, 2018

SEPTEMBER

Sean Easley | THE HOTEL BETWEEN
Simon & Schuster BFYR
MG Adventure
September 4, 2018

Hayley Chewins | THE TURNAWAY GIRLS

Walker Books/Candlewick
MG Fantasy
September 2018

Allison Varnes | PROPERTY OF THE REBEL LIBRARIAN

Random House Children’s Books
MG Contemporary
September 2018

Ginger Johnson | THE SPLINTERED LIGHT
Bloomsbury
MG Fantasy
September 4^th, 2018

Christina Collins | AFTER ZERO
Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
MG Contemporary
Fall 2018

Amanda Rawson Hill | THE THREE RULES OF EVERYDAY MAGIC
Boyds Mills Press
MG Contemporary
September 25, 2018

OCTOBER

Tara Gilboy | UNWRITTEN
Jolly Fish
MG Fantasy
October 16, 2018

Marie Miranda Cruz | EVERLASTING NORAStarscape TOR/Macmillan
MG Contemporary
October 2, 2018

Melanie Sumrow | THE PROPHET CALLSYellow Jacket/Little Bee Books
MG Contemporary
Fall 2018

THE PROCESS OF WRITING A NOVEL-IN-VERSE by Joy McCullough

I asked on Twitter for suggestions about what my next Project Mayhem post should be about, and a few people asked me to talk about the process of writing and having a verse novel published.

Immediately I got insecure.

I don’t feel like any sort of expert in writing verse, even though my debut novel, BLOOD WATER PAINT is written in verse. (I talk a little bit about how I came to writing verse in this blog post.)

But here’s the deal. Soon I’ll have a verse novel published. People are going to ask me questions about it. I need to own my experience and knowledge, even while I’m very open about the fact that I’m a beginner.

So here are some things I’ve learned about the process of writing a novel-in-verse.

VERSE IS VERY INTERNAL

This was a fun (hahahaSOB) thing to discover as I adapted my play, Blood/Water/Paint into my novel BLOOD WATER PAINT. Plays are, of course, very external. Actors contain the internal, but what a playwright puts on the page is what is said and what is done. Verse doesn’t usually have a lot of dialogue or a lot of action. At one point during edits, my editor came back to me and said about a specific poem, “This one is almost all dialogue. Why don’t you try flipping it so that it’s almost no dialogue?” It’s a much stronger poem now.

WORD COUNTS ARE NOT AS SATISFYING

If you ever do writing sprints with your friends, and they’re all getting like 1000 words per sprint, if you’re writing verse, it might be more like 200 or 300. Or maybe you spent the whole hour picking out one single perfect word. It has happened to me. When writing prose, I am not precious. I don’t edit every little thing as I go. I can fast-draft. Verse, though, is a whole other animal. A sloth, maybe. Or a snail. It’s slow, is my point.

HOW THE WORDS LOOK ON THE PAGE MATTERS

They matter to an extent with prose, but nowhere near as much as they matter in verse. Something that might be communicated with a whole paragraph—a page, even—of prose, might be communicated by setting a line off from that others with a different formatting choice. This made the final layout stages out of publishing mt verse novel more finicky than they would have been for a prose novel.

IS IT HARDER TO GET A VERSE NOVEL PUBLISHED?

I’ve heard verse-novelist friends express trepidation that going on sub with a verse novel will be even tougher than with a prose novel. I suppose it’s possible there are some editors who will shy away from a verse novel because they feel like it requires certain skills they don’t have. But I think for the most part, when the right editor connects with the right story, that’s not as big an issue. My editor only had very limited experience working with verse before mine. But he connected with and understood the heart of the story, and that’s all that ultimately mattered.

Because really, for all the differences, a verse novel comes down to the same things as prose—characters, desires, stakes, language.

My debut novel is YA. But since Project Mayhem is all about the MG, here are a few of my favorite middle grade novels-in-verse:

THE LAST FIFTH GRADE OF EMERSON ELEMENTARY by Laura Shovan

LOVE THAT DOG by Sharon Creech

INSIDE OUT AND BACK AGAIN by Thannha Lai

BOOKED by Kwame Alexander

MACY  MACMILLAN AND THE RAINBOW GODDESS by Shari Green

FORGET ME NOT by Ellie Terry

MAY B by Caroline Starr Rose

And a really extensive list of MG novels-in-verse can be found here.

