Children’s Book authors/Editors I Admire – Karen Cioffi

 I have been writing for about as long as I can remember. My first writing effort spawned from some large, yellow-colored sheets of paper I found deep in one of my grandma’s many closets. I knew I had to do something with them, so I decided to write a comic book. The protagonist (although I didn’t know that word at eight years old) was a potato transformed into an intelligent being when he was accidentally dropped onto some nuclear waste (isn’t that how all superheroes are created?). I cleverly named him Otapot, an anagram of potato.

This is Otapot, as drawn by my 8-year-old self.

 

Unfortunately, I no longer have those two comic books, but I can say this for sure: I would have benefitted from a good editor.

 I had a short story accepted for my high school senior anthology, and I became hooked on writing. I wrote stories, articles, and even attempted a novel or two, but I couldn’t sell anything.

 Fast forward several decades. I met, fell in love with, and married my wife, Rocksye. She came with a three-year-old son, an introverted and shy child. I decided to write a story to help him overcome his shyness. Eventually, I submitted it to 4RV Publishing as a picture book where it was accepted and published as Why Am I Me? After all those years spent writing sci-fi short stories and never-finished novels for adults, I finally found my writing legs – writing for children.

 That first book came pretty easy. 4RV does extensive editing with their authors, but they suggested only a few changes to it. When I wrote and submitted my second book Kimmy Finds Her Key to the publisher, they assigned Karen Cioffi as my editor. Her edits and advice proved to be a major boost in my children’s writing career. I learned things from her about writing for children that my limited career in writing hadn’t taught me. And even now, after all these years of writing for children, I read her children’s writing blog, “Karen Cioffi Writing for Children” at https://karencioffiwritingforchildren. It’s a great place to start if you want to learn about writing books for children.

Karen is an attractive woman, but she prefers this picture of herself. I guess it’s from her love of writing for children.

I write picture books, so I have read all of Karen’s picture books published with 4RV Publishing (4rvpublishing.com). She has a series of books about kids who defend our environment called “The Adventures of Planet Man.” There are currently four books in the series. She also has a children’s chapter book, Walking Through Walls. She is currently working on a sequel to this book, but she spends so much writing time on her blogs that the sequel is coming along much more slowly than she’d prefer. She also has two books aimed at helping children’s book writers become better at their craft, How to Write A Children’s Fiction Book and an e-book titled How do you Plan a Children’s Story? All of her children’s books can be purchased through the 4RV bookstore (http://www.4rvpublishing.com/karen-cioffi.html) or from her children’s book web page at https://karencioffiwritingforchildren.com/karens-books/.

 Karen is also a children’s book ghostwriter, helping other children’s book writers realize their own dreams. So, as she says, she’s working on five children’s books. She is also writing two more books on writing for children and marketing your books.

 Writers are also readers. Karen reads articles, blogs, and books on marketing, self-publishing writing, and, recently, on the use of AI in writing “to keep up with what’s going on.” She didn’t specify how many, but I imagine she reads a fair number of children’s books. She laments that she hasn’t read a novel in years.

 Karen was my editor years ago, but the lessons I learned from her in making my book the best it could have stuck with me, lessons about story structure, characters, appropriate language for kids, how to get into a child’s point of view, what to put in the story, and (just as important) what isn’t needed in the story. To this day, when I talk to people who tell me they want to write a children’s book, I still repeat her writing words of wisdom. Thank you, Karen, for making me the best children’s writer I can be.