I guess it comes down to trendy, by its nature, will at some point become irrelevant. Timely will always have something to say.

Maybe this will sound pretentious but... I often find "trendy" is the annoying little brother of "timely". Did the author really have something to say here or are they just reacting to the trends? A timely book can still be a reaction, but it's meant as part of a bigger conversation about our world.

I'm not writing an autobiography. But there's something in the frankness, the unapologetic championing of childhood, that I'll always be chasing in my own work, I hope.

Perhaps against the grain, my favourite was his autobiography of his own childhood. It was so much like the fictional adventures he wrote, full of strange grownups and horrible circumstances, but I loved it. I loved that there really could be a childhood like something in his books.

Oh, it had to be Roald Dahl for me. I read everything he wrote and then, when I was done, read them all again. It's been a minute though.

You don't find your writing voice or ideal medium by picking one and sticking to it. Not everything needs to be a novel. You can (and should) explore and experiment and let the story idea be the shape it wants.

I always thought third was necessary if you were cross-cutting between characters, but so many YA books stick with first even with multiple POVs. My guess would be that YA readers like to project themselves into the story more but I'm sure somebody knows the actual answer.

I think it comes down to whether the story leans more towards character or plot. A PB retelling of a fairy tale or fable, for example, feels right in third person. But a MG small-town adventure feels better in first.

Like lots of the other replies, it really depends. If there's a clear voice or point of view, first person feels like too much fun to pass up. But if the story has a lot of moving parts, third person is the only way I can cover that much ground. #kidlitchat

I remember reading interviews with Edward Gorey and Maurice Sendak where they waved off the idea that they wrote for children. They just wrote. Then somebody decides who to market it to. I love the idea of that worry just being passed to someone else down the line.

I think that's it for me, too. It feels like a place you can really play with words and images, with an audience that's open to almost anything.

I write picture books because I like being one half of something. Art always evolves in the hands of readers, but I like to see what I've written evolve even earlier than that. #kidlit #kidlitchat

This was a wonderful book, by the way. Inspiring and packed so tightly that I'll have to come back to it again soon.

There's a lot going on over the next few weeks, too. So, I'm not sure when I'll be able to get back to the things that matter. Those things are writing picture books, workshopping existing manuscripts, developing ideas for longer things. See you on the other side!

I've had periods before when I've felt stuck on "receive" when I wanted to be "transmitting". I've always disliked those periods. I hold too many ideas in my head but I don't have a chance to test them.

I keep seeing generative AI being used on stuff for kids, like maybe they won’t notice, or it doesn’t matter as much. The opposite is true. Anyone who’s created anything for kids knows you should make more effort for them, not less.