Rita Williams-Garcia

Life Growing Up

• Born1957 in Jamaica Queens, New York
• Lived in the Projects until 3 years old
• Youngest of 3 children
• Grew up in Oakland California from 3 - 12 years old before moving back to New York
• Father was in the Army and lived in Vietnam for almost 10 years while Rite and her sisters lived in Oakland, CA.

Rita's original assumptions of being a writer

• Writing is easy and shouldn't take that long
• Sell one book and make a million dollars. Live in a cabin in the woods, spending the rest of her life writing.
• Writing children's literature is the easiest
• Revision just means changing a word or phrasing

Learns over the years

• It takes a long time to write a good book. Rita's first novel took 8-years to finish and get published!
• Revision means redoing, not just giving a new word or new phrase
• Children have a wider perspective than we give them credit and their literature must allow for them to grow and evolve. with he character or even see things before the character does.
• Read children's literature so you, as a writer, have a better concept of how a good children's book is written.
• Look at the habits that distract a reader from following the writing.
• Have "deep, thoughtful revision"
• Learn how to "take care of your craft"

Advice from Rita to Writers

• Being in the 21st century means the audience that reads your books want to be connected to you.
• have a balance between emails and events and actually writing.
• Sitting down to write is the hardest part, so make sure you give yourself plenty of opportunities to do so!
• Read a lot and read beyond your scope or interests to expand your view
• Look at the world as if you've never seen it!

Rita's Works:

• Blue Tights, Lodestar Books, 1988.
• Fast Talk on a Slow Track, Dutton, 1991. Reprint, Paw Prints, 2008.
• Like Sisters on the Homefront, Lodestar Books, 1995. Reprint, Paw Prints, 2008.
• Every Time a Rainbow Dies. HarperCollins Publishers. 2001. Reprint, HarperCollins, 2002.
• No Laughter Here. HarperCollins. 2004. Reprint HarperCollins, 2007.
• Jumped. HarperCollins. 2009. Reprint, HarperCollins, 2010.
• One Crazy Summer. HarperCollins. 2010.
• P.S. Be Eleven, 2013.
• Gone Crazy in Alabama, 2015
• Bottle Cap Boys: Dancing on Royal Street, 2015.
• Clayton Byrd Goes Underground, 2017

Untitled Slide

Untitled Slide

Rita's Writing Process:

• 1: Spend a couple of months just imagining the tory and researching it. Create a pool of information you can pull from while writing.
• 2: Write sciences and dialog
• 3: Write MULTIPLE drafts. Rita write 5-7 drafts and each one she is clarify or fixing an aspect of the story. "I am dealing with a very big issue or what is going to be in the story and what is going to be thrown out" (Rita Williams-Garcia, Reading Rockets. 2017).
• 4.Language and references
• 5. Send off to editors and copyright editors for final drafting and revisions.