Jan Fields

Website Editor

Dear Children’s Writer,

      I’m Jan Fields, and I'd be very happy to see you at the website just as often as you wish to visit.

      ICL’s website has attracted many children’s writers. It’s FREE and it’s intended to help you with your writing and with your course. Just click on Rx for Writers on the Institute’s home page.

      One of the most popular places on our website is the Chat Room. I drop in regularly and it’s seldom empty. Children’s writers, like you, are there asking questions, answering other writers’ questions, or sharing good news and bad with fellow writers.

      If you’re there when I drop in, I’d enjoy chatting with you.

      Of course, there are also Scheduled Events in the chat room--“live” interviews with children’s authors, editors, and other publishing professionals. During these events, we encourage you to ask them any question you’d like.

      We’ve had interviews with magazine editors from Ladybug, Highlights for Children, and others, as well as book editors from Lerner Publishing Group, Calkins Creek Books, and more. Chatsters were able to ask these editors questions about their respective markets, and the editors provided tips to help writers break in.

      We’ve also interviewed children’s writers who truly are “household” names including Jane Yolen, Karen Hesse, Katherine Paterson, Bruce Coville, and many more. These authors described how they broke into print and then offered tips for pursuing a successful children's writing career.

      You needn’t worry about the chats you’ve missed; we have transcripts of these events--just click on Transcripts on the website. If you have certain writers and editors you’d like to see in the Chat Room, just let me know.

     There are also Open Forums every Tuesday, where you can come with any questions you have about writing for children. And it won’t be just me answering questions. Everyone in attendance joins in, because all of us are smarter than any one of us.

      I’ll also share tidbits I've picked up recently--new markets, exciting contests, and publishing buzz I’ve heard from other industry professionals. You can check the time of our Tuesday Open Forum at the bottom of the Scheduled Events page.

      To help you get started, we’ve posted some simple, helpful articles by ICL students and grads about using the Chat Room and the Writer’s Retreat bulletin board. These can be found found in the Getting Started section of Writer’s Support.

      In our Children’s Writer eNews, published weekly, we’ll tell you more about the ICL Chat Room and Writer’s Retreat.  Plus, we provide a summary of two new articles published every week on the website designed to give you support, to offer tips to better your writing, and to show you exactly how to accomplish specific writing tasks, such as how to write a query letter. 

      We also share links to great spots on the Web where you can go for resources to enrich your writing experience.

      You can get your own copy of this email newsletter--FREE--just by typing your email address when you visit the Children’s Writer eNews page on the website.

      And please send me a private email, too, from the Web Editor page and learn about my writing journey. There are people at the site waiting to meet you, with answers for you and questions of their own.  They’re children’s writers, like you, who understand our specialized kind of writing. 

      And it's all FREE, just for clicking onto the ICL website!

      I’ve written a wide variety of material in my own writing journey--from storybooks for a toy company to church curricula to magazine articles, and lots of bits in between! I’m also an ICL instructor and I’ve even done some course writing right here--so I'm eager to help give you whatever you need to succeed in this challenging and exciting career choice.

      We’re right here to help you almost any time of day. I hope I’ll be meeting you at the ICL website.