by Connie Goldsmith [Note from Domenica Di Piazza, TFCB editorial director: I invited Connie Goldsmith to write a little about her three titles in our new USA TODAY Health Reports series, which is part of our Fall 2010 TFCB lineup.] [Connie, left, at Lake Tahoe, with sun hat, sunscreen, and clean hands] My critique partners […]Read more "Lesson Learned: Wash Your Hands!"

“Most kids today hear about the Underground Railroad, but this other thing has gone unnoticed,” said Mr. Ramsey. “It just fell on me, really, to tell the story.” The New York Times has an interesting piece about playwright Calvin Ramsey’s “The Green Book” and the history behind it. The article also mention’s his  picture book, […]Read more "A Carolrhoda picture book in the New York Times"

By Carol HinzEditorial Director, Millbrook Press After art lasers, prepress lasers, and 43-wides comes the 4-print. The term 4-print comes from the machine that outputs the proof, the Iris 4-print Proofer. (As with the 43-wide, this is no longer the machine we actually use to make the proofs.) The high-resolution PDF used to create the […]Read more "Stages of Production Part IV: 4-prints"

[Another post from now associate editor Greg Hunter.] Next week is Ray Bradbury Week in Los Angeles, in which the author’s ninetieth birthday (August 20) kicks off a series of Bradbury-related film screenings. None of which I’ll attend, being located in Minneapolis, but thanks to the Internet, I feel as though I’ve already experienced the […]Read more "Celebrating Literature in Public"

I don’t do this often, so I hope you’ll allow me a bit of a rant. I am not a Seth Godin fan. It’s not personal. It’s probably got less to do with whether Godin knows what he’s talking about and more to do with that we are in very different parts of the publishing […]Read more "Warning: Industry wonkery ahead."

As part of some science editing we’re doing here at TFCB, I’ve been reading about galaxies. Spiral galaxies specifically. I’m fascinated, partly because we live in a spiral galaxy—the Milky Way. (The image above is a NASA image of the spiral galaxy known as NGC 7331.) Galaxies are clusters of stars, gas, and dust that […]Read more "Make Your Own Spiral Galaxy"

By Carol Hinz Editorial Director, Millbrook Press After art lasers and prepress lasers comes the 43-wide. This stage gets its name from the 43-inch wide color imposition proof. (As an aside, this is no longer the machine we actually use to create these proofs, but the name has stuck.) (Journey into the Deep 43-wide; click […]Read more "Stages of Production Part III: 43-wides"

by Anna Cavallo We’ve had a very stormy week here in Minneapolis. This map shows observed precipitation over the Midwest from Tuesday morning to Wednesday morning, although I think it mainly reflects 9 p.m. Tuesday to 3 a.m. Wednesday. Look closely and you’ll notice that the left tip of the top red (heaviest rain) section […]Read more "Summer Storms"

…about this little announcement in PW. Welcome to the Lab,  Tessa, Brenna, and Maggie. Do have an absolutely clear idea of how this book is going to work? Nope. Am I confident that it’s going to be cool (and that getting there will be half the fun)? Yep. (photo courtesy Maggie Stiefvater)Read more "Why yes, I am excited . . ."