The Official SCBWI Conference Blog

Farewell! See you in LA

2012-01-29T11:00:00.000-08:00

Team Blog hard at work

It's been another fantastic weekend for SCBWI Team Blog. Our fingertips are sore and our wrists swollen but we loved bringing every bit of this conference to those of you near and far.

We really hope to see you in person at the upcoming 41st annual SCBWI Summer Conference in Los Angles, August 3rd-6th, 2012. Mark your calendar, start saving your pennies, so we can all soak up more SCBWI wonder.

As Jane Yolen said to us all today, "The best thing you can do for your career is join SCBWI."

SCBWI Team Blog Members: Suzanne Young, Lee Wind, Martha Brockenbrough, Jaime Temairik, & Jolie Stekly

The Autograph Party

2012-01-29T10:59:00.000-08:00

The SCBWI autograph party is a great place to meet your favorite authors and get your books signed! What a fantastic lineup!

Chris Crutcher

Dan Santat

Cheryl Klein

Peter Brown
Dan Yaccarino

John Rocco

Jane Yolen

Lin Oliver and Theo Baker

Cassandra Clare

And then just because Cassie's awesome:

Hope you all had a great time!

My Experience At The Conference: Helaine Becker

2012-01-29T10:53:00.000-08:00

Thanks, Helaine!

My Experience At The Conference: Stephen Macquignon

2012-01-29T10:52:00.000-08:00

Thanks Stephen!

My Experience At The Conference: Mahtab Narsimhan

2012-01-29T10:50:00.000-08:00

Thanks, Mahtab!

My Experience At The Conference: Daniel Gundlach

2012-01-29T10:44:00.000-08:00

Thanks, Daniel!

Kathryn Erskine: Keynote - Keep Your F.O.C.U.S.

2012-01-29T09:48:00.000-08:00

Kathryn Erskine is the author of MOCKINGBIRD, which in 2010 won a National Book Award and a Golden Kite. She also wrote QUAKING and THE ABSOLUTE VALUE OF MIKE, which was a 2012 ALA Top Ten Quick Pick for reluctant readers.

She talked about we as writers can keep our focus (which she turned into a clever little acronym).

Freedom: "You owe yourself the freedom to create."

You have to sketch and write in cracks of time. You can record your thoughts using a voice app or recorder, or just scribble them on a napkin or your hand. "No time is wasted. Even if you're not physically writing or creating, we're artists. These ideas come to us. These ideas come to us. You can't escape it."

But more practically, when you're creating, block everything else out.

"You have to create a little waiting room in your mind, and [your distractions] will have to take a seat for now."

Kathryn likes to gather her focus by doing some Sudoku. Transition rituals can also help. "It's a sign to your body and your mind that this is a time when you're supposed to be creative."

Also: "Free yourself from the guilt that you're taking time from other people. Don't those people out there want you to be happy?"

And don't give up: "If you ever think about hanging it up, think about the one kid out there who needs you."

Organization:

"I don't think it's all that unusual for artistic types to be lacking in the organization department. But it's important to get organized because it saves a lot of times."

In her office, she keeps a drawer of all the stuff--books, maps, brochures--that go with a certain writing project. Plus, she can close all the other drawers and not be distracted. She also has inboxes just for "the business"--marketing, website, tax info--as well as another box for teaching, schools, and library visits.

Creativity: Do what you need and ask yourself "what if?"

Don't forget to take care of your body, too. It will take care of your mind. But a few vices--like candy and coffee--are OK.

She needs solitude to write. You have to know what you need. If your muse gets stuck, you know how to get it unstuck. Cook, sing, do something physical like run. That really does help the other creative parts of your brain.

She also listens to playlists that relate to her work-in-progress when she's driving.

Understanding: Understand where you're going and what you're trying to say

Who are your characters, and what motivates them? If you need an expert to explain something, find an expert. If you want to know what a Scotsman wears under his kilt, find one who's willing to show you.

Sharing: Prepare your baby for the world

Vett your manuscript with a critique group, in class, at conferences before you send it out. It took Kathryn 10 years from the time she started for her first book to come out. Start reaching out to potential readers before you even sell a book, perhaps by linking your blog to your Facebook account and automatically send posts there.

Short book trailers are fun, too. Her son made a book trailer for Quaking.

On bookstore signings: "Bring a friend or sign with someone. Otherwise, you're sitting alone like Typhoid Mary."

She sent us all home with candles and inspiration, and in three months, she'll post a reminder on her blog to keep focusing.

Chris Richman: the Current Market for Your Work

2012-01-29T08:58:00.000-08:00

Hi! I'm Chris Richman!

Chris Richman is an agent at Upstart Crow Literary. He represents middle grade and young adult works, and he's especially interested in books for boys, books with unforgettable characters, and high-concept material.

"I'm across the board," he says. But no picture books. (Sorry!)

You can find him on Twitter: @chrisrichman

Upstart Crow is a boutique agency--there are only four agents, and Chris is one of two there who are accepting submissions. The agency is editorial, which means they work on manuscripts with their authors. Chris says he's never sent out a manuscript without working on it first, and looks for clients who are open to that.

What's the current marketplace look like?
"It can get disheartening sometimes," Chris says. "It's not so much I love this book and I need it to be published. That doesn't go far enough now. Sales has to love it, marketing has to love it, my boss has to love it, Barnes & Noble has to love it. But everyone's still looking. Books still sell and kids still read. There can be surprise hits that come out of nowhere. I do agree it's becoming more of a bestseller mentality."

To think about the audience for your book, it doesn't have to appeal to everyone. Instead, focus it. For example: "Teen girls who are thirsty for romance will like this book."

When a manuscript comes across your desk, what would you like to see?
He loves writing and voice, of course. Sometimes there's serendipity, as when as an editor has a specific interest, like hiking. But in general, the hook really matters: "If someone says to me in a query letter and they've summed up the book in one sentence and it's not something I've heard ... it can grab me so easily," he says.

"If you write Twilight in space, I'll hate it. But if you're a fantastic writer and pull it off, I'll still read it."

Chris reads a bit of the query letter, but after a sentence or two goes straight to the writing. "You can tell in 250 words if someone can write."

What trend now is indicative of the publishing market?
Once you realize a trend is happening, it's dead. Another agent at Upstart Crow was pitching a dystopian dog series in Bologna and had to change the pitch because the market there was tired of dystopians.

He looks for stuff that has more of a classic feel. "Trends can be sexy and get pushed to the front of the shelf, but in 10 years, if you've read every vampire book ... I just like a classic book," he says. "A book about sons of Greek gods is going to be cool in 20 years."

What do you see as the key factors in building a career in children's books?
Things are changing quickly. At conferences even two years ago, he would advise against self publishing. "It's good, career-wise to be on top of changes and seeking out new opportunities. The more attractive you can make yourself as a writer and as an author ... the more interested we'll be in working with you."

One of Chris's clients, Jacqueline West (THE BOOKS OF ELSEWHERE), is shy and not involved in social media. But she likes connecting to kids and her publisher loves her writing. It's working out well.

Another client, Matt Myklusch (JACK BLANK'S IMAGINE NATION), worked for MTV and is charismatic. He's looking to promote things in a different way.

"Choose what you're comfortable with, what suits your personality. If you try to force it, it comes off like you're forcing it."

Some quick advice

Do your homework before you submit. "The easiest way for me to reject something without an ounce of guilt is if it's something I don't represent."
"You're part of a community. Don't be shy about networking, sharing query pages. Find friends who are really brutal. If they're just going to be nice, you're not going to grow."

Ginger Knowlton: The Current Market For Your Work

2012-01-29T08:38:00.000-08:00

Ginger Knowlton is the Executive Vice President of Curtis Brown Ltd. and represents many writers and illustrators of children's books.

Ginger's been at Curtis Brown since 1986, starting her work with Marilyn Marlow.

Agents are looking for commercial, bestselling work, but Ginger is always looking for good storytelling, books that are engaging from the start.

"Storytelling is key. Take me away to a new place and I will be happy to represent you."

Comment on how you would describe the current marketplace:

Interesting times. Exciting, exhilarating, and exhausting.

When a manuscript comes across your desk, what would you like to see that would tell you that it has a place in the market? (other than a good voice)

You need a hook; something that she can incapsulate in two sentences.

Ginger gets right to the writing. The letter isn't what she's looking at. It's all about the writing.

Can you comment on a general trend you see in the marketplace that you feel is representative of publishing now?

THE FAULT IN OUR STARS by John Green is a great new book, mixing tragic with comic.

Ginger predicts a blurring of the genres, and that transmedia is probably going to be more prevalent.

Regina Brooks: The Current Market For Your Books

2012-01-29T08:28:00.000-08:00

Regina Brooks

Regina Brooks is the founder and President of Serendipity Literary Agency.

She shares her background (she was an engineer, later an editor, and feels that being an agent is the perfect mix of left and right brain for her.) She started her agency 12 years ago, and has four agents that work for her. She feels her agency is further distinguished from the field by also having a social media strategist, and says they help their authors build their platforms and even with their publicity.

Regina encourages we authors to think about what's our book's hook, as well as saying that she's looking for authors who are bringing something new.

She also runs an annual contest for YA writers - asking them to share the first 250 words of their manuscript and explains there is so much she and the editor judges can get from that - the quality of the writing, a sense of where the story is going...

Her taste?

She represents titles across the board, from the poetry of Marilyn Nelson (a three time finalist for the National Book Award) to "Putting Makeup On The Fat Boy" by Bil Wright, which just won the ALA's Stonewall Mike Morgan & Larry Romans Children’s and Young Adult Literature Award.

"A Global Reach"

Regina says that when she speaks to publishers they want to look at books that have a global reach, that aren't too domestic or locked into the U.S.A. If your book has a global reach, it's easier for her to sell. She posits this may be the reason for the success and popularity of fantasy, as

"fantasy isn't locked into the U.S. or domestic marketplace."

State of the Union of Children's Publishing?

Regina rattles off five new YA imprints that have just formed, and feels this is a sign of robustness. There are opportunities beyond the big six publishers.

Quotable Moment:

"Middle Grade is the new Y.A."

(Which means publishers are asking her for Middle Grade.)

Ken Wright: The Current Market for Your Work

2012-01-29T08:02:00.000-08:00

Agent Ken Wright covers a wide range of writers and illustrators. He originally joined Writers House to establish the non-fiction section in children’s books.

Ken felt there were many great writers unrepresented or underrepresented. His client Steve Sheinkin won the 2012 YALSA award for excellence in non-fiction.

Ken also wanted to start a YA literary fiction list at Writers House. Although the agency is well known for their commercial fiction, they have been putting more focus on literary works. For example, BETWEEN SHADES OF GRAY by Ruta Sepetys has done well, and John Corey Whaley's WHERE THINGS COME BACK just won both the Morris and the Printz award this year. (YAY!)

Ken is always looking for the next best thing.

Ken thinks the children's book market is very robust. What we see now is a big difference from ten years ago. Editors and publishers are asking, "Where is this book going to go?" They’re really focusing their list and can no longer just acquire a book because they like it. It has to be clear where it fits into the market. That’s the big difference he’s seen. It’s a hit business. But don't worry, those best sellers open up resources for publishers to acquire great midlist books.

If the writing is great, the story extraordinary, Ken starts making a list of editors he thinks will be perfect for it. He listens to what editors are looking for. So it comes down to the writing and the editor’s perception of what they’re looking for.

The Agents Panel Begins!

2012-01-29T08:00:00.000-08:00

Lin Oliver introduces, from left to right: Ginger Knowlton, Regina Brooks, Chris Richman and Ken Wright.

Team Blog will be doing individual posts to focus on what each agent is sharing... look for those soon!

Book Maker's Dozen Panel moderated by Laurent Linn

2012-01-29T07:40:00.000-08:00

Simon and Schuster art director Laurent Linn introduces the wildly awesome group that is the Book Maker's Dozen!
I'm going to share ONE comment from each person, but boy, are we lucky to have all these amazing illustrators on one stage. I hope there are no stray meteors over Manhattan this morning.

Laurent: WHO ARE YOU?

John Rocco: Originally the idea for the Book Maker's Dozen came out of a show that John Bemelmans Marciano put together for the Brooklyn library called Drawn in Brooklyn, which featured 36 Brooklyn illustrators. We had so much fun, we wanted to keep things going.

Laurent: Do you use it as a critique group? Or more like an artist commune?

Rocco: Yes, we all live together in a one-bedroom on the Lower East Side. No, it's more about having strength in numbers for events, things like that.

Yaccarino: It's more like the mafia, really.

Laurent: Tell me how you deal with rejection?

Ruzzier: In 4th grade I really liked this little girl named, Valentina, but I was too shy, it didn't work out. Now I can take any rejection. What do you do? What does anybody do? You cry a little for a few days, and then you try to get the project rejected by the next person.

Laurent: When you're thinking about projects to create on your own, or promotional//marketing materials how do you find inspiration for those?

