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We interrupt our regularly promised next post to say, Listen to this TED talk:


Brené Brown: The power of vulnerability




Amazing. Freakin' amazing. We know these things to be true, but when you hear it, you can use it in a new way. Especially if it ties into your book. But your book comes from your life, too. So we really have to know what we're doing. embrace not knowing what we're doing?

Something like that.
In order to do it.

:)
r

Kind of like what M.T. Anderson once said at a past SCBWI Summer Conference: "The experiment is the piece of literature, not the preparation for the piece of literature."

So with life!

P.P.S. With thanks to Irvin Lin at Eat the Love for leading me to this talk, after an amazing weekend of Irvin and AJ hosting me in SF. Love you guys so much.

Hi, Everyone! Fun stuff! My photos from the SCBWI 2012 Summer Conference are up!

The SCBWI 2012 International Summer Conference
August 3–6, 2012, in Los Angeles, CA USA


Lin Oliver kicks off SCBWI's 41st Annual Summer Conference with our own, very tiny Olympic torch, presented to Dan Gutman.

Click here to view all 234 photos on Facebook, where you can tag yourself and your friends.
Click here to view the same set on Flickr instead, where you can download full-size files.

Please credit Rita Crayon Huang if you use any of these images on your blogs, Facebook, Web sites, etc. Please also tweet, tag, and spread the word! Feel free to untag yourselves, too, if that is your wish. As always, if any picture makes you uncomfortable in any way, message me privately and I will take it down immediately, no questions asked.


I had lots of writer friends on the faculty this year. Here are a few from the Friday morning walk-in:


Authors Jennifer Bosworth; Greg Fishbone--a new friend!; Martha Brockenbrough and Jolie Stekly, also representing Team Blog;
and our very own Sara Wilson Etienne at Friday morning's Welcome & Introduction of Faculty. (Photo credit: Rita Crayon Huang, Copyright ©2012.)

So many of my friends are crossing over to the other side! Slowly but surely, I can feel the tide turning. Crazy how everyone's individual striving is adding up like this.

The talks were fantastic, as always. An obvious highlight this year was Ruta Sepetys's keynote, "You Can't Break the Broken," about how she went to a prison camp as research for her book. I've never seen anyone lay themselves so bare as a human being onstage before. She laid all of us bare in the process--and she did it while being funny. Even when she got to the soul-shaking bits, she kept on going, and she kept on being funny. I know that David Small took us on a profound journey last year, too, down into the deep, dark hearts we all know from our own lives and then back up, into the light--with dancing--but da--ng. Ruta made us confront who we are right now, in our chairs, as adults. It was unexpected, to say the least.


Ruta Sepetys, "You Can't Break the Broken: Writing Emotional Truth" (Photo credit: Rita Crayon Huang, Copyright ©2012.)


Standing ovation for Ruta Sepetys's emotional keynote at the SCBWI 2012 Summer Conference (Photo credit: Rita Crayon Huang, Copyright ©2012.)


I attended Ruta's breakout session on media prep, too, and it was wonderful. (That was before her keynote, so I had no idea what she had in store for us.)


Ruta Sepetys, "Media Prep: Author Tips for Radio, TV, and Print Coverage" (Photo credit: Rita Crayon Huang, Copyright ©2012.)


Did I feel ashamed of myself taking a picture of Ruta crying, by the way? Yes. But that didn't stop me from doing the same thing to my tablemate at the Golden Kite Awards.


Reaction to Golden Kite Awards speeches (Photo credit: Rita Crayon Huang, Copyright ©2012.)


But what I'm trying to say is, awesome talks and breakouts aside--

oh! But I also attended Eugene Yelchin's breakout on thinking "Outside the Trim," which was also fantastic! I went because his answers were so smart during the picture book panel that morning that he made a fan out of me on the spot. During the panel he brought up how, as children's book creators and creators of culture, we're all participating in a larger conversation that spans time and space and topics (my paraphrasing, sorry). We have to be aware of the current cultural moment in order to add what we want.


