Books for kids, teens, & those who are young at heart

Tag: Middle grade (Page 1 of 6)

WITCH TEST Book Announcement & ARC Reader Search

I’m very excited to announce that my middle grade novel WITCH TEST will be coming out later this year! I don’t have an exact release date, but look for it in September. Of course, I’ll have all the details here on the blog as things move forward. You can make sure you’re subscribed to the blog by entering your email address on my website homepage https://katielcarroll.com.

I talked a little about this book in my post “WIP Update: Witchy Middle Grade & a Fear of Asking for Help.” Think of it as an upper middle grade Mean Girls meets The Craft.

Not the real cover…just something I was playing around with.

Liza thought her summer fight with her ex-best friend, Abby, would blow over, but a month into eighth grade and the rumor firestorm has reach a whole new level of awful. And everyone believes that Liza is a witch! Even as a rekindled passion for art leads to new friends, Liza retreats into a bubble of depression. All these feelings get tied up in the never-ending grief of having lost her mom at a young age.

A glimmer of hope arrives when she finds her mother’s diary…until she actually reads it. Before Liza was born, her mom and aunt performed a ritual to conjure an ancestor persecuted in the town’s witch trials. So much for the witch stuff being rumors! As Liza digs into her witchy ancestry, everyone else is making plans for the Halloween night corn maze. If Liza can channel her inner witch on Halloween, maybe she can find the strength to stand up to Abby. If not, she risks losing not only her new friends but also a piece of herself to the growing depression.

I’m currently working on edits and developing a cover with the cover artist (not the real cover above, just a fun visual I put together myself). Some of my favorite things about this novel are the crows, the Halloween night corn maze, Liza’s aunts, her aunt’s shop Mother Goose Apothecary, and all the tea drinking! And the ending of this story never fails to get me all choked up, no matter how many times I read it.

I’ll be looking for ARC (advanced reader copy) readers soon, so let me know in the comments if that’s something that interests you. What is an ARC reader? That’s someone who gets an early copy of the book (these will be in ebook form) in exchange for a honest review.

No New Year’s Resolution, But Hitting the Ground Running In 2021

It seems I say the same thing at the beginning of every New Year: mainly that I’m always in the middle of things and a resolution doesn’t make much sense. Well, 2021 is no exception, so my plan is to keep moving forward on what I’ve been working on.

I’m so very close to finishing this big revision of my witchy middle grade novel, which finally has a title (not sure if that will end up being THE title, so not sharing right now). I think my next move is printing out a copy to do smaller line revisions before sharing it with critique partners.

I’ll also be presenting a Virtual ShopTalk with the New England SCBWI called “What to Expect When You’re Self-Publishing” on January 26, 2021 from 7:00 – 8:00 pm. Having booked this workshop has finally given me the motivation to work on setting up a page on my website for resources on self-publishing, so keep an eye out for that.

You may have seen my surprise announcement (see “The Journey of Self-Publishing the Picture Book THE BEDTIME KNIGHT”) that I have a picture book coming out as well. THE BEDTIME KNIGHT, illustrated by Erika Baird, officially releases January 26, though I know some of the pre-orders went out early (long story!). I’ve added THE BEDTIME KNIGHT to my Books tab, so you check that out for details on how to order.

All in all, lots of good stuff going on. I’ve thought about doing a 2020 book wrap-up post, but like everyone else, I’m kind just ready to move on and not look back. I hope the New Year brings you and yours health and happiness, and I’d love to hear your resolutions or plans for 2021.

Highlights Foundation Unworkshop: A Little Creepy, A Lot Productive

The long weekend I spent earlier this month at the Highlights Foundation for an Unworkshop writing retreat now almost feels like a dream. Time moved differently there. The words flowed during the uninterrupted hours of writing, my fingers moved swiftly on the keyboard, but in the moment, time went slowly. Yet when it was all over and I was back home, it felt like the weekend had flown by.

My personal writing mantra in the word garden.

Did it really happen? (Yup, I got the bill for the tolls in the mail just the other day.) Did time stand still while I was there? (Nope, I had to go grocery shopping the day after I got home because of all the food the kiddos ate while I was gone.) So not a dream, and I really do have over 5,000 words written for my next middle grade book.

Inside the Barn where they serve three delicious meals a day, have 24-hour snacks and beverages, and writing spaces.

If you have the means and time, I would definitely recommend a writing retreat. And I recommend going with a friend (or five). My writing friend Katlyn Duncan and I went together, and it was so nice to have her there. She created a schedule for us and was a fun driving companion. We ate all our meals together (the food is as good as everyone says it is!), kept each other accountable, kept each other company during most of our writing sessions, and even took a nice hike one day.

The beautiful (and muddy) hiking trail.

Katlyn vlogged about her experience, and it’s well worth the watch to get a feel for what it’s like there. We’re working on planning a group retreat for next fall!

The Highlights campus in October was the perfect place to start the draft of my witchy, mean girls story. Maybe too perfect a place. Another writer who was there for an Unworkshop happened to have stayed in my cabin when she was at Highlights last year for a workshop. She told me of a ghostly encounter she had one night, and it promptly freaked me out. I lay in bed that night in the dark and couldn’t fall asleep. It was just so quiet! And, as you can imagine, with three growing boys, quiet is not something I’m used to.