Alko: I love to browse bookstores, like Books of Wonder. As far as trends, I do occasionally like to look at Facebook and blog reviews to see what sorts of books are getting mentioned. I do like to get out of the studio to gather information and get inspired.

Laurent: When you are coming up with new ideas or have a manuscript to illustrate, how much do you think about the market viability vs. just wanting to do the project?

Brown: I want to make books that people will read, so I do think some on market viability. If you want to be in this business for a long time, you kind of have to be an idea factory, you can't invest everything in just one idea, or that's the only book you'll make. But by the time you recognize a market trend, it's too late, like my next book, ROBOVAMPIRES DESTROY THE EARTH.

Laurent: What's your process for creating characters?

Leijten: I sketch and sketch, sometimes I make a little 3D character out of wood putty or fabric, it's important to see how a character stands and what sort of emotions you can see in a little model's body language.

Helquist: I use a lot of reference for drawing costume and architecture, but draw the characters from my head.

Laurent: What if you have to do accurate drawings, for nonfiction, how do you do prepare art for those types of books?

Floca: I didn't mean to do books that needed accurate, researched drawings, but the more research you do, the more things you learn and questions you ask and you want to learn how things work, so researching gets increasingly more complex and time consuming.

"I'm trying to finish my latest book now without learning ANYTHING ELSE."

Laurent: How do you find a style or styles to work in?

Qualls: When you're starting out, trying to be an artist, the impulse is to take an academic approach. Now I try to do what comes naturally. But somewhere along the way you start to do what comes naturally. Every book I try to try out new things, or do subtle changes to the way I work. I hope to take my work a little further in terms of style and direction, it's important to be excited about your work and process.

Laurent: Do you have different mind sets or approaches when writing and illustrating a picture book vs. just illustrating?

Yaccarino: It's a very different experience. When you are writing AND illustrating, you're doing all the heavy lifting. Only illustrating is a more relaxed feeling, I can lavish 100% attention on the art alone.

Laurent: A book is a collaboration, what is it like to be art directed and edited?

Dave Gordon: It's something you get used to. If I feel I'm being over-edited in the writing, I focus on what I love and what's working as an illustrator.

Laurent: Some of you have different creative outlets besides books. Illustrating and writing is your passion and focus, but what else do you do?

Sophie Blackall: I like to do everything at the same time, there's not a whole lot of sleep. As much as illustrating children's books is my first love, there are increasingly more things you can't put in a picture book like cigar smoke, taxidermy, blood... And sometimes it's fun to do something without any art directions (that's where Missed Connections comes in.)

Laurent: Tell us about juggling family life, a job, and your illustration career. How do you achieve balance?

John Bemelmans Marciano: As far as organizing the day, it's a daily struggle. I've always worked at home, but after having a child, it was impossible! Unless you have a metal door that you can shut and lock. I finally have an outside studio, the downtime alone on the walk to or from the studio is inspiring.

All thank John Rocco for organizing this group. John says he was just desperate for friends.

The Bookmaker's Dozen Panel: An Illustrator's View

2012-01-29T07:26:00.000-08:00

Thanks, Jess Yeomans!

Illustration Award Winners Announced!

2012-01-29T06:33:00.000-08:00

It's always incredibly exciting to find out who won the various illustrator awards given at each conference.

Sarah Baker just announced this year's winners, starting with the Tomie DePaola award, named after the beloved illustrator who also serves as the contest judge. Three hundred people applied this year, creating illustrations inspired by Chicken Licken.

Runner up: Laurie Eslick

Tomie loved the painterly style of her illustration, and he challenged her to take it further.

Laurie Eslick

The winner: Yvette Piette Herrera
Tomie loved her style and found the round composition a unique take on the round robin story.

Yvette Piette Herrera

Student illustrator scholarship Two fulltime illustration students, Davin Choi and Eunhye Seo, won conference tuition for their work. Both are students at Rhode Island School of Design, coincidentally. A panel of industry professionals judged.

And the big one: the portfolio showcase ...
One-hundred and eighty-five illustrators competed, and 350 of the top professionals in the industry reviewed them during a cocktail party on Friday night.

"We were all really proud of the illustrators who presented their portfolios," Sarah Baker said. The judges looked carefully and took away a lot of promotional postcards. "I'm sure a lot of connections were made Friday night."

Runners up

Wook Jim Jung

Wook Jim Jung

Lori Nichols

And the winner...

Mike Curato!

Mike Curato

Jane Yolen Announces A New Grant For Mid-List Authors... And the 2012 Winners!

2012-01-29T06:04:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to Mary K. Whittington for winning this year's inaugural Jane Yolen Mid-List Author grant! A published author who hasn't had a new book come out in a while, Mary recently had a stroke, and is halfway through writing a new novel using voice recognition software. Jane calls Mary her hero, and hopes the grant helps her get that novel finished and out into the world.

And our cheers as well to Ann Whitford Paul and Barbara Diamond Golden for their honor grants.

More information about the Jane Yolen Mid-List Author Grant (and how to nominate a mid-list author you know for next year) will be forthcoming on scbwi.org, where you'll find information on all the author and illustrator Grants and Awards.

A Shout Out to the team behind #NY12SCBWI

2012-01-29T05:52:00.000-08:00

The SCBWI Staff

Lin Oliver introduces to the packed room, from left to right: Brandon Clarke, Liz Brown, Gee Cee Addison, Kim Turrisi, Jeff Miller, Chelsea Mooser, Sarah Baker and Sara Rutenberg.

Thanks to you all for making SCBWI and this conference run so well!

Illustrator Social

2012-01-28T20:02:00.000-08:00

Lots of fun last night in the Illustrator Social's packed conference room. Here's the first minute or so of the social with Cecilia Yung telling us about some SCBWI success stories:

Here's Debbie Ridpath Ohi talking about her SCBWI success story. Cecilia Yung holds up a copy of the fruits of that success story, I'M BORED, out soon!

Here's Fred Koehler talking about his SCBWI success story and a snapshot of his forthcoming DAD'S BAD DAY.

Here's some bloke named Peter Brown looking amazed at all the great illustrators in the room and the fact that someone had brought a giant bottle of vodka to share.

Let's have more of these! Thanks to all the illustrators for attending and thanks to the Illustrator Committee for making it happen.

International Attendees Social

2012-01-28T19:31:00.000-08:00

There are 32 regional chapters outside the United States, and this year's conference brought in attendees from 20 countries. Saturday night's International Attendees Social gave those attendees a chance to meet and mingle.

Christopher Chang

Christopher Chang, who is a regional advisor for Australia/New Zealand, an SCBWI board member, and a former member-of-the-year welcomed the group. He shared information about their regional chapters. The group also shared good news coming from the international members. Good news all sounds so much more exciting with accents.

Germany's Regional Advisors: Donna Weidner & Kirsten Carlson

You've got to love that the regional advisors from Germany came in traditional costume.

LGBTQ&A

2012-01-28T18:24:00.000-08:00

Hosted by Team Blog's Lee Wind, the LGBTQ&A was an inspiring event that brought together a group of writers/illustrators to discuss the market for LGBTQ literature. This time Lee welcomed editors Alvina Ling and TS Ferguson, agent Jen Laughran, and special guest Ellen Hopkins.

The panel discussed some of their favorite books with LGBTQ themes or characters. They also had a candid discussion about the lack of submissions with diversity. TS, Alvina and Jen all said they would LOVE to see more submissions with LGBTQ characters and themes. Although any book has to be well-written, having diverse characters could only add to their interest level.

(Some of their favorites)

Ellen Hopkins spoke to the group about the responsibility she feels as an author to the teens she writes for. She said that we're all here together--not as gay or straight--but as human beings. She urged authors to "write bravely."

The session ended with a great mixer as attendees began to discuss their own favorite books, and the lively conversation really topped off the evening. The first time conference goers were excited about the opportunity to share their thoughts and experiences with such a respected panel, and with each other.

Be sure to join the next LGBTQ session in LA at the annual summer conference!

Saturday Night Cocktail Gala

2012-01-28T18:00:00.000-08:00

We mixed, illustrators and writers, faculty and regional advisors.

Yum!

We mingled.

And we found...

Community.

Remember, you can see more photos at the conference tumblr photoblog here.

Samantha McFerrin: Picture Books

2012-01-28T16:43:00.000-08:00

Samantha McFerrin--who wrote a picture book for college credit
(and got an A!)

Samantha is an editor at Harcourt. She acquires everything from picture books to YA and has edited a number of award-winning books, including Just a Minute: a Trickster Tale and Counting Book by Yuji Morales and In a Blue Room, by Jim Averbeck and Tricia Tusa.

She spoke about picture books—what really drew her into publishing--and she shared tons of great advice with those of us who write them:

Start the story right away. Don't set up a bunch of backstory or anything like that.
Shoot for 800 words or less.
Only write rhyme if it’s right for the story and for you.
Once you have a draft, try to paginate it. You can fine-tune the story’s arc, ensure the length is right, bring in more drama and humor, and can trim all the little details that don’t need to be there.
Read successful picture books. Get a sense for why something is highly promoted, doing well. Read those books out loud. What does it feel like to turn the page and have a surprising bit on the other side?

When she's thinking about acquiring a manuscript, she makes a proposal that goes up the management chain. She reviews the competition. Sometimes, a similar book can be just too good.

Other times, though, similar titles open up opportunities. SHARK VS. TRAIN, for example, created a space in the market for other shark books.

The market today is tough for picture books. Sales are lower, there are fewer brick-and-mortar stores, school and library budgets have shrunk, there are fewer librarians and less reading time in class. What's more, there's more competition for kids' time.

But it’s not all doom and gloom, she says. Publishers can’t afford the mediocre, so-so, not quite there books, so they’re publishing the real gems.

It still comes down to good storytelling, no matter if it’s an ebook or a pbook. Is it a story worth going back to, she says. "Those are the books that I want."

Wendy Loggia: the Novel

2012-01-28T16:34:00.000-08:00

Wendy Loggia of Delacorte/Random House

Wendy Loggia is the executive editor at Delacorte/Random House. She spoke about the novel--what makes them work, why she acquires what she does, and what writers should avoid doing.

She became an editor because she loves books, and the ones she publishes are ones she would've loved to read when she was growing up. When she's looking at a manuscript, “I’m looking for a special kind of magic. I’m hoping to find something that moves me. words that seem so special and fresh I want to read them over and over again.”

It's important to have an interesting story that's well executed with a clear concept in mind. For example, Lauren Kate's FALLEN series, aims for readers who loved TWILIGHT.

Beyond concept, though, a novel needs to have sensory appeal. She talked about five books that stirred her senses (including one she didn't edit but loves anyway).

Hearing: This is where voice comes in. A good writer's voice takes familiar things and crafts sentences and a narrative that let a reader see something in a new way. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, which she edited, is a great example of this.

Sight: The author must have a vision and a clear direction they want to go in, something you can see on the page. Likewise, the editor has to have a vision. Will it please her colleagues? Would people pay money for it? And then there's the literal sense of vision, in which a book unfolds in a reader's mind like a movie. An upcoming book, STARTERS, does just this.

Touch: We want to feel something when we read. She loves the work of Sarah Dessen and IF I STAY by Gayle Forman. BEFORE I FALL by Lauren Oliver is a book she wishes she'd edited. One way to understand what touches teens emotionally is to read the books, magazines and blogs they like. Read the reviews--find out what kids are saying about books. Watch their TV, too.

Smell: Does it smell "like teen spirit"? GOING BOVINE by Libba Bray has that authentic teen feel. "It defies convention," she says. "It's funny, it's smart, it's surreal."

Taste: What’s your taste as a reader? What do you like to read? What do you like to write? What comes naturally to you, she says. "If you don’t like something, don’t try to write it because somebody else likes it and will do it better than you do."

And a few mistakes to avoid (there were more, but we'll just share a few):

Don’t ruin your chances by not formatting properly;
Don’t classify your manuscript in a genre/age group that it isn’t. If you’re not sure, don’t put a label on it; and
Don’t get hung up on giving manuscript a title

ARE YOU READY?!?!? How many illustrators can you fit on a podium?

2012-01-28T15:21:00.000-08:00

FRIENDS! We are so thrilled that the Book Maker's Dozen will be here tomorrow. Some of them spoke to us on Friday at the Marketing Intensive for Illustrators. We didn't want to give too much of it away on the blog, but we do want you to see Dan Yaccarino's fantastic trailers for one of his impeccable-as-always books, ALL THE WAY TO AMERICA!

Catch Dan Yaccarino, John Rocco, Sophie Blackall, Selina Alko, Sean Qualls, Peter Brown, John Bemelmans Marciano, Sergio Ruzzier, Brian Floca, David Gordon, Aileen Leijten and Brett Helquist on Sunday at 9:15 in the AM!

Ooo, and more of Yaccarino's awesome trailers:

Sarah Davies: THRILLERS

2012-01-28T14:55:00.000-08:00

That's not a conference badge—that's a knife! Sarah Davies with her latest victim

Sarah Davies is a thriller addict. Her first taste was as a kid in England, she loved books by Willard Price, Agatha Christie. Some of you purists will say those are adventures and murder mysteries, not thrillers, but Sarah is here to tell us that action and ammunition alone will not make a good thriller, they need mystery and intrigue.

