From: Nancy Thalia Reynolds <ntreynolds_at_comcast.net>
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2010 02:58:13 +0000 (UTC)

I was speaking generally, Meghan. I apologizeВ if I inadvertently gave the impression that I think writers of nonfiction for children are unqualif ied to write it. I do think the amount and extent of research and citation is informed by the time the writer has available to give to the project rel ative to the income it brings in--at least, for those of us who write for a living.

As to the points you make about your own experience, I would point out that В writing, say, a series book on adoption issues for teens, such as sea rching forВ birth parents, coming to terms with parents whose race is d ifferent from one's own, В and dealing with the lack of medical informa tion when one is confronted by a major health issue, involves a different s et of research and citation issues from writing a picture book that focuses on, say, how cool it is to form a family by adoption. Certain subjects, as Debbie Reese has made abundantly clear, have long publication histories th at include books reflecting racial bias and attitudes and widespread misinf ormation that can end up being perpetuated by even well-intentioned authors who are not expert in the subject matter and lack the awareness, education , and support, editorial and otherwise, to do as thorough and accurate a jo b as is required.

My personal view--and you have every right to disagree with this--is that t hese discussions about matters such as what is lacking in research for nonf iction literature for children and young adults, and about directing reader s to resources and alerting them to the subjectivity lurking everywhere, al soВ need to include the factors that may make these admirable goals dif ficult, if not impossible,В to achieve.

My post was simply my personal effort to bring those factors into the discu ssion.

Nancy Thalia Reynolds

Mixed Heritage in Young Adult Literature (Scarecrow Press, 2009)


----- Original Message -----

From: "Meghan McCarthy" To: Sent: Monday, October 18, 2010 3:52:06 PM Subject: Re:
 sources and citation and indexes

Nancy, I'm not really following what you're saying. Are you indicating that you think writers of nonfiction should have a PhD? Or at least an MA? I ha ve neither. There's a talent to writing nonfiction for kids and I don't thi nk prolonging ones education is going to help. You also seem to think that nonfiction gets paid far less than fiction. I write nonfiction picture book s and get paid the same as I did when I wrote my fiction picture books (act ually better because my nonfiction books sell better). I don't think most n onfiction children's authors are writing academic books for tenure or any s uch thing.В

1) It is very important that any author do his or her own fact checking 2) I think bibliographies are very important, though there is limited room when writing a picture book - most are 32 pages - mine are 40 (more pages c ost more money!), and an author picks and chooses what to put in. Is it mor e important to list a few more books that he/she used or is it more importa nt to have another page to write his or her story? 3) It's always helpful to have an editorial team to help fact check but you can't count on them - they consider it ultimately the author's job and it' s even stated in the author's contract that any mistakes are solely the aut hor's problem!

I have to get back to work (I'm on my break!) because even though I can aff ord to not have a job I still badly need healthcare. There's more that I wa nt to write but maybe later.

meghan

From: Nancy Thalia Reynolds To: ccbc-net_at_lists.wisc.edu Sent: Mon, October 18, 2010 12:03:35 PM Subject:
 sources and citation and indexes

I read with interest and agreed with Marc and Debbie's comments and suggest ions. For authors who are not already scholars in some field that has requi red them to learn what we now think of as editorial skills--what, when, and how to cite--their style guide will almost certainly going to be whatever В they were taught in high school, along with (for some) the 5 paragrap h essay. A quick cram of the MLA style guide too, no doubt.

Those of us who write nonfiction for adults can certainly count on some mea sure of editorial budget and expertise, along with one's own post-secondary academic studies, to fall back on here.

I wonder how many writers of nonfiction have PhDs or even MAs of any kind t hat would have required them to make a good job of citation. I don't claim to know; I'm just wondering. The money is so limited in writing nonfiction (and not just for kids) that usually the author needs additional motivation or a trust fund in order to be able to afford to do it at all. The writer whose hope for a tenure track job in academe depends on being published doe s have such motivation. So does the ideologue with an axe to grind, politic al or otherwise. Others of us may be blessed with an understanding spouse o r employer.

Many writers, if not most, write nonfiction books for kids in series and ch urn them out quickly in order to maximize the minimal income. I suspect mos t are write-for-hire contracts in which the author will receive no addition al income, regardless of sales or lack of them, from royalties.

Meanwhile, fact checking for publishers is not a growthВ field of emplo yment. I've been fortunate enough to have dedicated editors with the time a nd experience to query anything ambiguous or contradictory. I've almost nev er had an editor query my sources, however. And unlike academic writing, ma ny general interest nonfiction books are not sent to readers with expertise in the field, a practice that may not cost much in dollars, but that takes a lot of time.

So what is an author to do? I worked for 20 years as a freelance editor to supplement my writing income and I've needed and called on that experience for every book. Even so, I invariably made some mistakes, most of which wer e spotted by editors, but not all.

When I began writing,В publishers provided professional indexers to mak e an index for the book. The author's responsibilityВ was confined to c hecking the index for accuracy. In recent years, many publishers have done away with that expense, telling their authors that they can either prepare the index themselves, or pay whomever the publisher hiresВ to provide t he index.

Indexing is a profession and one that requires training and probably a gift for the job, as well. That is why indexers command much more money than ed itors do (and why publishers have chosen indexers to eliminate). Any author can prepare an index, just as anyone who has mastered the alphabet and Eng lish language and usage can write a book.

ForВ my last book, I prepared the index myself, a very difficult and po litically resonant task, as my book was aboutВ how YA literature--ficti on and nonfiction--treats mixed heritage (race, ethnicity, religion, adopti on). I found the task very hard and also fascinating. I learned a lot about my own biases and about our language's biases and ambiguities. With indexe s, we prioritize concepts, build them into hierarchies of significance. Our choices reflect our values for the material we work with.

For anyoneВ interested in what an index really, I suggestВ Nancy Mu lvany's marvelous INDEXING BOOKS. She also write the CMS chapter on indexin g.

So to get back to our topic if you're still with me, I feel no discussion o f nonfiction sourcing and citation, to which I add indexing, is complete wi thout a look at the practicalities. If it is the author's ethical responsib ility to provide such sourcing, how is she to do it if she lacks the educat ion, time, and income to do so?

My hunch is that the most-read nonfiction for kids is series literature, of ten organized by topic (or "hot topic"). These generally provide brief sour cing, on about the same level as an article in a news magazine. Series that present different views as part of the format, i.e. essays from partisans on both sides of a controversial issue, often do a good job here. But other s skate over issues and provide at best flimsy sourcing.

What I'd like to know is this: how can we expect that to change when nearly every authorial incentive pushes in the direction of superficiality?

Nancy Thalia Reynolds,

MIXED HERITAGE IN YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE (Scarecrow Press, 2009)
Received on Tue 19 Oct 2010 02:58:13 AM CDT