The LGBTQ + Allies Social

More than 45 conference attendees gathered Friday night in a warm and supportive environment to talk writing and illustrating books with LGBTQ characters and themes for kids and teens.

With a new format this year, we started out in a large oval. In a riff on the conference faculty parade, everyone shared their names and the book with LGBTQ characters and/or themes that made an impact on them and/or changed their life.

It was a fun list (lots of note taking all around), with shout-outs to titles including:

10,000 Dresses

Worm Loves Worm

Am I Blue?

Mysterious Skin

Necessary Noise

The upcoming The Music of What Happens

Boy Meets Boy

Ask the Passengers

Hey, Dollface

Something Like Summer

The God Box

At the Edge of the Universe

Aristotle and Dante Discover The Secrets of the Universe

Then we broke into smaller groups by category (Picture Books, Middle Grade, YA genre, and YA contemporary), sharing in more depth what each of us are working on, discussing challenges, offering solutions, and most of all, cheering each other on.

We came back to a large circle, where our faculty guests (Bruce Coville, Laurent Linn, Carin Berger, and Arthur A. Levine) shared the book(s) they've worked on that pushed boundaries.

Instead of hanging out in the conference room after our 9pm stop time, we walked over to join the community at the Diversity social, where we talked and supported each other late into the night.

Diversity Social at #LA17SCBWI

Did you check out the Diversity Social at #LA17SCBWI?

The Diversity Social began with remarks about We Need Diverse Books by Sona Charaipotra, Miranda Paul, and Linda Sue Park, followed by greetings from some of WNDB's founding members and SCBWI faculty support.

I loved hearing about the successes of their mentorship programs and advocacy programs -- from partnerships with the Scholastic Book Club to measurable results of WNDB's mentorship program. 

An attendee asked how they can support diverse authors if they are not from a diverse background. The committee suggested:

• Buy and read diverse books, and support those authors.
• Talk about diverse books; promote those authors and their books.
• Advocate for diverse voices to be represented at events or programming you're involved in.
• Write and illustrate characters from diverse backgrounds. Pat Cummings asked: do your characters default to a specific ethnicity or background?
• Mentor with WNDB, if applicable. (generally looking for authors with multiple books published in a particular genre.)

After the Q&A, there was time to mingle. I enjoyed chatting with first-time conference attendees / authors Traci Sorrell, Lindsey Metcalf, and Madonna Bock [from the KS/MO chapter]; agent Stefanie von Borstel of Full Circle Literary; Executive Art Director Cecilia Yung at Penguin Random House; and many others at this thoughtful, relaxed gathering.

You can sign up for the WNDB mailing list to be notified when mentorship applications are available.

Check out WNDB's new book discovery app called Our Story