How do you make a thriller for kids? It's easier to do in young adult: YA thrillers can have elements of sexy romance, and bloodier action, which allows for bigger stakes.

A middle grade thriller is more action adventure, clue solving, and platonic friend relationships, with external vs. internal danger taking main roles in building the book's thrills.

The best thing you can do to learn how to write a great thriller is to read a great thriller, here are two Sarah recommends (and reps!) (Sarah also gave attendees a great handout on tips for thriller writing.)

Sarwat Chadda's (available in UK, edited by fellow faculty member Cheryl Klein for forthcoming edition) SAVAGE FORTRESS:

And Megan Miranda's FRACTURE:

For something less scary, but just as intriguing and thrilling: follow Sarah on Twitter to see pictures of her dachsunds sleeping.

Stacy Whitman:Diversity & Multiculturalism

2012-01-28T14:27:00.000-08:00

Stacy Whitman, Editorial Director, Tu Books (Lee and Low)

Lee and Low books prefers the word diversity to multicultural.

"About everyone. For everyone," is the motto at Lee and Low.

What questions can we ask as writers, whether we're writing from our own perspective or writing and doing research about a different culture? Here are a few:

Whom are people loyal to?
Who gets respect?
How do people manage their emotions?
Who is in control?
How does a culture view time?
Am I in your space?

Stacy recommends checking out Mitali Perkins' website and blog.

Stacy will be posting these questions on her blog which you can read HERE.

Aimee Friedman: Series Fiction

2012-01-28T13:35:00.000-08:00

Aimee Friedman is a Senior Editor at Scholastic, where she has worked for over eleven years. She is also a New York Times bestselling author of YA fiction (Sea Change).

Aimee says that kids by nature are collectors, and this applies to books as well. Series books tend to be for kids more so than other types. She points to one of her favorite series while growing up: The Babysitter's Club

Also, she talks about the hooks with endless possibilities, like with Magic Tree House.

When it comes to series writing, Aimee says there are elements to every successful series:

A solid hook with endless possibilities

Characters you'll want to revisit again and again

And an overall series arc/theme that weaves in naturally with each title.

If you're going to set out to write a series, you'll need to do some research first. There are no hard and fast rules, but to understand series and packaging, you should READ. She says it's the best way to learn the genre.

Jennifer Laughran: Fiction

2012-01-28T13:23:00.000-08:00

Jennifer Laughran joined Andrea Brown Literary Agency in 2007. Her clients include Daniel Pinkwater, Calef Brown, Matt Faulkner, Jackie Dolamore, Ilsa J. Bick, Eric A. Kimmel, L.K. Madigan, Adam Selzer, Tara Kelly and Kate Messner, and many excellent debut authors.

Jennifer Laughran speaking to a packed room

Jennifer starts her session with sharing her background. She was a bookseller (her family owns an independent bookstore), then a buyer for a major bookstore and an events coordinator.

She became an agent in 2007 and finds the jobs are very similar – matching the right books to the right people… just in a more macro way.

Andrea Brown Literary has nine agents, Jennifer is their NY agent (the main office is in the San Francisco bay area.

They're the #1 children’s agency in the country, and they only represent children’s, PB to YA

Her focus is MG and YA
with a few authors who do PB also,
and a few author/illustrators.

Jennifer has a wonderful blog here's the link and has sold 78 books as of this month since 2008! (27 or so are out already.)

She covers a number of different metaphors and definitions of fiction, positing that fiction is always true, some element of truth, some part of the human condition that you’re exposing – that’s where “write what you know” comes in. It means “write what you know about the human condition to be true.”

She talks about many of the “rules” as a reader, and how you really need to ignore the rules.

A writing tip via author Holly Black:

“Write to please a reader self and not a writer self.”

Jennifer explains that means don’t write things that are boring.

“If you do get dressed in the morning, don’t tell me about it, I’ll take it on faith.” Tell her about what happens when you leave the house and have an adventure.

Her Advice:
Write the book that you would have held close to your heart when you were a kid,
a book that only you can write.

Trends?
“trends suck. I hate them. I think you should be setting trends, not following them.”

The fact that the marketplace has contracted is a good thing for readers, but it’s tough for writers, means we have to work that extra hard. But she praises those of us here doing our work, saying we’re already one step ahead.

She’s running down different kinds of MG and YA books, and urges us to figure out how to differentiate our take on the subject if we’re going to write in a genre that’s well-known. Writing about vampires? How do you have a different take on it?

She explains how each of us can find our voice, defines high concept, and tells us

“There’s always a market for awesome books.”

Her tastes are “at the intersection of beautifully written and highly commercial,” saying the greater a manuscripts un-put-down-ability, the easier it is to sell, and that’s the book she wants to represent. She adds, “I am always interested in fresh unique funny MG and
mysterious, scary YA.”

She took a lot of questions from a very enthusiastic and interested audience, making us laugh many times and sharing so much great information.

Cathy Goldsmith: Picture Books for Illustrators

2012-01-28T13:16:00.000-08:00

Cathy Goldsmith delighted session attendees with a multi-page handout outlining the key steps an illustrator goes through in their career, from submitting portfolios to going on a book tour. Here's a sneak at a point from each section:

Making portfolios (front load your portfolio with your best work!)
Starting to work on a picture book (ask about what type of binding will be used or whether you'll have illustrated endpapers!)
Considerations while working on a picture book (don't forget the gutter!)
Process (how many rounds of sketches will you need to get to final art?)
After publication (you might be asked to do additional artwork for print or online ads, be ready and willing!)

Martha Rago: Making Your Picture Book Stand Out

2012-01-28T13:05:00.000-08:00

I'm a sucker for children's book historians (I have a Leonard Marcus cardboard cutout in my office!) and Martha Rago starts this session off with words from a favorite. A TOTAL CHILDREN'S BOOK BAD(er)ASS, Barbara Bader. Barbara contributes to THE HORN BOOK, which should be the first magazine you subscribe to if you are serious about having a career in children's books.

She's also the author of the excellent AMERICAN PICTURE BOOKS: FROM NOAH'S ARK TO THE BEAST WITHIN, a book well worth the wait and weight if you can find a copy. Martha riffs off a quote of Barbara's to get us thinking about what illustrators need to do make their final artwork sing and the resulting picture book stand out.

Here are two of those things, briefly:

1. Consistency of style. You can have more than one style, but they must all be strong and consistent. Martha's examples of illustrators with consistent styles:

Paul Schmid

Kadir Nelson

Adam Gudeon

2. Technical skill, you must master your technique! Susan Jeffers is a great example of someone who's mastered their particular media (medium?), in Susan's case, watercolors:

Susan Jeffers

Tara Weikum: Young Adult Fiction

2012-01-28T12:44:00.000-08:00

Tara Weikum is an editorial director at Harper Collins Books.

In the 90s there were alarmists saying YA was dead. We all know that YA is alive and well.

Today's YA market is in flux. No one knows what the next big trend will be. YA is a constantly changing animal.

Teens want to read about things that are important to them. Even though trends change, emotions do not.

Tara is often asked how long a YA needs to be. She recommends not getting bogged down in length. What makes sense to you with your story is what's important. Your book should be as long as it needs to be.

The author for teens has become a key element. Publishers want to know that an author is engaged and will be out there to market themselves, as well as use social media platforms.

Cassandra Clare: Love Triangles and Forbidden Love, Creating and Maintaining Romantic Tension in YA Literature

2012-01-28T11:51:00.000-08:00

Cassandra Clare is the bestselling author of The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices series.

A strong theme of forbidden love runs through her books.

Readers go where the tension is, but readers also love romance. The path of love does not run smooth.

Love can be forbidden in several ways: by family, by society/taboo, or it can be unsuitable or dangerous in some manner.

Don't be afraid to create really big obstacles because it creates higher and higher stakes for your characters.

"The bigger the obstacles, the bigger the love needed to overcome them."

Love triangles are extremely popular. It's been part of our storytelling culture for hundreds of years.

Some pitfalls of the love triangle:
*Epic language, like "I will always love you."
*Indecision
*Having a love V, rather than a triangle because two characters don't have any connection.

"The kind of love story that is fun to live, is not fun to read about."

Cheryl Klein: Revision

2012-01-28T09:55:00.000-08:00

Cheryl Klein is the Executive Editor at Arthur A. Levine Books (Scholastic).

The point of revision is re-visioning, helping it to become the book it wants to be.

Revision in three parts

1. Vision: the big picture, what is your story. Know what the core of it is.
2. Examination: Look at what the book actually is.
3. Action: Get to work.

Cheryl has oodles of advice and techniques to share for revision, reminding the room that if you try them all, you are likely procrastinating. It makes sense then that her first piece of advice is: Know how you work best.

Write the spine of the story in one sentence. This will be useful in elevator pitches and family picnics.

Some important and useful questions when thinking about character:
What is your character's joy?
What is your character's pain?
What does character want?
What would your character do to get it?

Change the font of your book before you read it. The change will make it feel less familiar.

Use a spreadsheet to track information in a manuscript.

Write a synopsis of your book from another character's point-of-view.

Know that you don't have to solve all the problems in your book at once.

Rubin Pfeffer: EBooks and Apps

2012-01-28T09:46:00.000-08:00

Rubin Pfeffer is famous for challenging children's book writers and illustrators to think of ourselves as "Children's Content Creators."

He is a veteran of the children’s and adult trade industry. He has served as President and Publisher of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, SVP and Chief Creative Officer of Pearson, and as SVP, Publisher of Children’s Books for Simon & Schuster. Pfeffer joined the East West Literary Agency in December 2009, as a partner and established the Boston base of the agency. He works with such luminary talents as Patricia MacLachlan, Marion Dane Bauer, Steven Kellogg, Susan Cooper, Judy Sierra, David Diaz, Richard Jesse Watson, Jesse Joshua Watson, Jeff Mack, Mike Austin, and a host of other published and new talents. In addition, he consults regularly on digital content for the Ruckus Media Group.

Rubin Pfeffer presenting his session on EBooks and Apps

Rubin starts off his breakout session by describing the spectrum of digital publishing, on one end: ebooks which are simply screen versions of the printed book. In the middle: enhanced ebooks, where the story is enhanced with other medium: audio, animation, sound effects, things like that. At the other end: Apps, that don't necessarily even look like a book anymore. If the App is based on a book, they might leverage the world or characters of the story to include activities or games.

He's running down the current technology (ipad, kindle fire, nook, droid, kobo, and other proprietary devices) and sharing some eye-popping statistics on the growth of tablets.

There are six macro trends that he wants us to consider. Here's one: The demise of brick and mortar stores... Though he has a hunch that we will begin to see a Renaissance of niche Children's book stores!

We're learning about Zombie books (the ability to bring back old books that were considered "dead") and the impact on reluctant readers of being able to change the font size - which changes their experience of reading a book, and so much more!

Rubin challenges us to imagine the opportunities of this statement:

"New technology always creates new content."

He's sharing so much more, and answering questions from the floor, including a discussion of self-publishing and credentialed alternative publishers.

Overall, it's a very inspiring, thought-provoking session.

Alvina Ling: Narrative Fiction

2012-01-28T09:42:00.000-08:00

Alvina Ling, talking about narrative fiction.

The lovely Alvina Ling is editorial director at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. She edits everything from picture books to YA, along with some nonfiction, and is no doubt the person who discovered many of your favorite titles.

Did you love YOU WILL BE MY FRIEND by Peter Brown, and SHARK VS. Train by Chris Barton and Tom Lichtenheld? Her books. Same for the transcendent WHERE THE MOUNTAIN MEETS THE MOON by Grace Lin, the powerful NORTH OF BEAUTIFUL by Justina Chen, and the utterly dazzling DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE by Laini Taylor.

She blogs with a group at Blue Rose Girls and is on Twitter (@planetalvina).

She loves genre fiction of all kinds: open to fantasy, mystery and romance. But she requires a certain literary quality to the work. "Literary fiction is my love."

She talked with us about narrative fiction, focusing on three big elements: the narrative voice, the structure, and the plot, and starting with a great quote from W. Somerset Maugham: "There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are."

Narrative voice is intertwined with character, Alvina says. One of the things a writer needs to decide: Who is my narrator going to be? A character? An omniscient observer? A main character? A sideline character? Multiple perspectives? A third-person limited? (Her list was quite thorough.)

"There are a lot of decisions you have to make," she says, and sometimes, the choices can be unexpected. For example: PLEASE IGNORE VERA DIETZ by A.S. King was written from the point of view of a pagoda, Alvina said.

Sometimes, "When you're reading a first-person point of view character, you generally know the character isn't going to die. Unless the book is titled 'BEFORE I DIE.'"

She read from a number of books, showing how a choice like POV can be used to add suspense, relate-ability and other things to our stories--it was a fascinating exercise.