What are your favorite novels-in-verse? Have you ever considered writing in verse?

Upper-MG Authors to Adventure With by guest blogger Sean Easley

This month, I'm delighted to turn the Project Mayhem reins over to my fellow Electric Eighteen debut author, Sean Easley. I can't wait to read his debut next year, a fantasy that sounds like EXACTLY the kind of story I would have loved as a kid - and still love now!! Since my kids and I will have to wait a while for Sean's book to come out, he joins us on Project Mayhem to recommend some of his favorite upper-MG adventures. Welcome, Sean! 

UPPER MG AUTHORS TO ADVENTURE WITH

Now that the summer break is over and school’s back in session, it’s easy to think we’ve left all the summer adventure fun behind in August.

But that’s the beauty of books… they’re a “uniquely portable magic,” as Stephen King says. I’d argue they’re a uniquely season-less magic, too, able to take you places you aren’t able to go, even in the midst of the business of life. And kids need these stories, to lend adventure to their lives, to teach them about the world they live in and how they fit, and to show them the wonder that are the people they live in it with.

That’s what draws me to these middle grade adventure stories. In a world where we’re pushed to accept mundane responsibilities and take out the garbage and feed the dog, the ability to embark on a grand adventure that teaches us something about ourselves and others is valuable. More than valuable… it’s priceless. Magic.

When I was younger, it was authors like Susan Cooper and Madeliene L’Engle and Diana Wynne Jones and John Bellairs who kept me in adventure when the school year rolled around. But it didn’t stop there. So many authors today are weaving new stories to carry our students to new worlds and build them up along the way.

So let’s reclaim the adventures by jumping into a book by one of these amazing upper-MG adventure authors.

Tracey Baptiste: The Jumbies - We’ll start with one of the slightly younger entries on the list. Tracey Baptiste has done an amazing job of bringing a Haitian folktale to life in a way that’s a bit scary, a bit dark, but with a heart and life all its own.

Kelly Barnhill: The Girl Who Drank the Moon - Kelly Barnhill’s lyrical prose and beautiful stories are full of their own kind of adventure and magic. The Girl Who Drank the Moon packages an exciting journey in the guise of a fairy tale about the nature of love, power, and the lengths people will go to for control over both. It’s a gorgeous book, and one every middle grade kid should read.

Robert Beatty: Serafina and the Black Cloak - Robert Beatty’s Serafina series gives us a girl who’s choosing her own adventures in and around the famous Biltmore Estate. There’s more to Serafina than meets the eye, more even than she knows at the beginning of her journey, but her path to family and courage is a fantastic ride that’s sure to make every kid appreciate what they have in their own families and friendships.

Soman Chainani: School for Good and Evil - Chainani’s School for Good and Evil series is full of friendships, rivalries, and tricky situations. Set in a world that’ll make you question your thoughts on right and wrong, this series still has a long road ahead of it.

John Flanagan: Ranger’s Apprentice series - Flanagan’s Ranger’s Apprentice series is a truly expansive property full of action, adventure, and a wondrous world full of places to explore. Centered around a boy who’s learning where he fits in his society, this series has come a long, long way over the years, and features over a dozen books, plus sequel series. Kids who fall for Flanagan’s effortless prose and engaging characters will have their hands full for a long time.

Claire Legrand: Some Kind of Happiness - One of the few one-shot books on this list, Claire Legrand’s Some Kind of Happiness is a heartfelt, magical adventure of discovery, healing, friendship. In it you’ll find a tale about the power of story itself that will stick with you for a long time to come. This is a true favorite.

Lisa McMann: The Unwanteds - If you’re looking for an adventure about creativity and uniqueness, then look no further than Lisa McMann’s The Unwanteds. Set in a world where kids get sorted into Wanteds, Necessaries, and Unwanteds, McMann explores individuality and the feelings that come from not being what someone else wants you to be, and packages it in a way that’ll really resonate with kids of all kinds, but especially who’ve also felt unwanted (which is incidentally one of the most common feelings among kids in this age group).

