(Part 3) Top products from r/YAwriters

Wow! Four eighth grade girls crowding around a single chair to read “Salt to the Sea?” You’ve made my day. And thank you for your questions! Answers:

• I think fiction as a medium for learning about history can be extremely helpful but it’s essential that source material and the real stories be studied as well. After all, historical fiction sits on the shoulders of nonfiction, academic writing, history books, journals, memoir, etc. I love when students become historical investigators and set out to dig up the truth.

• Other WWII historical fiction novels I would recommend are “All the Light We Cannot See,” by Anthony Doerr, “Skeletons at the Feast,” by Chris Bohjalian, and Elizabeth Wein’s novels. An older book, “The Endless Steppe: Growing Up in Siberia” by Esther Hautzig is wonderful too:
https://www.amazon.com/Endless-Steppe-Growing-Up-Siberia/dp/006440577X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1466460906&sr=1-1

• In terms of grants or fellowships, National Endowment for the Arts has some large grants available https://www.arts.gov/grants-individuals/creative-writing-fellowships
On a state level, I’ve known of historical authors who have received state grants through the Arts Commission or Humanities office.

Hope this is helpful and thanks for your questions!

I have yet to finish anything, but two well-known "epilogue" endings come to my mind that had entirely different effects on me: The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter.

Reading the "end story" for Arwen and Aragorn was... devastating. I don't think I've read anything else that was so depressing, even in crapsack worlds like The Road.

Harry Potter, on the other hand, seemed like an appropriate send-off to that type of series. Yes, it was very neat and tidy and fluffy and cliched, but it accomplished several aims:

• It left it open to another series
  
• It reiterated themes from the novels
  
• It gave hardcore fans new fanfiction fodder that was canon
  
  In another vein, I dove into The Year of the Flood expecting either an epilogue or prequel to Oryx and Crake and was extremely disappointed because it wasn't nearly as awesome. Still Atwood so well-written, but not the same brand of magic. From that, I'd take away that if you write an epilogue/alternate companion, make it clear which one it is.

If you haven't read it before, Disney writer Francis Glebas has an excellent book on storyboarding called Directing the Story that would be right up your alley. It reads like a fun introductory storyboarding textbook, and the advice he gives applies to any storytelling work whether you're a novice or a pro. It's full of gems and written in the form of a short film storyboard, which makes it extra fun to re-read repeatedly as a critical exercise too, since the book structure itself matches the content.

This anthology has 16 YA authors and ran a contest for a short story from a previously unpublished author to be the 17th contributor. One is included in the anthology--which is out today. Two runners-up are posted on the book's website and available for free--they're really good and totally worth a read!

EVERYONE SHOULD READ KAT AND MEG CONQUERS THE WORLD WHEN IT COMES OUT ON NOVEMBER 7!! IT IS SERIOUSLY DELIGHTFUL. HERE. HERE'S AN AMAZON LINK. AND A GOODREADS LINK.

Adding the suggestion of Proxy by Alex London. (YA Dystopian)