Structure, meanwhile, can sometimes be influenced by voice. It can be influenced by the characters you use and the perspectives your story is told from. It can also be arranged around a series of letters, objects, illustrations, or artifacts (like a Twitter feed).

She asked her authors what they started with when it came to structure. One author started with the last sentence. She also likes the structure of THE BOOK THIEF, which reveals one character would later die. This, for her, increased the tension and obscured the possibility of other deaths, which really worked for her.

Plot: Here, the most important thing is to have a conflict. Only one conflict is not enough--unless you're writing a very simple picture book.

"Don't be afraid to put your characters in peril. You need to fear for those characters and not know if they're going to be OK," Alvina says.

She comes up with a pithy sentence that explains what the book is about. It can sometimes be hard to summarize books this way. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO and DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE are two successful books that defy such brief summarization, but in general, it's useful to have that elevator pitch.

Arianne Lewin: Fantasy

2012-01-28T09:12:00.000-08:00

An exciting breakout session focusing on fantasy with editor Arianne Lewin. Ari is an executive editor at GP Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers.

After giving a quick overview of the different types of fantasy--Magical Realism, YA Urban Fantasy, Contemporary Fantasy and Dark Fantasy among others--Ari talked about trends and how authors shouldn't write to them. By the time a book catches on with consumers, it might be too late to start. If you do, it has to be a passion. As an editor she wants an experience, so tell a great story.

Ari then passed out some first pages for the attendees to look over and discuss. She also shared some of the specific types of books she's looking for.

Surprise Guest!

2012-01-28T09:04:00.000-08:00

Bigger-than-life Henry Winkler. The photo is smaller than life.

Henry Winkler appears on the dais!

He's funny, and speaks of having co-written 19 books with Lin Oliver, being an actor and director and producer... even though he was never a good student.

They hatched the idea for Frank Zipster, and he's explaining their collaborative process.

"If you write what you know, not what you think other people will read or are selling or want to hear... if you write what you know, it jumps off the page."

He's very encouraging and inspirational, the crowd is laughing... He gets a huge round of applause and the crowd are on their feet!

Jean Feiwel: Children's Books: Today and Tomorrow

2012-01-28T08:43:00.000-08:00

Jean Feiwel, Senior Vice President and Publishing Director, Feiwel & Friends (MacMillan)

Lin Oliver introduces Jean Feiwel as the Ursula Nordstrom of the next generation.

Jean Feiwel started at Avon Books, and was avid about children's books. She later joined Scholastic, where she brought middle-grade series came into being with series like The Babysitter's Club. Jean left Scholastic in 2005, hired by MacMillan, where she started Square Fish and Feiwel & Friends.

On change:
The retail landscape has seen great change. Borders going out of business was a huge loss. The good news is with the local bookstores. Growth and sales in the independents has been significant. Jean believes Amazon is a big threat: People go in and browse the bookshelves and then go home and buy the book from Amazon.

"The publisher needs you to be a partner, to take responsibility for your work and be an advocate."

How viable are publishers?
Jean agrees with the other panelist on the importance of publishers. She said that not everyone is going to be published. For those books that can't be placed, self-publishing is an option.

"This is a best-seller business." After HARRY POTTER, the potential is out there to be a phenomenal bestseller.

An exciting new release from F&F: CINDER by Marissa Meyer about a Cinderella cyborg.

One sentence piece of advice:
"Stay strong. Have fun." (in two sentences)

You can read a pre-conference interview with Jean Feiwel HERE.

Barbara Marcus: Children's Books Today and Tomorrow

2012-01-28T08:30:00.000-08:00

Barbara credits her first job in high school as a terrible library page, (why shelve a book like HALF MAGIC when you could hide in the 600s and reread it?) as the start of her adult love with children's books.

On her early career: "All of my adult publishing friends said I was committing professional suicide by going into children’s books [Barbara was considering moving to Scholastic] and I wanted to prove them wrong."

With Jean Fiewel and others, Barbara built or revitalized most of what Scholastic is famous for—the book fair, the book club, the series. Serieses?

And then Harry Potter. Barbara was one of the forces at Scholastic when Harry Potter was acquired. She helped shape the marketing and publicity for it, those blockbusting midnight release parties.

Life post-Hogwarts: "After Harry Potter, I thought I was done with publishing, was going to go sit on the mountain top, but it turns out I’m not done!"

Barbara’s back in the industry working with the people and books she loves. She's thrilled to be bringing back into print backlists of some of her favorite authors like Virginia Hamilton and Lois Lenski.

Lin: "Can you name a recent, significant change in children’s books?"

Barbara: "It used to be that hardcovers went to the libraries, and the retail children’s book [middle grade] market was paperbacks. Now it seems like a bestseller must be in hardcover."

Barbara’s ecstatic that a well-written, well-designed, well-marketed children’s book can outsell adult titles, she uses John Green’s new book as an example (and Barbara calls getting adults buying/reading MG/YA is the icing on the cake, but that it all begins with the cake, the core audience of kids and teachers/librarians).

Lin: "Tell us something about the current children's market."

Barbara: "I don’t think you’re going to see robust sales in digital children’s picture books because most etailers don’t have much of a clue about children's books."

Lin: "Are you worried about Amazon?"

Barbara: "I worry about the ability to merchandise and buy new children’s books, Lin’s word of the year: Discoverability."

Lin: "One sentence of advice?"

Barbara: "It's the person you never expect that gives you the best advice to get you to a really interesting place [in your story, your marketing plan, your trip to Little Italy]."

Rubin Pfeffer: Children's Books Today and Tomorrow

2012-01-28T08:22:00.000-08:00

Rubin talking to a packed ballroom with his fellow members of the panel
(all of whom, he joked, have rejected his submissions).

Rubin Pfeffer is an industry veteran. Among other things, he's been president and publisher at Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, a senior VP and chief creative officer of Pearson, and publisher of children's books at Simon & Schuster. And he even worked as an art director, discovering talent like David Diaz.

These days, he's a partner at East West Literary Agency, where he not only represents some of the industry's brightest lights--Susan Cooper, Marian Dane Bauer, David Diaz, and the Watson clan--but also is on the forefront of emerging technologies in storytelling.

The best part of it, he says, "... is building a greenhouse around their ideas and hopes and seeing those ideas to fruition."

He shared a ton of insights with us. A few excerpts:

Observations on significant changes in the industry:
He started his career at Grosset & Dunlap and was designing Hardy Boys covers. When he walked in their offices yesterday, he was amazed by the diversity and energy of the titles. There is also more commercial publishing in the industry.

Two years ago, digital publishing was groundbreaking and people were still saying how they wanted to cuddle up with real books. But now, it's generally acknowledged that digital publishing is part of the future.

On the importance of acquisitions committees and discoverability of our books:
"There is this notion about acquisitions groups and meetings, it's like the death knell to all would-be writers who want to be published. But it's important.... because it is not just publishing a book that an editor is a champion of. It's publishing a book that a number of people are championing in some very important fields. Is it something that can be marked effectively in all the new ways you can market? Because we are publishing fewer titles, we have to publish those fewer titles better."

There are new responsibilities that are associated with writers and illustrators, to make yourself discoverable by somebody who will be interested in it.

We'll start to see more "vertical groups on the interest," Rubin says. For example, second grade teachers, or preschool teachers. We need to reach out to them.

Do authors/illustrators need publishers anymore?
"It's an important question. Just because there are examples of successful self-publishing endeavors, for every successful example, there are countless others that didn't work."

The editor, publisher, marketers--these people are the village that gets behind books.

"The bigger question: What is a publisher? They used to be the big six and the other six after that. There are new kinds of publishers coming out. Some of them are rising quickly."

Nancy Paulsen: Children's Books Today and Tomorrow

2012-01-28T07:40:00.000-08:00

Nancy Paulsen is President and Publisher of Nancy Paulsen Books at Penguin Young Readers Group. She's on the panel Children’s Books Today and Tomorrow—Four Expert Impressions.

One of the first things Nancy mentioned was that she loves the depth of the Penguin backlist. She feels that Penguin has always championed their midlist, and even considers it some of their best works. Nancy looks for authors with a compelling voice, and she even found four authors through SCBWI.

Nancy said that social media can address issues in publishing. Just recently there was a campaign to support local bookstores. So if you’re on twitter, see who’s talking and join the conversation.

When asked if she’s seen significant changes in the market, Nancy said that there are still great opportunities in picture books. Electronic books with bells and whistles haven’t broken out yet, so the picture book form is alive and well.

And Nancy's one piece of writing advice: READ

The Morning Panel: Children's Books: Today and Tomorrow: Four Expert Impressions

2012-01-28T07:35:00.000-08:00

from left to right: Rubin Pfeffer, Barbara Marcusw, Jean Feiwel, Nancy Paulsen and Lin Oliver at the podium

The morning panel is starting - we at Team Blog will be publishing four separate posts, so you can get the best of what each of these experts has to share:

Jean Feiwel, Senior Vice President and Publishing Director, Feiwel and Friends (MacMillan)

Barbara Marcus, Strategic Innovations Advisor

Nancy Paulsen, President and Publisher, Nancy Paulsen Books (Penguin)

and

Rubin Pfeffer, Agent, East West Literary Agency

Chris Crutcher's Keynote: Turning Real Life Into Fiction

2012-01-28T07:21:00.000-08:00

Chris Crutcher is the author of fourteen books -- eleven novels, two short story collections and an autobiography. He is also one of the most frequently banned authors in North America -- a fact he considers an accomplishment, rather than a drawback. Chris has been awarded the NCTE's National Intellectual Freedom Award, the ALAN Award, the ALA's Margaret A. Edwards Lifetime Achievement Award, the CLA's St. Katharine Drexel Award and Writer magazine's Writers Who Make a Difference Award.

Chris Crutcher giving his opening Keynote at #NY12SCBWI

To a sold out room of over 1,100 rapt writers and illustrators, Chris is telling us about his background and childhood. He worked as a therapist with troubled youth (dealing with child abuse and neglect and illness) for over 20 years, and he couldn't use those stories, but after a while the underlying truths became the stuff of his fiction.

He's sharing where the narrative voice came from for his books, and then the inspiration for and genesis of the character Ben Wolf from his novel, "Deadline."

He's reading an excerpt from the book now. The room is still, listening to the words. Moved. Drawn in by the spell of it. On the verge of tears, and then laughing.

And then, Chris says,

I love to make people laugh, and I love to make people cry, but what I want is for someone to read my books and go, Yeah, I get it."

That spiritual connection, the "what is the book about." And he's sharing with us the moment he realized "Deadline" was about grief.

He's telling us the story of a child he encountered dealing with grief, and those of us in the room are rocked to our cores.

"The language of grief, and hard times can be pretty rugged, and we as writers need to tell them in their native tongue."

And one of Chris' best tips:

"If you're going to go down the tragic road, you want to go just as far down the comic road," explaining that you need to balance them out.

The room is up on their feet - an incredible opening keynote!

The SCBWI Photoblog!

2012-01-28T06:12:00.000-08:00

Have you been taking great photos of your friends at the New York conference? Post them to the first-ever photoblog.

It's easy:

From a mobile phone, share your photos via email by sending them to:

zeoliazb565@tumblr.com

(The body text of the email will become the caption, not the subject.)

Or, from a computer, click here!
Enjoy the photos, and (to be read in the voice of a stern mother) use your best judgment when you post.

Welcome to the 13th Annual SCBWI Conference from NYC

2012-01-28T06:06:00.001-08:00

The ballroom here at Hyatt Grand Central is thrumming, anticipating the start of the 13th Annual NYC conference.

Co-founder, Stephen Mooser, welcomes the room and is disappointed about the lack of a standing ovation. My guess is that he'll be receiving one soon.

The room is filled with lucky attendees who didn't get shut out of the excitement, as the conference sold out two weeks ago. For those of you who were not able to join us, we're so glad that you can here on the official conference blog.

A warm welcome to Steve's co-founder, Lin Oliver. Within one sentence Lin has the room in stitches.

Who are the lucky 1148 attending?

301 are published

847 aspiring

392 woman

76 men

The rest are "unknown"

857 writers

400-and-something illustrators

From 19 countries

Representing 49 of the 50 states

Lin just informed the room that following the panel there will be a SPECIAL GUEST! *gasp* Stay tuned here to find out who it is.

We hope you'll say hello in the comments as we make our way through the weekend, and follow along on twitter. The official hashtag is #ny12scbwi.

Marketing Intensive for Illustrators - Reaching the Picture Book Audience

2012-01-27T15:00:00.000-08:00

Jed Bennett of Penguin, Deb Shapiro, principal of the new Deb Shapiro & Co., a PR, marketing and consulting firm, and Michelle Fadlalla of Simon & Schuster spoke to the attending illustrators about how to help sync their personal marketing efforts with the efforts of their book's publishers.

