• First, if you are sending right now, stop sending because you can't re-send the revised manuscript to publishers you've already tried. 
• Publishers like to use their own illustrators. If your manuscript is already illustrated and you like it that way, you will probably have to self-publish.
• If you've written the story in rhythm and rhyme, it had better be expertly done or you are better off writing plain prose.

Next, contact a professional editor. The market for children's books is extremely competitive, because the majority of the book business is adults buying books for adults, and adults tend to buy for children the books they used to love: Make Way for Ducklings, Wind in the Willows, Winnie the Pooh, Little House on the Prairie. Having your work professionalized and perfected gives your manuscript an edge.

• feedback on your plot and characters and suggestions for any improvements
• corrections of any grammatical, punctuation or spelling errors
• feedback on rhythm, rhyme and vocabulary, and (with my master's degree in poetry) I can rewrite rhymes so they're professional quality
• I will tell you whether the manuscripts are ready to publish or require revision
• I will tell you whether the market is saturated with similar stories and you're better off writing some new stories more likely to sell
• I will pinpoint the age range of your readership. You might think you have written a picture book for ages 2-5, but in fact the text might be accessible only to ages 8 and up. I once read a Wind in the Willows-type manuscript with many references to early 19th-century styles and culture that young children couldn't appreciate. The characters spoke in Hollywood-British dialect and vocabulary ("What ho! Who goes there? Show yourself, lackey!"). The book was really for adult readers who could see is cleverness.
• advice on professional formatting, and I will format your manuscript if you want.
• an assessment of your cover letter, if you want. If it's less than optimal I will rewrite it or make suggestions, as you choose. If you didn't send a cover letter, we can compose one of professional quality so at least your cover letter won't hold you back.
• suggestions regarding potential publishers

A good short story, personal essay, poem, or memoir captures the texture of life. The most celebrated memoirs are those which tell more than one story. For example, in Tobias Wolff's This Boy's Life we read about the boy's education and conscience, but also about the bad second marriage his mother is trapped in, and how she is changing, doing things formerly out of character, like campaigning for JFK. These experiences happened during the same period. They were parallel.

Wolff could easily have written the entire memoir about his youthful self and how he learned to lie and fight. He could have written a fine memoir just about his mother's life. Either one would probably have been swell. But these in reality were intertwined, and Wolff wrote them that way.

What this appears to accomplish:

1) More accurately depicts the boy's exterior reality (events, conversations, his stepfather's behavior, friends and schooling and lessons learned)

2) More accurately depicts his interior reality. We all live more than one life at a time. In fact, at least two: the life that people can see and the one they don't. I've read (dull) stories and essays delving deep into an individual's emotional life that never indicate that this character or person has a job, or siblings, or a loan to pay off, or a best friend who isn't a dog, or a political opinion, or a goal.

Fiction and nonfiction have this in common: To capture the texture of real life, the work needs a subplot or more than one narrative thread.

You can see this on television, say, on The Simpsons, when the main story is about, for example, Homer, but a secondary story is woven in about two other characters. If you look for this, it is absolutely everywhere. That's because having two or more threads captures the texture of life.

When your creative prose seems dull or flat or thin or like "weak tea," it's usually because it has only one facet or thread. A secondary or parallel story, or "subplot," is a lot of work for the writer and requires skill. It is a large part of what makes superior fiction and creative nonfiction. You can spend years in creative-writing courses and never once hear about subplotting, or why subplotting is as basic as the "main story." I have, however, heard a poet say, "A poem should always be about two things." Poets get it.

Prose writing is a little different. After you have learned how to develop and play on one thread, attempt to add another to the piece you are working on. Don't worry about how well or poorly you do it at first. I said it's a skill and that it's not easy.

Brilliance doesn't come in the first draft. Brilliance is accumulated over drafts.