Shannon Messenger: Keeper of the Lost Cities series - Messenger’s Keeper series is a new take on an old concept: elves. You’ll be surprised with the adventure Messenger crafts, though… it’s a wild ride, full of lost cities like Atlantis and Shangri La and a fun conservationist take on the fantasy genre.

Brandon Mull: Fablehaven, Beyonders, Dragonwatch - Brandon Mull has proven himself a master of middle grade fantasy adventure. His Fablehaven series about a magical creature wildlife preserve is incredibly fun and unbelievably imaginative—great for all ages. You really haven’t lived until you’ve imagined kids milking a giant cow by sliding down its udders.

Kenneth Oppel: Airborn, The Boundless - Oppel’s middle grade stories all vary wildly from one another, but in each he does a fantastic job of developing his worlds and creating unique, gut-wrenching stories. Flying ships, massive luxury trains, you can’t go wrong with one of Oppel’s books.

Karuna Riazi: The Gauntlet - A newcomer compared to the rest of the list, Riazi’s debut The Gauntlet gives an exciting story, a compelling cast, and an intriguing adventure inside a giant mechanical board game. I’ll be looking out for more from Riazi moving forward, too—her characters are so authentic, and the story’s a real page-turner.

James Riley: Story Thieves - Riley’s Story Thieves is all about the adventures we find in books. Where would you go if you could jump into your favorite stories and experience them alongside the characters? It’s an exciting race through literature that shows just how fun reading can be, and a great way to round out this list.

There are so many more, and just like Riley’s Story Thieves I wish I could jump into each and experience the worlds they have in store for me. And I’m looking forward to sharing my own, new story next year when The Hotel Between releases from Simon & Schuster.

Sean Easley started writing in third grade because he was looking for adventure. He’s worked with kids and teens for well over a decade, listening to their stories, and somehow ended up with a Masters degree in education along the way. Now he’s a full-time writer living with his wife and son in Texas, where he stubbornly refuses to wear cowboy boots. Visit him at seaneasley.com and on Twitter and Instagram @AuthorEasley.

On Getting Ahead of Myself (& Downward Dog) by Joy McCullough

When I was still acting, I loved the rehearsal process. Everything about it, from first read-throughs all the way through tech. What I did NOT love was the performances. It wasn’t a stage fright thing. I just loved the process, and not so much the product.

It was one of the reasons I quit acting—there really weren’t any gigs where you got to keep rehearsing indefinitely.

Writing novels, I’ve been working through the process v. product thing. Because there’s definitely something extremely product-oriented about writing a novel. And even more so if it’s going to be published. I mean, it will be a literal product. On bookstore shelves. People will hold my book in a way they never held my performances.

But focusing on the product makes it really easy to get ahead of myself. And there’s so much to be learned and gained from where I’m at right now. The moment I got my book deal, publishing friends started asking me about my plans for swag, or my plans for a launch party, or what I wanted the cover to look like.

But for the first time ever in my publishing journey, I wanted to be where I was without leaping on to the next thing. (Not that I’m not excited about those things—I am. Mostly. But what if I have a launch party and no one comes???)

Maybe it comes from my current spot on the publishing journey being so long-fought and hard-won. Maybe it’s all the yoga I do, and my teacher’s insistence that it’s not about making the perfect yoga shape, but about your intention and honoring yourself where you’re at. (“My teacher” sounds like I go to a swanky studio, but if you’ve ever been curious about yoga, might I introduce you to Yoga with Adriene?)

If you’re at an earlier stage of the journey, it might seem easy for me to appreciate where I’m at. Part of my overdrive of the last few years was always headed exactly here—getting the next book ready to query, so I could get the agent, and get on sub, and get the book deal. But any published (or to-be-published) author will attest that the ways to get ahead of oneself only multiply with each step along the way.

I don’t have magical wisdom on how to appreciate where you’re at, how to let go of making the perfect shape. Here’s what I do know: 99 times out of a hundred, the stuff I get ahead of myself about is not the actual writing. The writing is the process, the intention, the downward dog that’s maybe totally wonky and I’ve been doing it for a few years and my heels still don’t touch the floor, but I breathe through it and honor myself for showing up.

So as I sit down to write today, I’m going to try to breathe through that moment too. I invite you to do the same.

Do you get ahead of yourself in your writing/publishing journey? What helps ground you in the moment?