Much to Digest in new Writer's mag...

As a gift for a recent birthday, I received a one-year subscription to Writer's Digest magazine. It is not a publication with which I am particularly familiar so I was very interested to get the chance to explore it first hand.

My first issue arrived yesterday and it is a pleasant surprise. Sure, I have my concerns and criticisms (I always do) but I am impressed overall with the quality of the articles and the expertise displayed.

I am even more impressed because my first ever issue, May/June 2014, is focused on "Writing for Kids & Teens", with a healthy secondary focus on "Humor Writing".

Now, when you consider that the last three years of my life have been dedicated to writing and publishing a series of stories for young people (the "Middle-Grade" market, apparently, according to WD) and that my current project involves penning a "comic novel", I think we've got a pretty good match between my interests and WD's focus this month.

I don't plan to do an article-by-article review at this moment but I will say that one of the highlights for me in this issue was Marie Lamba's interesting article on the differences between fiction for the "Middle-Grade" (MG) market and fiction for Young Adults (YA).

I have gotten used to calling my Abigail Massey stories "YA fiction" but I now learn that I have been doing my self, and my work, a disservice by using that label. Based on Ms. Lamba's article, my three volumes of Abigail stories are better described as "Middle-Grade stories" or, even more particularly, "upper Middle-Grade" fiction.

Interesting.

Even more interesting is the argument Ms. Lamba makes that I should be marketing these stories mostly toward the "gate-keepers" for children in my target age group (gate-keepers like parents, teachers, librarians) rather than directly to the kids themselves. Where YA readers generally choose their own books, MG readers often have such decisions made for them. They are introduced to new books and authors by their parents or people in the educational system.

I am finding Lamba's article to be both helpful and comforting. Helpful in that it has provided me with some interesting ideas to ponder as I head into marketing my Christmas novella, featuring Abigail, this fall; Comforting in that it has helped confirm that, other than mislabelling my books as YA rather than MG, I have generally gotten most things right in creating the Abigail Massey stories as MG fiction.

All in all, I'd say my relationship with Writer's Digest is off to a very good start.