Jon Klassen, Antoinette Portis, Eugene Yelchin, and Lee Wardlaw on the Picture Book Panel, "The Picture Book: The Dance Between Words and Pictures." Moderated by Dan Yaccarino. (Photo credit: Rita Crayon Huang, Copyright ©2012.)


I was like, Yes!! I had forgotten that's what we're doing! I haven't thought about this business in a big-picture, intellectual way in a long time. You know, I confront the emotions and minutiae of what I'm trying to say day to day, and the audience I'm trying to reach, but not the big space-time continuum of how we fit in. And you don't need to think about that in order to participate--we're all participating all the time--but I'd become ungrounded in terms of how to think about issues like whom we're trying to speak for regarding multiculturalism in our books, for example. We speak for ourselves, always--and we do this by being aware of what other people are saying, and responding. That's all there is to it.

This echoes what Lee Wind once told me Jacqueline Woodson said on the subject of race in her books, which is that it helps to remember we don't have to start the discussion ourselves; we just have to add.

After that I spontaneously went to Eugene Yelchin's breakout session to hear more of how this guy thinks.


Eugene Yelchin, "Outside the Trim: Thinking Beyond the Literal Space of the Picture Book" (Photo credit: Rita Crayon Huang, Copyright ©2012.)


It was brilliant--of course. It was especially eye-opening for me as a writer who's been turning over in my mind how I might use photography in a picture book way someday. Eugene (if I may call him that) broke down a lot of visual concepts and gave me new vocabulary with which to think. I wasn't looking for that, and now I'm excited to take these ideas and play.

Of course, this meant I missed the talk I had originally planned to attend--Jenn Bosworth's "The Conspicuous Writer (Turning Readers Into Fans)"--which I heard later from Sara was amazing. But what can ya do. pang as fomo is confirmed I'm learning to follow the moment . . .

I also went to Matthew Kirby's session on Voice, which was outstanding.


Matthew Kirby, "Voice" (Photo credit: Rita Crayon Huang, Copyright ©2012.)


Everyone there agreed: we'd never heard anyone discuss voice so clearly before. It was just so clear. And it was right, everyone also agreed. We all knew it--the definition of voice--when we heard it. ;)

Ahh. That soothes a complaint I've had for a long time on how people should really be able to define voice, because are we writers or aren't we?? It also led to a revelation for me about what to do with the voice in my book. I had brought my niggling question to ask at the session's end, but Matthew's presentation was so clear that just thinking about how to phrase my question in his terms, answered it.

(!)

I hear Mike Jung is going to give a talk on Voice soon for which he suspects he will borrow heavily from this one (with attribution, of course). So if you want to know what was said, go hear Mike! Or go hear Matthew Kirby, of course. :)


The guy in the hat plans to steal from Matthew Kirby's talkspeak on Voice soon.


And, I attended Sara's session on creating book trailers.


Sara Wilson Etienne, "Book Trailers: Storyboards, Scripts, Lookbooks, and Everything That Puts the 'Tease' in Teaser" (Photo credit: Rita Crayon Huang, Copyright ©2012.)

Amazing, also. If you haven't seen Sara's astounding book trailer yet, check it out here. And be on the lookout for her forthcoming article on producing book trailers, which will appear in the next update to the SCBWI Publication Guide. Even though I had heard Sara talk about making her trailer all while she was doing it, it was so enlightening to see the lookbooks and rough cuts she and her talented friends had made. The session was chock-a-block packed with real, how-to information, plus how one should think about different kinds of trailers before getting started. And she showed how much you can get done before you've spent one dollar, which I loved, too.


Okay! But I actually didn't want to talk about the talks and inspiration and craft and business side of the conference--I wanted to talk about the people and the fun! With friends and at yoga and the party and afterparty . . .

All right, you know what? This post has gotten long enough. I'll do the fun stuff in a "Part II" post. Please come back.