Great tip from Michelle: SimonandSchuster.net is a site targeting librarians and teachers, so the marketing elements and lead books on that site may be different from what you might see on bookseller or retail driven SimonandSchuster.com. I think developing separate marketing materials for the same book where appropriate is a wonderfully clever idea all authors or illustrators could take to heart for their grassroots marketing efforts, AND THIS IS JUST THE FIRST OF MANY GREAT IDEAS!

I'm so thrilled with the way the Marketing Intensive for Illustrators turned out. Here are two more tips, and then we'll go on radio silence until the conference officially starts tomorrow morning!!

Super tip from Deb: Any awesome marketing ideas you have are great, great! But the real question is how are you going to effectively disseminate all that information? Know this before you go nuts on, say, a blimp advertising scheme and you remember, as you are boarding that big GOODYEAR, that you are allergic to helium. And heights.

Final helper from Jed: Look first to the communities you are already involved with and use your connections, you never know where you could have a fantastic book event. If you sell 200 books to your Zumba Support Group in the basement of your local Y, and not to unknown kids at a children's book store, it doesn't matter! You've still sold 200 books, and for Jed, that's the goal.

Writers Roundtable Intensive Afternoon Panel: Editorial Process: Model for Authors/Editors

2012-01-27T14:00:00.000-08:00

After the afternoon roundtable critique, we were treated to an expert panel on the editorial process.

With Tina Wexler, Agent at International Creative Management

Jordan Brown, Senior Editor, Walden Pond Press and Balzer + Bray at HarperCollins Children's Books

Alexandra Penfold, Editor, Paula Wiseman Books at Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

and

Kate Sullivan, Editor, Little Brown Books for Young Readers

Tina Wexler (at podium) moderating panelists Jordan Brown (left), Alexandra Penfold (center) and Kate Sullivan (right)

The panel covered a lot of territory, from acquiring books versus authors, preparing authors for that first editorial letter, the importance of managing your online reputation, author input into cover design, and even a description of their editorial letters!

Here are some highlights:

"An editor's job is to take what the author has in their head and help them get it on the page in the best way possible."

- Jordan Brown

Speaking of the acquisitions process, Kate Sullivan said, "At Little Brown we have a saying, Do you like this book or do you want to marry this book?"

And Alexandra Penfold offered this tip: "Google yourself and make sure it's what you want agents and editors to see with your submission."

An excellent panel, and the perfect conclusion to the Writers Roundtable Intensive!

Part II: Marketing Intensive for Professional Writers

2012-01-27T13:18:00.001-08:00

Here are some afternoon highlights for you. Enjoy!

Working collaboratively with Publishers: What Should You Do and What Should They Do? with Cindy Tamasi Hamilton, director of publicity at HarperCollins and Tracy van Straaten, vice president of publicity at Scholastic.

Cindy Tamasi Hamilton: It's a myth that printed national press is the way to go. There are niche magazines for everything, and these can often sell more books.

Tracy van Straaten: For any book, the coverage available in general print media is limited. Within that, the space for children's book coverage is smaller. But there are more opportunities online than ever before.

Jointly, they shared five simple rules for navigating the publishing road:

Set realistic goals. You're not going to be on national TV with your first novel.
Trust your publisher. They want you to succeed as much as you do.
No two publishers are alike, no two marketing campaigns are alike. (Don't compare your book/campaign to someone else's!)
Publishing is a partnership between you and the publisher. There is no such thing as no publicity.
Always keep your publisher/publicist aware of your own marketing/publicity efforts. Ask questions before you start so you don't duplicate efforts.

Panel: Tweet, Promote and Brand Your Way to Marketing Success: Strategies and Real World Scenarios

Lin Oliver and Theo Baker show the trailer for SOUND BENDER.

Susan Raab, president Raab Associates, Inc. – Niche marketing can be an amazing tool. They put a Jane Yolen picture book about water into the Water Journal and sold thousands of copies.

Roxie Munro – Develop a niche for yourself. She does nonfiction and concept books. There are times when she has to say no to a project because it doesn’t fit her brand. She has a couple of apps out—adores doing them. The app has her name in the title—it’s reinforcing and developing her brand.

Tracy Barrett: She contributes to three blogs, a middle grade blog, a history and science blog, and a personal one chronicling her last year at her day job, where she looks at the financial and psychological aspects of becoming a full-time writer. “I had no idea I had a brand until a sixth grader asked me why all my books were historical.”

Lin Oliver: What kind of promotion can you do on the cheap? She rattled off a list of things she and her son, Theo, are doing to promote their science fiction novel SOUND BENDER. Here are a few:

Throw yourself a launch party. Feed your guests and invite your author friends to talk about their new books, too.
Produced trailer with stock footage.
Build or commission a website.
Speak at bookstores, but coordinate with school visit so you have attendees.
Develop a curriculum hook (they talk about nature of sound, tied in with science curriculum)
Know the name of every single person who works at your publisher and you should be really nice ot them and thank them for everything they do. (publicity, marketing, school and library services, etc.

New Directions in Publicity, Emerging Trends, with Jason Kintzler, founder of PitchEngine
Don't get wrapped up in the numbers of Facebook fans you have. Even if it's only two people who care, that's great. They'll talk about you. Each time you share something on your FB page, only 10 percent of your fans see it. Ever wonder why you follow things and never see stuff like that again? You fix that by paying them money.

How Did It Go? Impressions from the Writers Roundtable Intensive

2012-01-27T13:04:00.000-08:00

The agents and editors sitting at each table are a who's-who of Children's Literature... and one of the most exciting aspects of this day is getting immediate feedback from them on your work. No waiting for weeks, or months. No pitch, or query letter, or assistant who needs to read it first. Just your 500 words, and their honest (and kind) and helpful critique.

The faculty participating, including and of the caliber of Michelle Nagler, Samantha McFerrin, Nancy Conescu, Tina Wexler, Jordan Brown, Alexandra Penfold and Kate Sullivan!

Truly an amazing opportunity. Here are some post-critique thoughts by some of the Writers Roundtable Intensive attendees:

"It makes you realize how every word counts."

-Cynthia Shannon

"The caliber of writing at the table was really impressive, and I was encouraged to be among such great writers."

-Kathy Higgs-Couthard

"I'm no longer scared to put myself out there. The editor told me what I needed to know, which is what I came for."

-Yvonne Hagan

"Listening to the editor's critique to everyone else I learned so much. And of course I learned a lot from her critique of my work, too."

- Cathy Elliott

"It's a much more safe place to put forth your work than I thought going into it. Very constructive criticism and very helpful. I think it's invaluable."

- Jay Apking

First Time At The Writers Roundtable Intensive: Carol Fitzgibbons

2012-01-27T10:35:00.000-08:00

I asked Carol about her experience after the morning's critique session:

The Writers Roundtable Intensive... Our Morning Panel on Voice and Critique Advice

2012-01-27T09:44:00.000-08:00

Lin Oliver started things off by praising all of us Writers Roundtable Intensive attendees for being here,acknowledging how it's “a very brave thing” to put your work forward, andsaying “today begins the hard work of writing.”

Sometimes the work you brought is ready… and sometimes it's not, and youneed to be open and curious about where your path might take you.

Lin shared the inspiring story of Ruta Sepetys., who three yearsago attended this Writers Roundtable Intensive, and received a verydisappointing response to her YA. One of her critiquers suggested that maybe that novel wasn’t really inRuta’s voice. Did she haveanything else? Well, she did, andRuta started working on it. It has since been published, and this year "Between Shades of Gray" is an enormous criticaland commercial success. So forRuta, the Writers Roundtable Intensive three years ago was a turning point, just not in the way she ever expected going into it.

And with that sage bit of advice and inspiration, Lin introducedthe morning panelists on voice:

Samantha McFerrin, Editor, Harcourt Children’s Books,Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Nancy Conescu, Executive Editor, Dial Books for YoungReaders

Michelle Nagler, Editorial Director, Bloomsbury Children’sBooks

Lin Oliver (far left, standing) moderates the panel on Voice. The panelists are Samantha McFerrin (left), Nancy Conescu (center) and Michelle Nager (right)

Each editor read an example of voice from a book they’dedited, and explained what it was about it that grabbed them.

They discussed authorial voice vs. character voice, andcovered a number of things to beware of when crafting your voice, includingavoiding adult knowledge inserted in where it doesn’t belong, the issue of pop culture references, and knowing your details and getting them right.

A great tip for “writing in your groove” that came up:

Readyour manuscript out loud

The panelists and Lin shared their advice on participatingin the critiques, including:

Don't defend yourself or talk during your critique - listening is so important.

Take notes - something may resonate for you later

Stay open

Overall it was a fascinating panel and a great introduction to the morning's roundtable critiques.

Illustrators Intensive - Sophie Blackall - Crossing Over to New Audiences

2012-01-27T09:08:00.000-08:00

Sophie Blackall is teasing us with a photo of her home country, a sunny beach on the blue waters of Australia.

Sophie has always been a bit of a multi-jobber, she describes herself as ILLUSTRATOR, ETC. She’s done fine art painting while moonlighting in scientific medical illustration. Taking design courses while playing with oil paints. Making editorial illustrations for business papers while also doing zodiac drawings for horoscopes.

And Sophie’s lack of job focus has made her the phenom we know and love. I had NO IDEA: that because of an illustration of Sophie’s that Meg Rosoff saw in an airline magazine, Meg eventually hired her for 9 animated detergent commercials in England, which resulted in a relationship with Meg and some of my favorite books were born—MEET WILD BOARS series!

With Sophie’s first picture book job, RUBY'S WISH, things started to get rolling in the book department, but Sophie still wanted to make and paint things that don't fit literally or figuratively in picture books.

It won the Ezra Jack Keats Award! Buy! Buy! Buy! http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780811834902

Besides making picture books, Sophie also loves to do all sorts of wild art and sculpture, painting on walls, on photographs, plates, making skeleton families, collaborating with mega-pop stars, holding collage-ish workshops in Spain, making art for the subway:

“Being an illustrator is a mostly wonderful thing... you get to choose to draw anything... set your own hours... atrophy in your basement while compulsively blogging.”

“To combat this, I leave Brooklyn once a week to go into Manhattan to see the world and meet with people.”

It was on one of these trips that Sophie learned about Missed Connections. If you don’t know about these, STOP reading this trifling blog and go see her site right now!

Sophie posted Missed Connections for free online, and when she wanted to try and get them published in a book together, many said no one would want to pay for something that was already available for free, but TWELVE PUBLISHERS wanted that book.

I love Sophie’s Golden Rule: IF YOU LIKE DOING SOMETHING, FIND A WAY TO MAKE IT YOUR WORK.

There's an opera singer singing in the conference room next to ours, which is kind of a fittingly unrelated way to end Sophie's session, just one more beautiful, unexpected note.

Highlights from the Writers' Marketing Intensive

2012-01-27T08:17:00.000-08:00

It's hard to choose just one highlight per speaker--everyone has had remarkable insights and tips. But, alas, that's all we can reveal from this remarkable day.

From the social media panel:

Deb Shapiro, founder of Deb Shapiro & Co. She advises patience. "It takes a long time to build and develop a fanbase. More often than not, the authors you see who were quite successful, itdid take them some time."

Susan Raab, president, Raab Associates: Ask yourself: Who is your market. Teens? Educational market? Go whereyour market is, and find out what they want by following them.

Sarah Dickman: “Facebook is a black hole. It’s taking everything. You haveto be on there—really.”

From Darcy Pattison's book trailer presentation:

Darcy Pattison talks about book trailers and what works.

In book trailers, the idea matters more than anything. Very specific, concrete details make things memorable. You are looking for things to add into your trailer that are specific and concrete. Also, "go for the emotional response." (And humor plays really well, if it's appropriate for your story.)

From Promote Yourself Via Curriculum & School Visits with Nick Glass and Deborah Hochman Turvey:

Nick Glass: Prepare classes before school visits. It makes it better when they’veprepared the way you want them to prepare. They can read the book, do activities beforehand. Other things, like reader's theater scripts can be effective if your contract allows it. Readers want to know how you work, where you get your ideas, etc.

Deborah Hochman Turvey: There are a lot of little things you can do to prepare for a school visit: Get directions to the school, be nice to the school secretary, beflexible, bring Sharpies, bring books--and prepare for nothing to work.

From Developing Effective Websites with Madee James owner of Xuni.com:

Among other things, Madee shared a bunch of handy website "don'ts." Does your site break any of her rules?

Don't have an unprofessional design.
Don't have a cluttered, cutesy navigation.
Don't let your site's content or look get out of date.
Don't design it entirely in Flash--search engines can't find you.
Don't have your book trailer or music playautomatically.
Don’t put book spoilers on your site.
Don’t include images that aretoo big in terms of file size.

Illustrators Intensive -Dan Santat -

2012-01-27T08:01:00.000-08:00

Here's Dan eating a baked good and drawing in his sketchbook yesterday morning after signing a load of books at Books of Wonder. If you know Dan, you know he's always nanoseconds away from either completing final art for a project, doing a promotional something or other for one of his published books, or eating a baked good. Here he's doing two out of three (THAT WE CAN SEE.)

