Laura Purdie Salas

Writing the World for Kids

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Water Can Be… Chinese!

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At a library event this past spring, a woman introduced herself to me and explained that she had translated Water Can Be… into Chinese for Lerner, my publisher. Cool! I just received my 5 copies and thought I’d share. The paper is porous, not glossy, so Violeta Dabija’s gorgeous art is more muted than in […]

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Jaime Kim Is Illustrating My Next Picture Book, and I’m Over the MOON (hint, hint)

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I recently learned that Jaime Kim will be illustrating my next picture book, which is about the moon and will be coming out from Millbrook in spring 2017. (No, it’s not a can be… book.) I was unfamiliar with her work, and Carol Hinz sent me to Jaime’s website, which features this slideshow of her […]

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Color Separation at the Kerlan with Zelinsky, Weiss, and Dewey

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Here in Minneapolis, we have the Kerlan Collection, part of the Children’s Literature Research Collections (CLRC) at the University of Minnesota. Scholars come from all over the country–and world–to study its amazing resources. Recently, Curator Lisa Von Drasek hosted an event featuring retired Green Willow Art Director Ava Weiss, award-winning illustrator Paul Zelinsky, and noted […]

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[my writing life] Waiting for Water

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Water Can Be… (Millbrook, 2014) doesn’t come out for eight more months, but it’s been front and center for this past couple of weeks. First, I got to see the fantastic finished art by Violeta Dabija (I hope to get to share a sneak peek soon). Then, I wrote the dedication (to my parents–both nature […]

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[My Writing Life] Got It Covered

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Hi, guys–Happy New Year! It’s good to be back! There was a piece recently in Publishers Weekly about the cover of Steam Train, Dream Train, the follow-up to Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site. So much thought goes into figuring out book covers. For my next book with Millbrook Press, Water Can Be…, my editor sent me […]

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Sketches from Water Can Be…!

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A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about receiving Violeta Dabija’s pencil sketches for Water Can Be…, our 2014 follow-up to A Leaf Can Be… I’m so excited that I got permission from both the publisher (Millbrook Press) and Violeta to share a couple of sketches here. So… and Aren’t they beautiful? I love the […]

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My Writing Life: Sketches!

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One of the most exciting (and, let’s be honest, scariest) things when you’re a picture book?writer is for your editor to say, “I have sketches!” It’s that moment when you see how’someone you don’t know (usually) has envisioned the words you struggled with into a book. Will the artist have surpassed anything you could have […]

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Dizzy Dinosaurs on My Doorstep!

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I’m so excited! I got my contributor copies yesterday of Lee Bennett Hopkins’ new I Can Read! anthology, Dizzy Dinosaurs. My poem is in there (you know, I had that nanosecond of fear of what if my poem got left out and I’m really NOT in a Lee Bennett Hopkins book) along with tons of other […]

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Fiction for Hire–Ack!

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A while back, I asked for help finding trade publishers who were assigning fiction picture books or short fiction. Many of y’all generously shared ideas with me, which I am so grateful for. Most of the thoughts were related to educational publishers, but some of them or their book lines were new to me. I’m […]

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What if 9th Grade Is a Disaster?: An Original Poem and My Bad News

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I received some terrible news a couple of weeks ago–my editor is leaving Clarion. In fact, Friday was her last day. She resigned because of a family move away from NYC, and I don’t even know if she’ll be able to remain in children’s publishing at all. This is devastating news–she has been such a […]

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