My Journey

My name is Chazda Albright and I started GSB in 2012, after a long and serious talk with Steffan Berk, my life partner and genius technical support. (He built GSB; I provide the content.) I had been writing primarily screenplays up to that point, and it was clear that I needed to do more.

I wanted to pursue a career writing stories for kids. At last, I realized how important this kind of writing really was to me. But as a teacher, I also wanted to connect to other creative people.

I have had websites in the past (I think my first one ever was in 1998), but never a blog and certainly nothing like what GSB has grown to become over the years. It was Steffan who pushed me to create a blog where I could connect with people, exchange ideas and help both writers and illustrators.

GSB Beginnings

It started out very small and simple, with me blogging about things I thought people wanted to know. I found out the hard way that I had, for the most part, completely missed the mark! (You will not find those first articles here anymore!)

Over the years, it has been the readers who have prompted and redirected my efforts to give the best possible information, to give support and even to simply track down the best resources – when that’s what was actually needed.

I’m now an Accredited Blogger and my articles are read over 30,000 times a month. I still get rejection emails and I still hate certain aspects of being a writer (like researching agents… endlessly researching) – but it does get easier. It really does! And I’m happy to help you come along with me.

GSB Now

Every October is the Frankfurt Book Fair (Frankfurt Buchmesse) and I will be there – no question. If you will be there too, let’s connect! Every April you find the Bologna Children’s Book Fair and the London Book Fair and you can bet I’ll be at one or the other.

GSB is still growing and developing. You’ll find hundreds of quality articles and in-depth tutorials here.

Also:

• a self-paced “Start Your Story” course

• “Be the Writer You Are”, my first ebook writer’s guide

• at least two articles every week, delivered every Sunday when you subscribe to GSBPlus
• “What Kind of Writer Are You?” GSB Writer’s Personality Test

• COMING SOON: Book Review and Editorial Feedback Program

• ALSO COMING SOON: The GSB Podcast

What do you need?

Most new readers to GreatStorybook come with the dream of being a professional author who can live off their writing, and everyone has their own specific needs or challenges.

So we’ve organized the site into 8 portals to help you find exactly what you need. These are:

• Start a Story
• Get Unstuck
• Be Creative
• Create Real Characters
• Get an Agent
• Be Productive
• Get it Published
• Find Readers

You’ll find these highlighted under the heading, “I need help to…” on our front page and the sidebars on the articles.