Verla Kay, Children's Author

Verla Kay, author of beautiful, poetic, historical picture books for young children, is renowned for helping other writers and illustrators on their journey to publication.

She loves many things - including reading, writing, travel, cooking, sewing, scrapbooking, gardening, puzzles of all kinds and playing games (board, cards and video).  

Verla gives dynamic talks and workshops to adults and children and has a fervent desire to make history (and learning) fun for children through books.

Verla Kay started her writing career by taking both the basic and advanced courses from the Institute of Children's Literature and eventually went on to become an instructor for the Institute, where she taught a multitude of other writers to write well for children. She is a competent and accomplished teacher of children's literature.

Verla has a critique service available to anyone wanting to have a picture book manuscript critiqued. When you pay for a critique by Verla, you will get personalized feedback on your story, giving you assistance in the areas where your story could use some help.

Appropriateness of content and language for picture book aged children, tightness of the story (no extra words), visual capabilities (necessary if an artist is to be able to fully illustrate the story), rhythm and/or rhymes (where appropriate to the story), pacing, a good beginning and satisfying ending, and making words "sing" in the story are some of the things Verla looks for in stories that she critiques.

All stories will not need comments in all areas, some will need more revisions than others, but Verla is fully engaged with every writer's story and does her best to give positive, helpful critiques that will assist writers to achieve stories as close to publishable quality as possible.

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