Thursday, February 23, 2023

Summer Scares 2023

In the Shadow of Blackbirds was named an official Summer Scares selection for 2023! What an incredible honor and a huge surprise. Look at the company it's in!
Summer Scares is an annual list of recommended horror titles for adult, teen, and middle grade readers, developed by the Horror Writers Association in partnership with United for Libraries, Book Riot, and Booklist. Thank you to everyone who made this opportunity for Blackbirds possible! 

The book will be celebrating its tenth anniversary on April 2 of this year, and I'm overjoyed that a new generation of readers will get the chance to discover it. 

Be on the lookout for some fun online celebrations as we get closer to summer.


Tuesday, January 31, 2023

Two Starred Reviews for CUT!


 “Winters and Schu do an excellent job in telling the story of Reiniger . . . It is a story of hope, rejection, and determination, and is inspiring to all artists . . . A wonderful addition to public, school, and classroom collections.” 
 School Library Journal (starred review) 

⭐ “With a refrain of ‘snip, snip, snip!’ the story introduces readers to German film pioneer Lotte Reiniger (1899–1981) . . . Schu’s exquisite digital illustrations possess a strong sense of illumination and depth, often suggesting a tactile quality, as if constructed from paper.” 
— Horn Book (starred review)

Thank you, School Library Journal and Horn Book!

Tuesday, January 24, 2023

Now Available: CUT!

My debut picture book biography, Cut!: How Lotte Reiniger and a Pair of Scissors Revolutionized Animation, is now available! Matt Schu is the illustrator, and his drawings spectacularly bring Lotte's real-life world of early-1900s art and cinema to life, while also paying tribute to the exquisite use of shadow of light in Lotte's films. 

Who was Lotte Reiniger? She was the creator of the oldest surviving full-length animated film, the inventor of an early multiplane camera, and a revolutionary silhouette artist whose influence can still be seen in the works of artists and filmmakers to this day.

Here are two sample pages from Cut!, photographed by Matt Schu, along with reviews for the book.

“With a refrain of ‘snip, snip, snip!’ the story introduces readers to German film pioneer Lotte Reiniger (1899–1981). Lotte’s adolescence coincided with the dawn of cinema, a time when movies ‘were silent but filled with magical sights’ . . . Schu’s exquisite digital illustrations possess a strong sense of illumination and depth, often suggesting a tactile quality, as if constructed from paper.” 
Horn Book (starred review)

“Dream-centered text by Winters articulates the labor put in by its subject, making for an informative account of a successful life in the movie business, involving ‘a pair of scissors, a great deal of patience, and her talented hands.’”
— Publishers Weekly

Cut! features extensive backmatter, including a timeline of Lotte Reiniger’s life, an author’s note, and sources.

Please see my Events Page to learn where Matt and I will be signing copies of the book. If you're curious about the various ways I conducted research into Lotte's life, please head to this conversation between Fiona Robinson and me at Publishers Weekly.   

Huge thanks to my editor, Martha Mihalick, for giving Cut! a publishing home and for using her editorial skills to make the book shine!