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SCBWI Team Blog, left to right: Lee Wind, Jaime Temairik, Jolie Stekly, Don Tate, and Martha Brockenbrough

What a conference!

We hope you'll join us for all the inspiration, craft, business, opportunity and community of the 45th Annual SCBWI Summer Conference in Los Angeles, July 29 - August 1, 2016.

SCBWI Team Blog
Lee, Jaime, Jolie, Martha and Don

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Ginger Clark has been a literary agent with Curtis Brown since 2005. She represents many genres and categories of books in addition to representing the British rights for Curtis Brown's children's list. She's lots of fun on Twitter, and from there you may have learned she's really into wombats and Peter Capaldi, but aren't we all?

Sarah Davies and Ginger Clark tag team on describing how a rolling auction works. All of the bidding publishers give their bid, and then the lowest bidder is asked if they can match the highest bid, and the other bidders are approached in turn, and this can go around a few times, perhaps up to seven rounds.

Compared to a best bids auction, where Ginger asks for editors to name their ultimate bid and no additional rounds of bid-taking happen.

For most books Ginger has sold she's initially sent out the submission to 12 editors. In special cases she's sent the submission out to upwards of 27 editors (and she notes that 25% of those 27 were at Penguin Random House, which is the strange reality of big houses merging into even bigger houses these days).

The most important 'gets' in a contract to Ginger are:

Translation rights, British rights, audio rights, joint vs. separate accounting on multiple book deal royalties (you want separate accounting!!) Ginger will only take joint accounting deals unless there are no other offers OR the publisher is offering them an insane amount of money. Other than that, deal-killers are up to the client, says Ginger.

Ginger's last bit of advice:

When picking an agent, pick someone you think will be a great advocate for you and will be a great, professional advice-giver—don't pick someone only because you think they could be your best friend, or that reminds you of your mom or Peter Capaldi, or because they own a wombat.

(l-r) Peter Capaldi as Malcolm Tucker; wombat from How To Negotiate Everything

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Alvina Ling is Vice President and editor-in-chief at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers (where she's worked since 1999.) She oversees Little, Brown's core publishing program (including picture books, middle grade, and young adult), and edits children's books for all ages.

Some highlights of Alvina's comments:

"When we acquire a book, we generally want to acquire an author and an author's career."

On whether there are other considerations besides the manuscript in making the decision, "very occasionally" Alvina will see if the author has an online presence--a website, or are on twitter. But as she explains, it's "not a deciding factor, but can contribute."

About asking for revisions before signing a project, Alvina agrees that it's more suggestive than proscriptive, and she recalls working with Peter Brown for a year before signing his first book.

The panel also covers joint versus separate accounting, how auctions work, and important "gets" in the negotiation process and the pros and cons of working with younger versus more senior editors.

Final Alvina wisdom from the panel:

"Since today is Valentines' day, you have to love what you do. We're all up here because we love what we do... love your work, love meeting the people."

It's great advice.

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Sarah Davies

Rubin Pfeffer

Sarah Davies and Rubin Pfeffer are both literary agents with deep editorial experience honed over many years working as editors at various publishing houses.

Sarah is the founder of The Greenhouse Literary Agency. Rubin Pfeffer founded Rubin Pfeffer Content.

They spoke to us today about opportunities and challenges in publishing, with Rubin asking all of the panelists a variety of questions ranging from terminology to process and working styles.

Sarah's career in children's publishing in London lasted for 25 years. She moved to Washington, D.C. to found her agency, and is now back across the pond, where her agency is an international presence. She loves cultivating new talent and selling books all around the world (including Iran and the republic of Georgia).

What is an auction? 
Sarah explained this happens when more than one editor wants a book. Agents might set a time by which offers need to be received. Sarah likes to hold her auctions on Fridays (there was disagreement on the panel about this). Offers come in with their basic terms in addition to a lot of love from editors. To Sarah, the editor's passion for a project is a significant factor.

What does rejection signify?
To Rubin, rejection doesn't mean your writing wasn't good enough. There are factors beyond your control.

What kind of control do you have over the projects you submit?
Everything is done on behalf of your clients, Sarah said. One of the first questions she asks is about which editors clients already have relationships with. But she's also going to search her frequently updated database and use what she's learned in her frequent meetings with editors. "I'm making notes all the time and updating those."