The view from my (haunted?) cabin.

Unfortunately I haven’t cracked that document back open since being at the retreat. I’ve had freelance work, author events, and this never-ending Elixir book to work on in preparation for it releasing next year. All good stuff, but that witchy story is itching at my mind, just waiting for me to scratch it.

Geese are turning out to be important in this witchy WIP, so it was very fitting to have this writing companion next to me one writing session.

I’m hoping to use the excitement of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in November to get back into the draft. Katlyn and I have already scheduled a few writing meet-ups for the month. Anyone doing NaNo this year? My username on the website is ktlc1113.

PIRATE ISLAND is the 2018 Milford Public Library’s One City, One Story Middle Grade Pick!

I’ve been sitting on this news for awhile and am so excited to finally announce that my middle grade adventure PIRATE ISLAND has been selected by the Milford Public Library for the One City, One Story program this fall. The library states that the “One City One Story is a program encouraging all residents, preschool to seniors, to read books sharing a common theme, encouraging dialogue and fostering a greater sense of community…one page at a time.”

The books are all pirate themed this year. TREASURE ISLAND by Robert Louis Stevenson is the adult title and SHIVER ME TIMBERS! PIRATE POEMS AND DRAWINGS by Doug Florian is the elementary title. The library has been so supportive of PIRATE ISLAND, putting my book on their shelves, hosting my launch party, and now this!

I’ll be doing a special event on Wednesday, September 19 at 2:30 (this is a day off from school for the kids…apologies to my Jewish friends who will be celebrating Yom Kippur and won’t be able to make it) at the library. Learn a bit about the real pirate lore that inspired the book, play some fun games, grab a cookie and a signed book, and get inspired with a writing prompt.

I have a few more events in the pipeline for this fall, so stay tuned for those announcements. Non-local friends, I’ll be posting a video of me reading the first two chapters of PIRATE ISLAND in the next couple of weeks, so you can join in on the fun too! I’ve also updated my Pirate Island Curriculum Guide for the occasion.

Summer Writing Update: Elixirs, Witches, and Pirates!

The kids have been out of school for a week and summer break is in full swing here! We’ve made out lists of activities we’d like to do and places we’d like to go this summer. Some we’ve already done or have planned (like going to the zoo and strawberry picking), while others are probably not going to happen this year (like visit NASCAR’s Hall of Fame).

As for my writing, I’ve got a couple of things going on. I’m working on getting my YA fantasy Elixir Bound with the new cover back up for sale. Right now you can get the ebook of Elixir Bound from Amazon and that’s it. I’ll post when I get it up in paperback and on ebook for the other vendors. Plus, I finally created a book trailer for it, which was a lot of fun. It was nice to work a different set of creative muscles for it. (The map it features is part of the map of the Great Peninsula, which can be seen in full in the new version of Elixir Bound.)

I’ve been on something of a roll with drafting the companion novel Elixir Saved. I’ve been drafting this novel for years…yes, I said years! So long, in fact, that I’ve been calling it my perpetual WIP (work-in-progress). But I think I’m finally crested the murky middle section and can see the far side of the hill. I’m hoping to keep that momentum going over the summer and get it ready for beta readers before the end of the year. I’d like to publish this one some time next year (fingers crossed!).

Research for my next middle grade book has been going well. I’ve been doing a bunch of reading about the witch trials that took place in Connecticut (mostly before the more famous Salem Witch Trials) and what colonial Connecticut was like. I checked out a local history book from the library and mentioned it to my dad because he’s a history nerd. He was like, “Is that the book where I helped write and edit the updated history in the 1980s?” Turns out it was! And my grandfather, who was there when I mentioned it to my dad, was like, “My father, your great-grandfather, helped with the version that was written in the 1930s.” So that was an interesting serendipitous moment.

The witchy middle grade book–which in my mind is pitched as Mean Girls meets The Crucible–doesn’t take place in history, but it will be a contemporary middle grade that delves into history and ties it to the present, much like Pirate Island does with Captain Kidd’s history being woven into Billy’s story in the present day. I hope to start drafting this story soon, but I need to focus on Elixir for now.

Speaking of Pirate Island, the ebook is on sale for $1.99 for a limited time, so scoop that up if you haven’t already (links for Pirate Island on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo). I’ve also got an exciting announcement coming up for Pirate Island once my local library makes it public…just to give you a little teaser there. 😉

And I always have stuff I’m waiting to hear back about, so there’s always the potential for good news (or devastating rejections!). Thus is the nature of the publishing biz.

Anyway, I’m excited for the summer weather and hanging out with the boys and family day trips. And a certain writer/mama’s birthday is coming a few days before a certain gentleman’s first birthday. Oh, and I’ll be going to the big SCBWI conference in L.A. this summer. I’m so excited (I won the trip, so the airfare, hotel, and conference fee were paid for!), but super nervous about leaving the baby. I keep telling myself it’ll be fine. Busy times, busy times.

What are your summer plans?

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