So just one more talk--really quick. Because it made a difference.

Amy Goldman Koss said some really provocative stuff during her breakout, "Character Quirks and Credible Jerks! Nailing Character," about how she doesn't believe people change; that they come into the world the way they are. (She said if you believe differently, you can write books that show such, but she has to stay true to what she believes.) She also said the more individuality you give a character, the more you risk that character being disliked by readers. (Good for villains, potentially bad for protagonists.)


Amy Goldman Koss, "Character Quirks and Credible Jerks! Nailing Character" (Photo credit: Rita Crayon Huang, Copyright ©2012.)

I've turned these ideas over and over in my mind. Of course I want to argue, but she used compelling examples, plus I know what she's saying. It's gotten the dialog going pretty awesomely in my mind. I also just read one of her books, Poison Ivy, and wow, that book is brutal but brilliant. I mean, brilliant. And brutal. Those characters are alive in the most stubborn, maddening but real way possible. I recommend it to everyone. (Be forewarned, but definitely read it.)

I've been thinking over how I might test some of Amy's ideas in my book, through a couple of my characters, and the book is definitely benefiting.


Okay! So that's everything I'm going to say about craft, business, and inspiration in this two-part miniseries. Come back in a few days for the fun, fun, fun, okay? =)

Cheers,
Rita

P.S. Did you know that I have an SCBWI Events photo collection on Flickr?


Click on the image or link to visit my SCBWI Events Collection on Flickr, including International Summer Conferences and Los Angeles regional conferences from the last several years.

In addition to latest, 2012 Summer Conference photos, it includes pictures from the 2011 Summer Conference, the 2010 Summer Conference, the 2009 Summer Conference, and the 2008 Summer Conference--with corresponding Facebook links--plus the last several SCBWI-Los Angeles Writer's Days and Illustrator's Days. I just glanced through them and wow. I totally recognize people--faces in the background--that I didn't know back then. And we're all younger. You should check it out.

Cheers, and enjoy,
Rita

This is that time of year when I start going through my pictures from the SCBWI Summer Conference, reliving highlights as I discover what I got, all while listening to ridiculously poppy, boppy music (which helps me weed). The experience gets me high, even as I'm sure everyone else is either winding down or has already come back to reality.

Can't wait to share the pictures! In the meantime, please enjoy another delightful, illustrated recap of the Summer Conference--this time by my good friend Ken Min. Ken is an award-winning illustrator who has summed up the full range of what one experiences at the Summer Conference through personal examples, and illustrates his favorite takeaway by putting it into practice immediately--which inspires me. Check out Ken's "SCBWI 2012 Summer Conference Manifesto" here.

♥ ♩♫♪!
"Whoa . . . uh-oh! That's what makes you beau-ti-ful!!"
Rita

Well, what do you know. All kinds of ideas are coming to me today as a direct result of the SCBWI 2012 Summer Conference, and I've been stymied a long time. Thank you to all of the good friends and faculty I had meaningful conversations with this weekend! And to all of the friends I'm going to have revelatory conversations with, going forward!

Photos are coming soon! In the meantime, check out this lovely illustrated recap of Mary Peterson's Conference takeaways. Mary is the wonderful illustrator behind such picture book delights as Piggies in the Pumpkin Patch, written by herself and Jennifer Rofé, and the forthcoming Wooby and Peep, written by Cynthea Liu, and was on the Summer Conference faculty this year.




Says Mary,

Another fun, exhausting, exhilerating, hilarious conference! I love seeing so many old friends and making new ones. The images above were scanned from the notes I took over the weekend. Credits for each bit of wisdom...

1. Personal observation
2. Linda Pratt, Literary Agent
3. John Klassen, author/illustrator
4. Arthur A. Levine, Arthur A. Levine Books
5. Tony diTerlizzi, author/illustrator
6. Rubin Pfeffer, Literary Agent

Friends! Photos from last weekend's SCBWI-LA Writer's Days are up!