This morning, Dan's telling us how to market ourselves early on in our careers and on a limited budget.

#1 Utilize free image sites like Tumblr, or Flickr to get your work out there, including final art spreads that are sneak peeks at your soon-to-be-published picture books. Dan likens it to seeing a Cinnabon sign at the mall. The more you see the sign, the more you think you want to stuff your face with undercooked dough smothered in cream cheese icing... or a picture book. Also, art directors and editors like to look on Tumblr/Flickr, you're not only promoting your books, you're potentially reaching people who want to hire you.

#2 Build a network of peers Dan really enjoyed doing Illustration Friday and thinks commenting on other sites, and commenting on your own site's comments is a courteous and important thing to do every week.

#6 If you build it they will come, but you constantly have to show them the door Dan credits John Tesh as the website genius that makes Dan's website genius. Dan repeats themes on his website (like his clone photo series, he says each photo only takes about 20 minutes and is a good way to practice Photoshop.) Dan also has a special sketchbook that he sells original pages from on his Tumblr site

Dan's the king of viral marketing (which maybe most of us need approval for, but if you are as good as Dan, you can probably go for it!)

#10 You can do as much social networking that you want, but if your work isn't up to par, you aren't going to make it.

#11 is maybe the essence of Dan: Take what you have and do more with it, Dan says he's really not a good and helpful person that gives 150% in every flipping avenue, but he does. He practices what he preaches in dealing with family, friends, students, kids, librarians, booksellers, the media, cats.

#12-#15 Are some really juicy tips about how illustrators can use Facebook to get work!

Illustrators Intensive - John Rocco - New Methods for Promoting Your Book

2012-01-27T07:20:00.000-08:00

David Diaz introduces the still-high-on-Caldecott-fumes John Rocco as our first speaker for the morning!

He's got some great tips for illustrators. The first few might be tough to do, though:

John Rocco's Self Marketing & Promoting Your Book in Three Easy Steps

1. Win a Caldecott
2. While waiting for step 1, add the word "licious" to the end of your title
3. Change your name to Mo*

BUY! BUY! BUY! http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781423121909/john-rocco/blackout

And while you wait for the legal name change papers required for Step 3 to be approved, why not spend your time making promotional materials that shine instead of researching the yacht you will buy with your Caldecott royalties? If you have a new book coming out, here're a few things John does right off the bat:

Step 4. Make a website! Put your new book on it!

Step 5. Create a book trailer. John has an entertainment background, so he thought he could "make the hell out of a trailer!" But bells and whistles aren't always what make for a good trailer. He shares two with us. John says the trailer for BLACKOUT is the simplest trailer he's ever made, and it's really stunning:

John says to make a trailer all you need are Photoshop and iMovie, or a flip camera, or your iPhone—simple(ish) tools that most illustrators have access to. (The FLINTHEART trailer was made using AfterEffects.) Licensing the music in FLINTHEART cost John $35 and Candlewick did reimburse him for it.

Put your trailer on your web page, but not just a Quicktime movie, make sure it's the Youtube version so it can be shared. iMovie exports directly to Youtube.**

Be sure you put your web address in the trailer itself as well as its release date, people will want to know where to see more.

He talks about Step 6. Branding, Step 7. Making your own promotional materials, and Step 8. Doing themed events or group events.

Step 12. My favorite takeaway from John's talk: is the free takeaway. He prints out really lovely one-sheets with a short bio as well as images of his book covers and info about each of them, plus his web address. John knows there is a lot of pressure at book events for people to feel like they have to buy a book to get to talk to the author/illustrator. John provides these one-sheets for people to have something to come up and get from his signing table, and who knows, maybe someday they'll buy a book because of something they saw on that one-sheet. And there are rare instances when your books AREN'T at your scheduled book event, so it's a great thing to have something to give the audience.***

Thanks, John!

*But not if your last name is Lest.
** And space.
*** Other than your spleen.

Marketing Intensive for Professional Writers

2012-01-27T06:41:00.000-08:00

Susan Raab talking to writers at the marketing intensive.

Those of us who are in this intensive session have a huge day ahead, and while we're not going to share all of the details on the blog, we'll give a few highlights as the day progresses. But we can share the schedule, so you see how information-packed this sort of thing is:

Using Social Media to Your Best Advantage, with Sarah Dickman of Odyl.net; Susan Raab, president of Raab Associates; and Deb Shapiro, founder of Deb Shapiro & Co.

Creating Book Trailers & Other Random Acts of Promotion, with Darcy Pattison.

Promote Yourself via School Curriculum & Visits, with Nick Glass, founder of teachingbooks.net and Deborah Hochman Turvey, founder of Visitingauthors.com.

Developing Effective Websites, with Maddee James, owner of Xuni.com.

Working Collaboratively with Publishers: What Should You Do and What Should They Do, with Cindy Tamasi Hamilton, director of publicity at Harper Collins; and Tracy van Straaten, vice president of publicity at Scholastic.

Tweet, Promote and Brand Your Way to Marketing Success: Strategies and Real World Scenarios, with Tracy Barrett, author; Roxie Munro, author/illustrator; Lin Oliver, author/SCBWI co-founder, Susan Raab, president of Raab Associates, Inc.

New Directions in Publicity, Emerging Trends, with Jason Kintzler, founder of PitchEngine.

Where Next? Multimedia, Mobile, Electronic and Game Platform, with Jon Fine, director of author and publisher relations at Amazon.com; Michel Kripalani, president Oceanhouse Media; and Peter Reynolds, founder of Fablevision.com.

Marketing Intensive for Illustrators - Opening Remarks

2012-01-27T06:39:00.000-08:00

Cecilia Yung says howdydo and shares with us all a new way to think about the work we do and how we might benefit from thinking of ourselves as a corporation*. She likes Dan Santat's self-proclaimed CEO status.

Cecilia says—

The reality is: published books jostle one another for space on a children's bookstore bookshelf.

Being a brilliant illustrator is just the beginning,
Being visible is another important step,
Being smart is the most important step to success in children's book illustration.

Since most of you have one pair of hands, 24 hours in your day, and let's face it, limited funds, being smart is making sure that you are the CEO of your company, and that every single one of your books will contribute to your success by thinking of each of your books as an employee. And marketing is what you do as a CEO to make sure your books work around the clock to bring you success.

*I would like to talk to my corporation about how some people always forget to clean the coffee pot thoroughly.

Friday Intensives Start... Now!

2012-01-27T05:52:00.000-08:00

Writers and Illustrators arriving and checking in for the sold out day of intensives!

The energy is palpable at reception.

Writers and Illustrators are gathering from all over the world.

The Illustrators Marketing Intensive room filling up

Writers taking their seats at the Writers Marketing Intensive

Writers finding their tables at the Writers Roundtable Intensive

To dig deep for knowledge.

To soar with new understanding and skills.

And Team Blog is here. We'll be sharing some highlights and impressions from each of the three sessions:

The Writers Roundtable

The Writers Marketing Intensive

and The Illustrators Marketing Intensive.

Illustrate and Write and Let's get our Conference On!

Friday and Saturday Night Events at #NY12SCBWI

2012-01-22T16:12:00.000-08:00

The Lucky 13th Annual SCBWI Winter Conference is sold out - and if you're fortunate enough to attend, you may be wondering what's going on the Friday and Saturday nights of the conference...

There will be plenty of craft, business and inspiration all weekend... and check out these four evening opportunities to immerse yourself further into our Community!

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

#NY12SCBWI Pre-Conference Interview with Ken Wright

2012-01-19T07:39:00.000-08:00

SCBWI Team Blog member Suzanne Young interviews Writers House Agent Ken Wright on his upcoming conference sessions on non-fiction, what agents and published writers can gain from attending conferences like the Lucky 13th Annual SCBWI Winter Conference, and much more.

The conference is sold out, so if you didn't get a chance to attend, make sure to follow along with the live blogging here at the Official SCBWI Conference Blog, and the stream of tweets on twitter with the hashtag #NY12SCBWI.

And if you are fortunate enough to be attending the Lucky 13th Annual SCBWI Winter Conference, we look forward to seeing you in New York!

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

#NY12SCBWI Pre-Conference Interview with John Rocco

2012-01-18T06:00:00.000-08:00

I was fortunate to interview John Rocco, who will be leading and participating in three sessions at the upcoming Lucky 13th Annual SCBWI Winter Conference - a keynote at the Friday January 27th Marketing for Illustrators Intensive, "New Methods of Promoting Your Book: Trailers, Co-Op Marketing and More," he'll be on a panel that afternoon in the same Intensive called "Is Self-Marketing Cost Effective? Wise Use of Your Money and Time" and he's presenting in the Sunday January 29th keynote: "Methods to the Madness: The Process of Making Picture books, Featuring the Bookmakers Dozen."

John shares a ton of great information, including secrets of designing cover art, the power of illustrators to portray diversity, and his favorite book trailers!

You can still sign up to see John and avail yourself of ALL that #NY12SCBWI has to offer... but act fast - Registration for the conference closes today Wednesday January 18, 2012 at 5pm PST. (It's on the cusp of selling out!)

We hope to see you there,

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

#NY12SCBWI Pre-Conference Interview with Selina Alko

2012-01-17T09:53:00.000-08:00

Check out this wonderful interview by Team Blog's Jaime Temairik with Selina Alko, one of the Bookmaker's Dozen who will speaking at the Lucky 13th Annual SCBWI Winter Conference in New York City!

Registration for the conference is only open for ONE MORE DAY, closing Wednesday January 18, 2012 at 5pm PST. (It's selling out fast!)

We hope to see you there,

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

#NY12SCBWI Pre-Conference Plate Design by Dan Santat and Peter Brown!

2012-01-14T17:24:00.000-08:00

SCBWI Team Blogger and Illustrator Jaime Temairik has thought out of the box on this pre-conference interview, way out of the box, and it's genius! She connects with former pair figure-skaters (author/illustrators) and #NY12SCBWI faculty Peter Brown and Dan Santat to get their balanced career diet info.

It's funny, and inspiring, and very thought-provoking. After all, what would YOUR balanced career diet be?

It's not too late to register to see Dan and Peter / Peter and Dan yourself at the Lucky 13th Annual SCBWI Winter Conference in New York City, January 27-29, 2012!

We hope to see you there.

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

#NY12SCBWI Pre-Conference Interview with Cheryl Klein

2012-01-09T06:00:00.000-08:00

...In which Martha Brockenbrough chats with Scholastic Editor Cheryl Klein about Cheryl's upcoming breakout sessions on revision on the Saturday January 28, 2012 of the conference.

And it's a testament to Cheryl's genius on the subject that just from reading this interview, I have a whole new inspiration for my current revision (Defining my story "Points," and putting them at the top of my to-do revision list!)

I've seen Cheryl speak before, and I can't wait to learn more from her! You can, too - Registration for the Lucky 13th Annual SCBWI Winter Conference is still open.

Hope to see you there!

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

#NY12SCBWI Pre-Conference Interview With Ari Lewin

2012-01-06T13:48:00.000-08:00

Check out my super-informative and fun interview with the delightful Ari Lewin, executive editor at G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers!

We cover a ton of ground, about Ari's upcoming breakout sessions on writing Fantasy on the Saturday January 28, 2012 of the conference, about prologues, and business cards, trends and Hollywood-style pitches, and so much more!

It all really fired me up to attend Ari's session myself - and you can, too. Registration for the Lucky 13th Annual SCBWI Winter Conference is still open.

Hope to see you there!

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

#NY12SCBWI Pre-Conference Interview with Tracy van Straaten

2012-01-04T06:00:00.000-08:00

Team Blog member Martha Brockenbrough interviewed Scholastic Publicity and Marketing VP Tracy van Straaten in the run-up to our Lucky 13th Annual SCBWI Winter Conference in New York City, coming up January 27-29, 2012. The photo Martha ran is Tracy in her Halloween costume as Lisa Yee's Peepy, which clearly shows this professional loves her job.

They discuss the responsibility authors have for marketing our own books, and some of Tracy's answers are surprising...

"I think one of the bigger myths out there right now is that publishers expect the authors to take on all of the marketing for their books."

Their discussion also touches on a few kid lit marketing what-NOT-to-dos and what you really should do. It makes me even more excited about Tracy's presentation (along with Cindy Tamasi Hamilton, Director of Publicity, Harper Collins) at the "Marketing for Professional Writers" Intensive on Friday January 27, 2012, "Working Collaboratively with Publishers: What Should You Do and What Should They Do?"

You can read the interview at Martha's blog. It's another taste of the great stuff served up at the upcoming Lucky 13th Annual SCBWI Winter Conference. You can still register here.

Hope to see you in New York.

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

#NY12SCBWI Pre-Conference Interview with Barbara Marcus

2012-01-03T08:46:00.000-08:00

I had the honor of interviewing Kid Lit book marketing expert Barbara Marcus, who will be presenting on the Saturday morning of the upcoming #NY12SCBWI Conference as part of a super-star panel exploring "Children's Books, Today and Tomorrow: Four Expert Impressions."