Writers are very lucky because we can take our first drafts and over time develop and craft them. A first draft is like Adam's rib. We add the muscle, nerves, flesh, hair, and breath of life. Editors, publishers, and fellow writers help us polish the work until it shines and communicates perfectly, and keep us from making public our inevitable misjudgements and mistakes. That's why your favorite writers dazzle you. How do they do it? Revision. That's why years pass between their books.

We all want to write brilliant first drafts and be done with it. That's like wanting to climb Everest right this minute without a base camp or a team, or have a baby right now without a pregnancy. That'd be brilliant, but it's unlikely. Don't pressure yourself with the belief that you can or should write brilliantly immediately and all by yourself all the time--that you must be superhuman. That will be unproductive. Revision is very human. The humanity which soaks into the work through revision is what makes it brilliant.

• Saturday, February 23, 2013, 9 a.m.-12 noon, "Overcoming Writer's Block." Call it procrastination, fear of exposure, fear or rejection, fear of failure, wanting to quit: how to get past it. $65. Click here to register, or phone (314) 516-5974.

• Saturday, May 18, 2013, 9 a.m.-12 noon, "Writing for the 'Net." Publish your work instantly. Be your own columnist. Sell your work. Establish a Web presence. Writing for the Internet is easier than normal writing, and a fun challenge. We will practice "translating" prose into internet prose. $65. Click here to register, or phone (314) 516-5974.

To register for the above short courses, please call UMSL Continuing Education at (314) 516-5974 or Register Online through the course catalog.These courses are part of "The Write Stuff" non-credit Chancellor's Certificate program in writing.

and also

Spring 2013 Online Course: Lindenwood University Graduate Online MFA Program: "Advanced Focused Nonfiction Workshop." (You need not be enrolled in the MFA program.).  Click here for information. April-June 2013, entirely online. Participants in online courses come from everywhere: Missouri, Colorado, Oklahoma and California, to name some. Half tuition for students over 60. Contact Beth Mead, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., for MFA program information and advising.

and also

• Saturday, May 25, 2013, 11 a.m. - 1 p.m., speaking to the Saturday Writers group at the city hall in St. Peters, MO; topic TBA.

Here is what I was taught about writing descriptions in both poetry and fiction:

• take the adjectives out
• choose verbs carefully; "the difference between the wrong verb and the right verb is like the difference between the lightning bug and lightning" (a misquote, but it's functional)
• never use adverbs
• cut, cut, cut every word you don't absolutely need
• make every word count
• detailed descriptions are old-fashioned and slow down the story and annoy the reader
• use short sentences and paragraphs
• "If you write a passage that you think is particularly fine, strike it out," also expressed as "Kill your darlings"
• be extremely economical and concise with language; the writers who did that correctly were Ernest Hemingway and Emily Dickinson, so write like them
• never write "very"; if you have to use "very" you have chosen the wrong adjective

In other words: Put your poetry and fiction on a strict diet and treat words like calories.

All this was very 20th-century when the style was for stripped, bony, "masculine" prose like Hemingway's, not sparkling and vivid like Fitzgerald's, although nobody pointed out that Hemingway's style was right for his subjects, hunting and war and fishing, while Fitzgerald's was right for describing romance, youth and parties.

When I came to write essays, I realized almost all of the above advice was ruinous for personal essays. I now think essays about life should have the shape and texture of life. They should be long and rich and fill pages and explore tangents and use the five senses. I revise creative nonfiction NOT by stripping the piece to the bone but adding facts and details to enrich and clarify and layer it. Not fat, but flesh. James Baldwin, whose style is sumptuous, first inspired me to write personal essays, and I noticed he makes his most careful choices when selecting adjectives rather than verbs, although if I must choose between them, I will work harder on finding a good verb.

Of course I have somebody read my drafts and tell me where I went overboard and where there isn't enough, or where I'm unclear, and then I revise until the essay makes sense to everyone who reads it. It can't be merely expressive, as some poetry is; it must make sense, and not just to me.

I still believe in not using "very."