SCBWI-LA Writer's Days: "Books and Beyond: How To Make A Living (And A Life!) As A Writer"
Sat. & Sun., April 21-22, 2012

      
Lee Wardlaw: "Ten Things I've Learned from My Cats about Being A Children's Book Author."
Dawne Knobbe: "Busting out of the Box--Creative Marketing for Published/Unpublished Writers."
Bonnie Berry LaMon (Professional Forum): "More Than You Ever Wanted To Know About Children's Book Publishing Agreements."
Monica Haven giving a tip on how to make a living as a writer. She led the Professional Forum on Taxes: "Fact of Fiction?"
Terri Farley: "Fetch Me A Dream, PDQ."
Jennifer Bosworth, Kristen Kittscher, Sara Wilson Etienne, and Tony Etienne kickin' it at lunch.
Anne Tibbets during a mid-morning creativity exercise involving pipe cleaners.<

Hey, Everyone! Here are a few photos from the Kid Lit(erati) Holiday Party this past Saturday.



To see the full set (I wish I'd taken more of everyone!!),
click here for Facebook, where you can tag or untag yourselves,
click here for Flickr, where you can download the images in sizes of your choosing, and/or
click here for Zenfolio, where you can download the whole batch and order prints, if that's your thing.

Thanks, everyone, for the drinks, delicious treats, and fun conversation--and THANKS for bringing all those gorgeous children's books to donate! The schools they're going to are really going to appreciate them!



Lee Wind and Sara Wilson Etienne pose with all the beautiful, gleaming children's books to be donated. I seriously wanted to borrow half of them to take home and read first, but that wouldn't have been in the spirit.

As mentioned in my previous post, the

Yo yo, what's up y'all . . .

Just wanted to remind everyone that the LA Kid Lit Holiday Party is this Saturday, Dec. 3rd, from 5 to 9 PM (and after!) at the Wellesbourne. Our last Kid Lit event was Halloween-themed. This one is all about the holidays!

   
Photos from LA Kid Lit parties past. Don't miss the upcoming LA Kid Lit Holiday Party, this Saturday, Dec. 3rd at The Wellesbourne!

* * *
Saturday, Dec. 3rd, from 5 to 9 PM

Join other writers, illustrators, agents, editors, bloggers, librarians, educators, and people who just love children's and teen literature at a Kid Lit Community Holiday Party!

Cash Bar, pay as you order.

Cookies, bring and share.

Books for needy kids, donate unwrapped books, picture-books through YA, and feel all holiday-festive!

Your Picture Books through Middle Grade Novels will be donated to Knox Elementary School in South Central Los Angeles. They're a new school, and even though they don't have a librarian, their Principal, Ms. Ward, is a huge advocate of reading and has teachers take their students to the library to check out the books. They're incredible excited at the prospect of more and new books for their kids! New and gently used books are fine, ARCs are fine, and donating more than one book is better than fine!

@ The Wellesbourne
10929 W. Pico Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90064
(Across the street from the Landmark Theater and the Westside Pavilion Mall)

This is not an official SCBWI-L.A. event, but it's open to all our members as well and everyone in the kid lit community!
* * *

I got confirmation from Janet Seary, the principal of Central High School/Tri-C, that they would love to accept our YA book donations. They are a continuation school serving at risk youth, and they have 29 classrooms all across the LA school district. There is no main library for these 600-800 students, but each classroom tries to have some books for their teens. The teachers will choose which ones they want for their classrooms from the donations brought.

I'm very excited that we now have two very worthy schools to acce

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Happy Halloween Week, Everyone!

I had a great time this past Saturday at the LA Kid Lit Costume Party! 2011–the third LA Kid Lit Drink Night since a few of us started them in June. Because of Halloween, Jenn Bosworth suggested we dress up as book characters this time, and she picked the Wellesbourne as a swanky new location.