Barbara is Strategic Innovations Advisor to Penguin Books USA focusing in the area of new ventures and new publishing opportunities and Advisor to Open Road Integrated Media in the area of children's digital publishing. She is on the Board of Knowledge Adventure, a children’s software and technology company and Media Source, a children’s books direct marketing company and publisher of Library Journal and School Library Journal. Prior to that, she was President, Scholastic Children’s Book Publishing and Distribution where she was responsible for children’s consumer book publishing and distribution in the United States. After acquiring J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone for publication in the United States in 1998, Barbara led the publishing effort for six out of the seven Harry Potter titles.

We discuss what made "Harry Potter" so successful, the future of e-books for kids and teens, how concerned we authors and illustrators should be about building a "brand," and much more!

You can check out the full interview here.

I know Barbara's answers made me even more eager to attend her conference presentation, and you can as well. Registration for the Lucky 13th Annual SCBWI Winter Conference is open, and we hope to see you there!

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

#NY12SCBWI Pre-Conference Interview with Jean Feiwel

2011-12-20T14:23:00.000-08:00

SCBWI Team Blog's Jolie Stekly interviews Senior Vice President and Publishing Director of MacMillian Jean Feiwel over at Jolie's Cuppa Jolie blog. I loved Jean's answer to what's the one element that has to be there for a manuscript to be acquired...

Jean will be presenting as part of "Children's Books, Today and Tomorrow: Four Expert Impressions" on the Saturday, January 28 of the Lucky 13th Annual SCBWI Winter Conference in New York City.

Registration for the conference is open, and we hope to see you there!

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

#NY12SCBWI Pre-Conference Interview with Nancy Paulson

2011-12-14T06:00:00.000-08:00

I'm delighted to share that I interviewed Nancy Paulsen, President and Publisher of her own imprint, Nancy Paulsen Books, at the Penguin Young Readers Group, in the run-up to her Saturday morning of the conference, January 28, 2012 presentation as part of "Children's Books: Today and Tomorrow: Four Expert Impressions."

We covered her list (picture books and novels) and how she builds it, trends, what she's looking for, and she shares some excellent advice for conference-goers and writers of children's literature.

And for illustrators, it's great to hear that one of the highlights of attending conferences like the Lucky 13th Annual SCBWI Winter Conference in New York City for Nancy is checking out YOUR work... and Nancy tells us about another SCBWI success story. Two, in fact!

You can read the interview here.

And you can see Nancy in person - Registration for the #NY12SCBWI conference is open.

We hope to see you there!

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

#NY12SCBWI Pre-Conference Interview with Ginger Knowlton

2011-12-13T07:40:00.000-08:00

Team Blog's Jolie Stekly interviews agent Ginger Knowlton!

Ginger, an agent at Curtis Brown LTD, will be taking the stage on Sunday January 29, 2012 as part of "The Current Market For Your Work: Four Agents' Views" Presentation at the Lucky 13th Annual SCBWI Winter Conference in New York City.

Their interview covers some excellent advice for conference-goers, strategies and tips on submissions, and the all-important 'how do you know when your work is ready to submit?'

And Ginger knows her stuff: her list includes Newbery Medalists, Newbery Honor and Printz Honor winners, Edgar and Lambda winners, a Sibert and Orbis Pictus winner and New York Times bestsellers!

There's even another SCBWI success story in their interview, and you can read it here!

And you can see Ginger yourself at #NY12SCBWI. Registration is open, and we hope to see you there!

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

#NY12SCBWI Pre-Conference Interview with Rubin Pfeffer

2011-12-01T07:42:00.000-08:00

Team Blog's Martha Brockenbrough interviews agent Rubin Pfeffer to get the inside scoop on his E-books and Apps Breakout workshops on the conference Saturday - January 28, 2012.

Rubin is a veteran of the children’s and adult trade industry, a visionary who's working on - as they used to refer to it when I was in grad school - the "bleeding edge of technology." He has served as President and Publisher of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, SVP and Chief Creative Officer of Pearson, and as SVP, Publisher of Children’s Books for Simon & Schuster. Pfeffer joined the East West Literary Agency in December 2009, as a partner and established the Boston base of the agency. He works with such luminary talents as Patricia MacLachlan, Marion Dane Bauer, Steven Kellogg, Susan Cooper, Judy Sierra, David Diaz, Richard Jesse Watson, Jesse Joshua Watson, Jeff Mack, Mike Austin, and a host of other published and new talents. In addition, he consults regularly on digital content for the Ruckus Media Group.

In the interview, Rubin also put out a call for readers to nominate our favorite book apps in the comments, so he can share and build on what we all have to say when he does his presentations. See how innovative and cutting edge he is?

So head on over to Martha's blog and check it out. It's a taste of one more amazing offering at the upcoming Lucky 13th Annual Winter Conference. You can find out more and register here.

Hope to see you in New York.

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

#NY12SCBWI Pre-Conference Interview with Darcy Pattison

2011-11-14T08:22:00.001-08:00

Team Blog's Martha Brockenbrough interviews Darcy Pattison about her keynote presentation in the upcoming Marketing For Professional Writers Intensive.

Darcy's a well-published author and teacher (the shrunken manuscript revision technique is hers), video book trailer enthusiast, and the mind behind the Random Acts of Publicity week. It's a great interview, and poses a good question: If we can't call them "book trailers" - which evidently has been trademarked - what should we call them? Read the interview at Martha's blog here.

Thanks Martha and Darcy!

You can register to see Darcy's keynote, "Creating Book Trailers and Other Random Acts of Promotion," and to attend the whole Lucky 13th Annual Winter Conference here.

Hope to see you there.

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

All about the Writers Intensives at the Upcoming 2012 SCBWI Winter Conference!

2011-11-10T10:45:00.001-08:00

I expanded last week's conversation with Lin Oliver, SCBWI's Executive Director, to find out more about the two different writers intensives the Friday before the full 2012 SCBWI Winter Conference.

The Roundtable Intensive for Writers is a chance to share your work with (and get immediate feedback from) editors and agents. (And it sells out every year.)

And new for this conference, there's a Marketing For Professional Writers Intensive. In our video, Lin explains more:

You can register now for the Illustrator's Marketing Intensive and the whole Lucky 13th Annual SCBWI Winter Conference!

Hope to see you there.

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

All About The New Full Day Illustrator's Marketing Intensive on January 27, 2012

2011-11-03T11:31:00.000-07:00

I got to sit down with Lin Oliver, SCBWI's Executive Director, and learn why the new Illustrator's Marketing Intensive coming up on the Friday before the full 2012 SCBWI Winter Conference isn't just going to be great - it's going to be essential.

You can register now for the Illustrator's Marketing Intensive and the whole Lucky 13th Annual SCBWI Winter Conference!

Hope to see you there.

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

Winter Conference Registration Opens Monday!

2011-10-15T15:16:00.000-07:00

Registration for the SCBWI 2012 Winter Conference begins Monday, October 17th, 2011 at 10AM PDT.

Click here for registration.

The Annual Winter Conference features a huge line-up of stars and decision-makers from the world of children's book publishing. Whether you're an illustrator or a writer, whether your genre is picture books, middle grade, or young adult, you can't afford to miss this spectacular chance to meet and network with the major players in publishing for young readers!

Plus we've added a third pre-conference intensive on January 27th-Marketing for Professional Writers--and that, along with our Writers' Roundtable Intensive and Marketing for Illustrators Intensive are sure to fill up fast. We have also added a Gala Cocktail party on January 28th so people can mingle with publishing professionals, regional advisors and other attendees, as well as enjoying a free drink and food.

The conference will take place from January 27th-29th at the Hyatt Regency Grand Central in New York City.

And be sure to watch this conference blog for exciting interviews with faculty members and other 2012 Winter Conference news from SCBWI's terrific TEAM BLOG.

Farewell & Thank You from TEAM BLOG

2011-08-11T08:28:00.000-07:00

TEAM BLOG supporting its captain

On behalf of SCBWI TEAM BLOG (Martha Brockenbrough, Lee Wind, Jaime Temairik, Suzanne Young, Jolie Stekly, and yours truly), thanks to everyone who visited to read our conference coverage. (I encourage you to continue to peruse the blog--there's tons of great info here!)

Thanks also to all the conference-goers who stopped by our table to chat and stopped us in the halls--we appreciate all the great feedback. And we truly appreciate the opportunity to bring the extraordinary 40th Annual SCBWI Summer Conference to you.

We'll see you in New York for the Annual Winter Conference January 27-29, 2012! (Check scbwi.org for details closer to the event).

--Alice

Go TEAM!! (l to r: Jolie, Lee, Martha, Jaime, Alice, Suzanne)

My Experience at Arthur Levine's Monday Intensive: Chapter One: The Great First Date of Your Novel

2011-08-10T23:25:00.000-07:00

Arthur Levine, out-of-this-world editor and award-winning author, took twenty-seven authors out on a most-amazing first date. For Arthur this date was blind, not knowing who he'd meet until our first chapters hit his inbox. For us, we knew we were getting ready to meet the hottest guy around. I'm sure it's safe to say there was a whole lot of first-date jitters as we gathered and made eye contact with Arthur in the Pacific Room.

Thankfully, as soon as Arthur smiled and made us laugh, we all relaxed into the experience. And what an experience it was.

Arthur shared, with his many dates, ways in which a first chapter is like a first date. It really all boiled down to the question: Does your first chapter lead with, "This is what you're going to love about this me [this book]"?

Then things got personal. Very personal.

It was amazing to watch Arthur at work, as we all shared our beginning pages. The way he pinpointed what was working and what was not was a treat to listen to and learn from. We were then all asked to state what was our "best foot forward." Did we lead with it? Or something else? Did we begin in the right spot? Should it have been earlier or later? And Arthur gave us his own take on each and every beginning.

As the date came to a close, I know none of us wanted it to end. The sign of a most successful date. It went so well, I'm really quite sure it ended with a hypothetical kiss.

MWAH, Arthur! You certainly led with what we love about you, and you delivered to the very end.

My Experience at the Monday Intensive for Illustrators

2011-08-08T18:00:00.000-07:00

L-R Kadir, hidden David, Paul, Richard, Marla and Jerry. Denise was looking for her acorn. The black and blue goody bags are not full of booze, I asked.

It's not hyperbole, Monday was the best day of my illustrating life. I didn't spend four years, or even one, in a traditional art school, so I don't know if this is standard procedure, but Monday was unlike anything I've every experienced.

The seven artists tapped to do this first-ever live demo format, I am beyond thankful they so freely shared their talents and thoughts with us. I am bowing down to our SCBWI Illustrator Committee and SCBWI headquarters for making this happen. Compared to other conferences and conventions, SCBWI internationals are cheap. And I happily admit I'd pay a bazillion more dollars to see another live demo day. Don't hesitate to fork over big bills to attend the next live-demo illustrator intensive. And if any of these people are teaching a class near you, be sure you sign up.

Other attendees are going to blog the crap out of today, I'm sure, but I can't do it justice. My brief notes are below:

Each artist answered technical and philosophical questions while they worked for about an hour on an art piece.

Paul showed us how he does a monochromatic/grisaille underpainting in watercolor before adding oil glazes on top.

Marla showed us how she gets her amazing dark lines, she also started one of her fifty color washes, and talked to us about problem solving in final art.

Richard made a mess. But then he made a beautiful painting out of it full of energy and color and a bit of egg tempera.

Kadir did a portrait of Dan Santat while we got up in his business. Lots of talk about the importance of making personal art and loving life.

Denise forgot her acorn. This is not a euphemism. She painted with paper pulp and did a teensy bit of swearing, but we were all completely mesmerized by her process and loved her and her final piece.

David sketched art director/Penguin Putnam VP Cecilia Yung before doing a sketch of himself and showing us how he retains life in his lines when moving from the exuberant pencil sketch to the finished ink drawing.

And Jerry sketched and painted me! No. It was a wild bird. Wait, that could still be me... Anyway.

He showed us how he uses photo reference to make his amazing animals and we watched his light watercolors build up to brilliant gorgeousness.

Jerry's painting in progress. I thought it was me he was painting— that bird and I use the same eyeshadow.

The day ended with a brief group Q&A. It was a bonhomie love fest.

One way we can say thank you to the seven artists who gave so much to us is to go out and buy a buttload of their books.

Paul's books on Indiebound

Richard's books on Indiebound

Marla's books on Indiebound

Jerry's books on Indiebound

Denise's books on Indiebound

Kadir's books on Indiebound

David's books on Indiebound

THANKS FOR THE BEST SUMMER CONFERENCE EVER!

My Experience at the Ellen Hopkins Writers Intensive: Writing Novels In Verse

2011-08-08T17:25:00.000-07:00

Every one of Ellen Hopkins' seven young adult novels in verse have hit the New York Times Bestseller lists, and there's a reason - they're powerful, compelling, and masterful. Every word seems perfectly chosen. Every poem is laid out on the page in a way that draws you in and then beyond the words. Every character is bared through their mind's lens.

