Anastasia Suen - Developmental Editor

You’re invited to the Publication Pointers Workshop on Thursday, November 29 from 6:30-8pm at the Aptos Library.

After you write the first draft of your book during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), it’s time to begin the second draft! Join fellow writers to share revision tips, discuss the many paths to publication, and learn about new SCPL digital tools for authors with developmental editor Anastasia Suen.

Bring a notebook or a laptop for a write-in session after we discuss how to set up the midpoint of your book for your next draft.

Anastasia Suen is the author (and ghostwriter) of 300+ books for children, teens, and adults. She develops books, novelties, kits, and curriculum for the education market (schools and libraries), the mass market (retail and mail-order), and the trade market (bookstores).

The Poet X
by Elizabeth Acevedo (Author)

Booktalk: Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking. But Xiomara has plenty she wants to say, and she pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers–especially after she catches feelings for a boy in her bio class named Aman, who her family can never know about. With Mami’s determination to force her daughter to obey the laws of the church, Xiomara understands that her thoughts are best kept to herself. When she is invited to join her school’s slam poetry club, she knows that she could never get around Mami’s rules to attend, much less speak her words out loud. But still, she can’t stop thinking about performing her poems. Because in the face of a world that may not want to hear her, Xiomara refuses to be silent.

Snippet:
ABOUT A

Every time I think about Aman
poems build inside me
like I’ve been gifted a box of metaphor Legos
that I stack and stack and stack.
I keep waiting for someone to come knock them over.
But no one at home cares about my scribbling.

Watch the poet perform “Music for A”.

A 2018 Cybils Poetry nominee

BONUS! Download the Teacher’s Guide