The Wellesbourne was fantastic! The dark, wood-paneled library/tavern with roaring fireplace suited every character perfectly, from Hogwarts students to detectives to gothic and whimsical creatures of the night.



Above: I went as Bunnicula, a vampire bunny that sucks the juices out of vegetables in the night (turning them white), by James Howe. Some of my other favorite characters brought to life included Roald Dahl's The Witches, which Hilary and Elizabeth did to perfection; Sherlock Holmes; Encyclopedia Brown; and Harriet the Spy, and The Dot, by Peter H. Reynolds–the latter two played by Sara and Lee of my writing group, respectively.


Writing group fun! Because this is what all of our meetings are like.

You can see all of my pictures on Facebook here
or view the same album with bonus images on Zenfolio, which is prettier. (You can download all of the full-size images from Zenfolio, and watch a slideshow.)

A lot of the costumes were gorgeous. Check out this Dia de los Muertos creation!


Those horns and that makeup . . . not to mention the perfect Sherlock outfit! I am in awe.

I love Halloween. It gets us all to play together. Sara recently blogged about the need to find your community for every next phase of your journey (and she also blogged her recap of the Kid Lit Costume Party–with more pictures!). The Kid Lit scene is definitely my pe

Hey there! What's up. Besides me. At 1:30 AM.

I had such a great time at the SCBWI Summer Conference today, and we've got three more days! Can't wait to see everyone tomorrow--and I especially can't wait to see you all at the 2nd-Ever LA Kid Lit Drink Night, which is happening this Sunday evening--and which is not officially Conference-sponsored, so everyone interested in children's books should come! It'll be at Pink Taco in the Century City Mall (across the street from the conference) on Sunday, from 6-8 pm. Our first LA Kid Lit Drink Night turned out awesome. This one should be nuts.

Kid Lit friends at Pink Taco during the 2009 SCBWI Summer Conference. I definitely expect these faces to be there Sunday.

Some of my favorite reads (and examples of Voice!) this year: Agnes Parker . . . Girl In Progress, by Kathleen O'Dell; The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg, by Rodman Philbrick; I Am A Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want To Be Your Class President, by Josh Lieb; Hold Still, by Nina LaCour; Gorgeous, by Rachel Vail; The Monstrumologist, by Rick Yancey. (All images from GoodReads.)


All right. So here's the promise Lee and I made to the world in our latest e-blast about the SCBWI Westside Schmooze.

Subject: The SCBWI Westside Schmooze -- Wednesday, October 13th at 7 PM

Does October mean thrills, chills, and suspense to you? Well, it should if you attend the next meeting of the SCBWI Westside Schmooze! Because on October 13th, at 7 PM, we will meet to unmask . . .

VOICE: The End-All Definition

That's right. Editors and Agents often say that while they can fix everything else in a manuscript, Voice is that one special quality a manuscript must have from the start, for them to fall in love. Yet when it comes to defining what Voice IS, even the greats flounder, with many falling back on the axiom "You know it when you see it."

What is THAT about? Are we in the business of describing things or aren't we?? At the next Westside Schmooze we aim to settle this mystery once and for all--AND come up with an End-All Definition--by showing great examples of Voice, analyzing WHAT IT IS, and sharing exercises that will help each of us find and perfect our own. For Picture Book through Young Adult, fiction and non-fiction. Let's do this. It's time.

Hooray!! Photos from the 2010 SCBWI Summer Conference are up!



Photos by Rita Crayon Huang, Copyright ©2010, SCBWI.

You can view the full set of photos in three different places online: at the official SCBWI Flickr photostream (which can also be reached via the SCBWI Web site), at my own Flickr photostream, and on Facebook here. Feel free to tag yourselves in the Facebook album!*

(*Disclaimer: If ever I post a photo you are not 100% comfortable with, let me know and I will pull it immediately, no questions asked. I am here to be your friend!)