And you can't stop reading because you have to know what happens next.

I didn't enter Ellen's intensive thinking 'I want to write a novel in verse,' but Ellen achieves intensely powerful emotions and her stories grab you and don't let go - and she does it with such economy and artistry. I had to see what I could learn, and then apply, to my own writing.

With worksheets and examples from her own work, she guided us through exercises that pulled out of us things about our characters that we'd never before considered. A few attendees read their poems out loud after the writing, and the level of accomplishment across the room was inspiring.

For one of the exercises, I re-worked the opening scene of my current MG work in progress, taking it from prose to verse. It was magical. Excess detail and repetition fell away, and character motivations leapt forward. The scene had so much more emotion and impact this way.

I raised my hand to share. As I read, the words felt so right. Spare, and still funny. Filled with emotion and conflict. So much more what I was hoping for. I was heartened by the laughter (in all the right places) and the kind encouragement from Ellen and my fellow workshop participants.

Now, I'm inspired to dive into my rewrite with this new way of telling my characters' story. Will it become a novel in verse? I'm not sure, but I do know that for me, this workshop was a huge creative breakthrough.

Thank you, Ellen. And thanks SCBWI for giving me - and the rest of the class - this incredible opportunity!

First Time Conference Attendee Renisha Ricks

2011-08-08T17:15:00.000-07:00

At the end of the Monday of intensives, I caught up with first time conference attendee Renisha Ricks to ask her about her experience...

Writing intensive: Lisa Yee on bullies and antagonists

2011-08-08T17:10:00.000-07:00

Lisa Yee, the hilarious and wonderful author of 10 novels for kids and young adults, made me cry during her session on bullies and antagonists.

But it wasn't on purpose.

She was just talking about the story she wrote for the DEAR BULLY anthology due out next month.

Her entry perfectly illustrated the importance of creating dimensional bullies: characters who have wants and needs, and who have reasons for harming those around them--getting as specific as identifying the day our antagonist was hurt badly enough to want to hurt others.

So, yes. Tears. But also lots of laughs as she walked us through the paces.

Lisa Yee

We started off with a rather thrilling promise: "We're going to tap into your evil side," she said.

And then we identified our favorite literary villains. Lord Voldemort, we love to hate you. The British press, meanwhile, really loves to hate Satan. They identified him--and not Camilla Parker Bowles (kidding! she's real!)--as literature's foulest villain. Which, when you think about it, seems kind of stereotypey.

We moved on to some key definitions:

A bully is a person who uses strength or power to harm or intimidate those who are weaker.

"Bully" started out as a good thing, she mentioned. Over the years, the definition morphed and it changed.

A villain is a person guilty of capable of crime or wickedness.

That word, she said, is French. A villain worked in the fields in a time when everyone wanted to be a knight. When bad things happened, they blamed the farm people. “A villain did that.” Mon dieu!

An antagonist, who could be a bully or a bad guy, is a person who actively opposes or is hostile to someone or something.

"Your antagonist in your story is going to be working against your protagonist," she said.

She shared with us seven story archetypes we writers use, from "man vs. himself" to "man vs. society," and we came up with examples of stories that fit each archetype.

Then she walked us through a couple of writing exercises: one in which we outlined a variety of characteristics we'd need to know about our antagonists (everything from their age, outward appearance, self-perception, wants and needs, as long as one word that best described them). We used that as the basis for a revealing paragraph about our antagonist.

My favorite part, and not just because I played a teen thief, was doing a Q&A with participants to figure out the characters' backstory and motivations. We then wrote a murder scene from three points of view--a third person, and first person from both the teen thief and her rich-lady murder victim. The effect was stunning. By having well developed characters with clear motivations, we ended up with richer writing that was more nuanced and compelling.

Lisa Yee
Follow Lisa on Twitter

Peepy looks scared because some participants did not survive Lisa's class.

Michelle Parker-Rock is the 2011 SCBWI Member of the Year!

2011-08-08T17:00:00.000-07:00

Regional Advisor for Arizona, Michelle Parker-Rock is the author of over a dozen books (including her most recent series, Authors Kids Love), a contributing writer to the SCBWI Bulletin, a tireless advocate and powerhouse volunteer!

Here we talk about her being honored as SCBWI Member of the Year:

Diane Muldrow: pacing the picture book

2011-08-08T16:07:00.000-07:00

Diane Muldrow

Diane Muldrow is the editorial director at Golden Books/Random House, editor of Little Golden Books, a sweet, classic line for preschoolers, and the author of the smart and elegant WE PLANTED A TREE (as well as many books about Barbie, Bambi, Pinocchio and other favorite characters).

She started off our intensive session on picture book pacing by sharing a little of her background, including the fact that she was once a professional dancer who performed au naturel on a famous New York stage.

“Anything is a cakewalk after you’ve performed naked,” she said.

Anything, perhaps, but picture-book pacing. During the three-hour master class, she shared a terrific list of tools we can use to make sure our manuscripts unfold in the right way on the page.

Pacing is a central challenge of picture books.

"You have to fit information and good storytelling and beautiful pictures into a very specific format."

Trade picture books are usually 32 pages, while Little Golden Books are 24, for example.

She encouraged us to take a trip to the bookstore or library and really study the formats, taking ownership over what we're writing.

“This is your lump of clay when you’re working on it. It belongs to you because it’s your idea. What I want to see more of … is when writer hopefuls don’t take enough ownership of their idea, let alone their manuscript," she said.

Once you've figured out your format, think in pictures, and don't be shy about including art notes that are essential to conveying your vision. (Non-essential ones are coincidental details, such as the color of a character's shoes when that is not of thematic significance.)

The best picture books come from thinking visually, she said--something most writers don't really do.

In addition, keep the page turns at the top of mind. “In a picture book, it’s all about the turning of the page,” she said. That's what gives a story its building sense of suspense, and what keeps the child on the lap--the one we're writing for--engaged.

As you work, consider using these tools:

Start your story with an opening spread (putting all the title information on that right-hand page).
Consider paging the story out as you go. Tip: The illustration should be of whatever is the first line of text on the new page.
Have images in mind and write to them. No talking heads. If you can't see the art, that's maybe a cue there's not enough happening visually in your idea.
Write in a way that reaches a very young ear.
If you get stuck as you're writing, figure out your last line? You want one with impact: beauty, humor, or some other thing.

She handed out the text for a Golden Books story called THE MERRY SHIPWRECK and gave us 45 minutes to paginate it and make thumbnails using a 24-page dummy. The task was hard enough that I had to give myself a little break for blogging, lest my eyeballs melt down my cheeks.

But it was challenging as the exercise was, it's a revolutionary way for writers to take their work to the next level. If you have a chance to take a master class with Diane, do. She's a master of the format and a compelling teacher as well.

My Experience at the Bruce Coville Writing Intensive: Making Room For Magic! The Art Of Writing Fantasy

2011-08-08T12:38:00.000-07:00

Bruce Coville is a remarkable storyteller and author, and when you read his books, like "Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher," and "My Teacher Is An Alien," and any of the other fantasies among his nearly 100 published titles, you can see his mastery of the Art of Writing Fantasy.

Bruce shared from his heart and expertise, giving us some amazing tips and advice and techniques that I can't wait to try. He answered our many questions in depth, and even did a number of first page critiques of the attendees' fantasy projects.

For me, listening to Bruce read my first page and a half out loud was remarkable. See, Bruce doesn't just read, he weaves a magic spell.

When they're his words, it's as if he's chanting them.

Enchanting his listeners and readers.

Re-enchanting our world.

And for the first time, listening to Bruce read my story opening aloud, I could hear how my words fell so far short of what I had hoped they would achieve.

And when I asked for more insight about when to start a fantasy story, what Bruce shared really resonated:

You don't have to start with the fantasy, but you might want to start with the character's problem in this world.

And it was an epiphany for me.

I may not know exactly HOW to solve the puzzle of my opening pages, but now I understand the problem with the starting point I had chosen.

Everyone finished Bruce's session energized and inspired. And as for me, I'm all fired up to do some of the brainstorming exercises he suggested to figure out how I'm going to meet the challenge, and start my story in the right place!

I'm so grateful to Bruce, and to SCBWI, for this amazing opportunity to really sink my teeth into craft and learn from a master.

Because I'm going to keep working at it until my words chant. Enchant. And re-enchant my readers, and our world.

SCBWI Poolside Pajama Party Pix

2011-08-08T12:07:00.000-07:00

We sneaked out of the morning Intensives to post a few photos from the Saturday night 40 Winks Poolside Pajama Party. If you were captured on film in your PJs, feel free to post a comment about your costume!

Pajama pants were at de rigueur at the event

There were lots a sheep to count, but no one got sleepy

A princess and a pea!

Jon Scieszka with three books come-to-life

Mom, I've got my headgear on!

Nathan Hatch, Aaron Hartzler (ready for bed), and Arthur Levine

Someone get this lady another cocktail. Wait, that's no lady!

Colorful jammies keep party goers awake

These ladies are monkeying around

Rita Crayon Huang's PJs have won numerous Newberys

SCBWI's Chelsea Mooser and Steve Mooser with Sally Crock

Jim Averbeck, his pecs, and Linda Sue Park

Conference-goers dances late into the night before getting their 40 winks!

Book Signing at Once Upon a Time Bookstore

2011-08-08T10:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday a few SCBWI members got together for a book signing at Once Upon a Time bookstore in Montrose for a YA Rising Stars event. Other SCBWI attendees made the trip out, and it was all a blur of books, laughs and cake pops! It's great to take the opportunity to visit local independent booksellers when you travel for other events.

Note that Nova Ren Suma is on the conference faculty and Suzanne Young is a member of TEAM BLOG.

Nova Ren Suma, author of IMAGINARY GIRLS (Dutton)

Suzanne Young, author of A NEED SO BEAUTIFUL (Balzer & Bray)

Cindy Pon, author of FURY OF THE PHOENIX (Greenwillow)

Holly Goldberg, author of I'LL BE THERE (Little, Brown)

The author with an bookstore staffer

A bouquet of cake pops decorated the YA author event

Tina Wexler: Hook, Line, and Sinker!

2011-08-08T09:56:00.000-07:00

On a day of intensives, I got a chance to stop by and listen to agent Tina Wexler. Tina is a literary agent at ICM, representing authors in both the children's and adult marketplace. Her intensive was: Hook, Line, and Sinker! How To Catch An Agent With A Perfect Query Letter.

Tina started by explaining some basics of the query letter, including how she personally reads them. She prefers her queries to be in email format, and not business letter format. She also likes to hear the reasons an author thinks she'd be a good fit for their manuscript.

Your query should only be a shadow compared to the brilliance that is the manuscript. And once you've figured out the mechanics and structure of your letter, go back through and work on word choice--interjecting authentic voice when you can.

Tina made a great point about trying something different with your query when you can. It doesn't have to always start with your character. It could be the bigger theme. Play around and see what you come up with.

Attendees were then broken up into groups where their queries were critiqued by both Tina and other writers. Very informative with great energy!

Writers Intensive Panel: Making the Most of the Critique Experience

2011-08-08T09:39:00.000-07:00

l to r: Aaron Hartler, Allyn Johnston, Alessandra Balzer, Jennifer Hunt

SCBWI's Aaron Hartzler moderates a panel of editors offering advice on critiques to a room full of writers awaiting them. Allyn Johnston (Beach Lane), Alessandra Balzer (Balzer & Bray), Jennifer Hunt (Dial) are the panelists.

Aaron asks about the anxiety that can come from critique situations.

Alessandra stresses that editors are on your side. Jennifer says that there is not a writer in the world who couldn't use some critique. Allyn confesses that editors are nervous too--it's pressure for them to have to deliver something helpful to writers on the spot.

Voice, characterization, dialog, pacing are the types of things that you'd see in an editorial letter and those are areas writers should be considering, Jennifer says. Those are the kinds of things that she listens for. With a short critique, she focuses on voice and characterization.

Alessandra stresses that, in group critiques, you listen to others, pick out the positive elements, and balance out the positive and negative when offering feedback. When you're taking feedback, again, listen and be open to the comments--they might not all be relative but they're all worth considering.

Jennifer says that is you're the person getting a critique, you shouldn't spend your time talking when you could spend your time listening. She also recommends after a critique meeting or group session, you think about your suggestions for a week before making changes so you have sufficient time to soak them in and consider them. She says that editors are your allies, and it's better to hear about something that doesn't work from an editor than later, down the line, in a revieiw. Editors are like the good friends who tell you, you have a beautiful smile, but there's some spinach in your teeth.

First Time Conference Attendee Liliana Erasmus

2011-08-08T08:52:00.000-07:00

Liliana Erasmus is a member of SCBWI from Aruba (Dutch Caribbean) and was a first time attendee at the 40th Anniversary SCBWI Summer Conference. I caught up with her after the three day conference before we both attended the Bruce Coville intensive (more on that in another post.)

Here's what Liliana had to say about her experience: