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Writing a Picture Book with Stephen Krensky

Writing a picture book is a distinct partnership between art and craft. The art comes, as with all stories, with inventing an appealing character, a strong plot, a compelling theme, and an inviting setting. But craft is involved as well – and not just the usual craft of editing the story. That matters, of course, but in writing a picture book, a writer must be also aware of the very specific format that picture books inhabit. Almost all of them are thirty-two pages, for example (counting the title page, etc.) and, unlike a novel, the turning of the pages themselves is part of telling the story. Then, too, the interaction between words and pictures is its own kind of dance. So, there’s a lot to think about when making a picture book realize its full potential.

Mar 11, 2023 02:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)