As always, you are all invited to use these photos on your own blogs, Web sites, etc. Please credit the photographer whenever you use images; in this case, me, Rita Crayon Huang. I love being able to contribute to SCBWI in this way.

This year's SCBWI Summer Conference was magical and magnificent. Highlights for me included Jon Sciezska's talk on multimedia; M.T. Anderson's talk on "Literary Experiment in Books for Children"; Rubin Pfeffer's riveting call to action as the world of book publishing changes; Rachel Vail—whose books I discovered several months ago and who is a master of Voice—speaking on Voice; and Ashley Bryan—whose books I'd already bought in stacks to give to friends—altering my understanding of reading poetry aloud forevermore. And getting to hang out with great friends, and meeting new, fantastic, creative people.

Actually, Ashley Bryan changed what I now have to tell people when I give out his books. I'm glad I heard him speak first!!

And here are a few momentos from this year's conference that are just for me, that were

(Because the SCBWI Summer Conference is coming up, I feel some pressure to post something cheery and rah-rah about the writing life, in case SCBWI friends stop by. But, I'm like a 5th-year senior at these conferences by now. I'm just gonna tell it like it is.)

Today the table I sit at every day, to write, smelled like B.O. It's in the far corner of the cafe, in its own sunny little glass case, not unlike a phone booth.

I set up all my stuff anyway—because I need this table—wondering how long the smell would last and whether I'd be sitting in it all day.

After ordering, I bussed a small plate with an open muffin wrapper on it. Then I thought, This muffin was probably eaten by the person with the B.O. I wondered if sweat glands were on me.

I washed my hands.

Of course, I'm probably sitting in the same chair as that person. And because the table hadn't been bussed, it also hasn't been wiped. I feel very connected right now.

I hope he got a lot of work done.


On an unrelated note, here are my photos from SCBWI-LA Writer's Day 2009! (It was only five and a half months ago. :P ) I was so worked up about entering the Writer's Day contest for the first time that I felt like I didn't take as many photos as usual. But apparently the habit kicked in. There's reasonable coverage. :) (During the slideshow, click "Show Info" to turn on captions.)

Also for your viewing convenience:

SCBWI-LA Writer's Day 2008: Photos | Blog entry

SCBWI-LA Writer's Day 2007: Photos | Blog entry

And if you want to hear me say something not jaded—

On the one hand, I want to downplay the meaning that winning the Writer's Day middle grade fiction contest this year had for me.

On the other hand, irrationally . . . that was one of the greatest days of my life.  

r

Thank you, Lee Wind, for making a point of getting a photo of me!

Some kind of post will follow. For now I just wanted to say . . .

I won the category of Middle Grade Fiction today, at SCBWI-LA Writer's Day!

Woo hoo again!! My photos from the SCBWI Summer Conference are featured in the latest, Sept/Oct issue of the SCBWI Bulletin!!

(If you're an SCBWI member and don't have the Bulletin in front of you, you can go to the SCBWI Web site, log in, and find the whole issue online, as well as issues past. Click "For Our Members" and "Bulletin Archive." My pictures accompany the article "SCBWI Paints the Town Red" by Michelle Parker-Rock on pp. 16-17, and there's another inside the front cover.)

The SCBWI Events/Summer Conference page is now also linked to my Summer Conference photos.

Thanks, Aaron Hartzler, for including me, online and in print!! How fun!!

:D
Rita

P.S.
Oh, and while it still seems a little early, Sara Wilson Etienne and Gregory K. announced it already, so I might as well, too. Come this January, Lee Wind and I are going to take over for Sara and Greg as the Westside Schmooze's new Co-Coordinators. So come on down, the second Wednesday of every month, to hang out and trade advice and gossip on all things children's book writerly!

(Come before January. We're all there, every month, and it's always a good time.)
 

I am stunned by the masterful storytelling of Wall-E.

I wish I could tell you about it, but I don't want to give anything away.

Go see it! 

Let's talk!!