Announcing Our January Guest Guru - An Editor!

START GETTING READY FOR OUR RATE YOUR STORY 2025 MEMBER YEAR!

To start off the new year with a bang, we are happy to feature our director, Lynne Marie, who is the Seasonal and Special Acquisitions Editor at The Little Press Publishing. She will be giving Ratings and Feedback to four lucky Rate Your Story Members this month. All you need to do is request her, and if there are available spots and your manuscript seems like a good fit, you will receive this benefit. Please note that she will be giving Ratings and Feedback on ONLY holiday or event tie-in manuscripts this month. 

If you're not a Rate Your Story 2025 Member and would like to be afforded this and similar opportunities, go to www.rateyourstory.org/become-a-member

Q: What did you love about being a child?

A: So many things, but in particular, the joy of childhood celebrations, in school and at home. I had an old, retired copy of Chase’s Book of Days and I used to look for holidays to celebrate, like, for example, National Spaghetti Day (January 4th). Of course, I had to make sure my Grandmother was making her baked German spaghetti that day. And I had to go ice skating at least once during National Ice Skating month (January). Holidays really help add joy to a day or a month! 

Q: What brought you to children’s books? 

A: I was an advanced reader as a child and loved children’s books – picture books through young adult. But what brought me back to them was reading them to my infant son. I decided then to write and publish a children’s book and went back to college to learn how.  I’ve been writing them ever since.

Q: What do you love about children’s books?

A: Oh, goodness – so very much! The fun words and the wonderful art! But most of all I love the mindset – believing that just about anything is possible. I think adults tend to get very jaded and limited in their perspectives. For example, we all could benefit from having a unicorn, or a dinosaur, or a dragon for a pet! 

Q: Share a little bit about your most recently-published book. How long was its path to publication? What did you learn from this experience? What is your favorite thing about this book? 

A: Ironically, my most recently-published book is also a holiday book: BroomMates - A Brewing Boundary Battle. It was a prose manuscript until 2020, when I decided to convert it to rhyme, and teamed up with Brenda Reeves Sturgis, my partner-in-rhyme. It became published on September 3, 2024 so it was four years from that revision to publication. From this experience, I learned that if you do the rhyme right, it can make the story better, or at the very least, more fun to read / listen to. Usually, the opposite is true, because if the rhyme is driving the story or the rhyme is terrible, it usually makes it worse. My favorite thing about this book is the fun characters and art that it inspired. I also love the Team Glitter and Team Gloom designations! So fun! 

Q: Share a little bit about another book you wrote and how you drew upon your interests or experience to research / write it. 

A: My next book, coming out January, 2025 is Henny Penny’s Weather Worries. This book incorporates fairy tales, folktales and weather myths. I would say, next to holidays being a favorite topic, fairy tales is a close second. I actually studied fairy tales, folklore, fables, legends and myths in college through various classes, so I drew upon that knowledge and information. I love reading about the theory of enchantment and the origins of these tales. As in The Three Little Pigs and the Rocket Project, you will see nods to certain tales. 

Please contact me at LiterallyLynneMarie@gmail.com if you wish to be on the mailing list for notification of the release of this book.

Q: What does a story need to make it a favorite for you?

A: It needs to have a main character a child can connect with, a problem that they can identify with, feel fresh and new, and especially, be well-told. Also, it should have some takeaway value and should be something a child will want to read or listen to, again and again and again. Of course, there are variations and things that pleasantly surprise me, like for example, The Reindeer Remainders by Katey Howes, which is about Math, which I despise, but is so darn clever and so wonderful! 

Q: Share a story that you love and why. 

A: In keeping with the holiday theme, National Regular Average Ordinary Day by Lisa Katzenberger. It was such a fun variation on celebrating a day. Another one is Groundhug Day by Anne Marie Pace. Puns are fun, too! 

Q: What is a common issue you see in the manuscripts you critique?

A: Ideas that are good, but are not well-executed. It sometimes seems the writer falls in love with the words and/or the order of the words and the order of the scenes before they have the story and its important components all sorted out. The story needs to start strong, flow from beginning to end, and end on a strong note. Each January, I share a Story Snowman and each February, Story Hearts, that sometimes helps to sort things like this out. 

It must also make sense. There’s logic to be aware of in even fiction and fantasy stories. 

Q: Please share a Submission Tip with our Members. 

A: Work hard at your craft. Read craft books that discuss story elements and conventions, like Character, Theme, Plot, Dialogue, Pacing, Tension, and MORE! As a side note, we are having an 8-Week Pacing Workshop which starts in January. It is limited to 12 participants, and I can’t imagine anyone I know who wouldn’t benefit from the course. 

I realize that this doesn’t sound like a submission tip, but we should not submit our stories to editors and publishers (apart from critique opportunities) until they are absolutely ready. Otherwise, we will get a no that could have someday been a yes! 

Q: Please share a Revision Tip for our Members. 

A: Put every word on trial and make sure it either adds to characterization or moves the story forward. 

Q: Name subjects you would like to read about. 

A: Well there’s so many subjects I love to read about, but for the purposes of this interview, I will say holidays and events. But if you follow me, you will know some of the other things I like and it would be fun to see them in holiday books! 

Q: Name subjects you would not like to read about.

A: Anything preachy or didactic, anything that feels like it was written by an adult for an adult, anything that’s not well done. If it’s well done, I can usually read just about anything. 

Q: Share something you wish we had asked you about but didn’t! And answer the question. 

Q: What do I want for Christmas?

A: I love to read and would love it if all my members and blog readers recommended a book for me to read next year. It could be a craft book, a board book, a picture book, a chapter book, a middle grade or young adult or adult novel. It doesn’t matter. I love getting book recommendations from friends, colleagues and members!  Please leave them for me in the comments of this blogpost. 

Q:  Share a fun fact about YOU! 

A: Being an editor is my dream job and I will soon be announcing my first acquisition – I am very excited about this book and this author!

Lynne Marie is the multi-published, award-winning author of Hedgehog Goes to Kindergarten (Scholastic 2011), Hedgehog's 100th Day of School (Scholastic 2017), The Star of the Christmas Play (Beaming Books 2018 and 2023), Moldilocks and the 3 Scares, (Sterling/Scholastic 2019), Let’s Eat! Mealtime Around the World (Beaming Books 2019), The Three Little Pigs and the Rocket Project (Mac and Cheese Press 2022), The Three Little Pigs and the Rocket Project Coloring Book (Mac and Cheese Press 2022),  The Palace Rat (Yeehoo Press 2023), Broommates, A Bitter Boundary Battle (The Little Press 2024), and more forthcoming. 

She’s an Editor at The Little Press, the Director of RateYourStory.org, a Mentor at ThePictureBookMechanic.com, the Creator of March On With Mentor Texts (www.rateyourstory.org/march-on) and Mentor Text Talk, a Co-Host of #SeasonsOfKidLit (www.seasonsofkidlit.com) and a Feature Columnist at Children’s Book Insider (www.writeforkids.org).  

When she’s not traveling the world in search of story ideas, she lives in her hometown with her high school sweetheart, a Schipperke named Anakin and a Mini Pinscher named Marlowe Charlotte. Visit her at www.LiterallyLynneMarie.com. Follow her on Facebook here and on Twitter here.