I'm so excited to announce that I'm now the author of a picture book biography! Cut!: How Lotte Reinger and a Pair of Scissors Revolutionized Animation, illustrated by the talented Matt Schu, will release from Greenwillow Books in Winter 2023. Thanks to my Greenwillow editor, Martha Mihalick, for acquiring the book back in the darkness and chaos of early 2020, and to my agent, Barbara Poelle, for helping me embark on this new adventure.
Here's the official announcement from Publishers Weekly Children's Bookshelf:
I've written the book under the name C.E. Winters to separate my picture books from my novels for teens and adults. I've also launched a new website, cewinters.com, and set up new Twitter and Instagram accounts that will primarily focus on my books for younger kids.
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's a snippet of Reiniger's short film Cinderella, from 1922:
While you're waiting for Cut!, I recommend watching these short documentaries:
It's been a while since I've posted any news here, mainly because the book
news I'm sitting on can't be shared publicly just yet. I'm shrouded in secrecry right now! All I can say is that I sold a book
last year and hope to be able to announce it publicly next year.
I'm also working on a secret new project, and I have another book out on
submission . . . so, again, all the things I could possibly talk about are projects I
can't actually talk about.
Please keep an eye on this website for announcements or follow me on social
media.
April 2 marked the eighth anniversary of the publication of my debut novel, In the Shadow of Blackbirds. This past year I've often felt like I've become trapped inside the book's 1918 setting, when another pandemic threatened lives, shut down cities, and turned masks into a means of keeping everyone safe. It's been surreal, to say the least.
To everyone who's read In the Shadow of Blackbirds over the past eight years, thank you for discovering and recommending my tale of a rational, science-minded girl who's forced into a world of spiritualism and suspense during WWI and the 1918 flu.
Below you'll find a few bonus features for the book that I've posted throughout the years, as well as purchase links and library links for the various editions.
★ “Winters’s masterful debut novel is an impressively researched marriage of the tragedies of wartime, the 1918 flu epidemic, the contemporaneous Spiritualism craze, and a chilling love story and mystery . . . Deliciously creepy.”
—PublishersWeekly, starred review
• 2014 Morris Award Finalist • A School Library Journal Best Book of 2013 • YALSA's 2014 Best Fiction for Young Adults • 2013 Bram Stoker Award Nominee for Superior Achievement in Young Adult Fiction • YALSA's 2014 Teens' Top Ten Nominee • 2013 Oregon Spirit Book Award Winner • SCBWI 2014 Crystal Kite Member Choice Awards Finalist • Booklist's 2013 Top 10 Horror Fiction for Youth • Booklist's 2013 Top 10 First Novels for Youth • Starred reviews, Publishers Weekly, Booklist,
School Library Journal • Highlighted review, VOYA Magazine • Editors' Choice, Historical Novels Review • 2014 TAYSHAS Reading List • 2014 Westchester Fiction Award Winner • 2014-2015 Georgia Peach Book Award Nominee • 2014 Maine Regional Library System Cream of the Crop List • TriState Young Adult Book Review’s 2014 Book of Note List • 2014-2015 Florida Teen Reads Award Finalist • Oregon Young Adult Network Book Rave 2014 List
• 2015-2016 Tennessee Volunteer State Book Award Nominee • Nominated for the ACL of Northern California's
2013 Distinguished Book List • 2015-2016 MASL Gateway Readers Award Nominee • Shortlisted for the Chignecto-Central Regional School Board Teen Reader’s Choice Award, Canada • 2016 Rhode Island Teen Book Award Nominee • 2015-2016 South Carolina Young Adult Book Award Nominee • October 2015 Big Library Read Selection • 2015 ALA Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults (Mysteries: Murder, Mayhem, and Other Adventures)