She also runs submission ideas past her clients to make sure the best decisions are made.

How do you cope with losing a project that you love? 

Sarah Davies doesn't often fall in love with a new author. "I'm quite sparing in my love... when I fall in love, I want to get it." But it sometimes does happen that potential client chooses someone else.

Rubin Pfeffer on respect
It's easy to wear your emotions on your sleeve, but showing professionalism will take you very, very far. "It will cut you off short if it's not there."

How much work do you do on a manuscript before submitting it to an editor? 
In eight years, there have been only about two times Sarah has sent out a manuscript she hasn't given some feedback on. "My goal is to sell it as well as it can be done. My editorial role is working on it until we can get it to where it stands the best chance of being acquired by an editor."

What is joint accounting? 
When an editor makes an offer for more than one book, joint accounting is where both books have to earn out before royalties are paid. Agents don't want this situation to happen, but it's the house policy at certain publishers. At Little, Brown, series are jointly accounted, which is more reasonable to agents.

When should you submit to a junior vs. a senior agent? 
There are merits to both. Often a senior person such as Alving Ling might be well placed to give it to a less senior editor on her team. If Sarah has a large submission list, it's more likely to work that way. Many of the less senior editors have worked a long time as assistants, and have excellent experience.

Final words of wisdom 
A client was devastated by the rejection of her dark, edgy YA novel. She felt as though there was no future for her in publishing. She decided to recapture her joy in writing again, which she was starting to lose. "It's so easy to do in the frenzy of deal-making."

Some months later, she came back with a nonfiction picture book text and a chapter book series. Neither of which she had attempted before. These were her "peach sorbet" projects. She took delight in them, and Sarah told them fast. "This is a story not only of determination, but of flexibility... she's my heroine."

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From left to right, Rubin Pfeffer (Agent, Content, standing at podium), Alvina Ling (VP and Editor-in-Chief, Little Brown Books for Young Readers), Sarah Davies (Agent, Greenhouse Literary), Ginger Clark (Agent, Curtis Brown), Liz Bicknell (EVP, Executive Editorial Director & Associate Publisher, Candlewick Press), Alessandra Balzer (VP and Co-Publisher, Balzer + Bray/Harper Collins.)

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Jacquelyn Mitchard delivering her keynote

Jacquelyn Mitchard is the number one New York Times best-selling author of ten novels for adults, seven novels for teenagers, and five children's books, as well as editor-in-chief of Merit Press, a realistic young adult imprint., and a professor of writing at Vermont College of Fine Arts.

"[Atticus] would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning."

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Jane speaks eloquently of how re-inventing a career in the arts every seven to ten years is a way to keep your writing fresh and alive. And yet, how difficult it is when then re-invention is forced on you.

So, to help honor the contribution of mid-list authors in general, and celebrate two mid-list authors in particular, Jane announces this year's winners:

Karen Coombs and Sallie Wolf

Sallie was here and joined Jane on stage for an enthusiastic standing ovation!

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A special message from all the authors and illustrators gathered this morning...

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Rainbow Rowell (rhymes with towel) is the beloved bestselling author of books for adults and teens.

SCBWI executive director Lin Oliver, herself a bestselling author, conducted a warm fireside chat with Rainbow about her books and her life. And yeah, there really was a fireplace projected on the screen, because the SCBWI does things right.

Here are some of the highlights:

Rainbow started her career as a journalist and columnist for the Omaha World-Herald. There were some useful things. For example, she didn't get writers block. "At a newspaper, writer's block means tomorrow you're fired." There were also some downsides—working as a journalist was hard on her writerly voice.

During that time, someone asked her what sort of writing she was doing for herself, and after a while, she realized the only writing she'd done for herself was love letters—that may or may not have been read. ("Mine were too long. They needed editing.")

She started writing THE ATTACHMENTS to do something for herself. She wrote that in third person past tense.

CARRY ON, though, was written in first person."I think when you're writing first person, you're really writing monologues," she said.

Her characters have little pieces of her in them. "Human beings are more complicated than fictional characters, and there's enough of you to split into seeds (which become the characters of your books)."

As she writes, she doesn't think about how they're being marketed. ELEANOR & PARK was released as an adult title in the UK, where it "bombed," as hard as it is to believe that. St. Martins Press published it as YA in the states—and Rainbow says they were the only publisher who wanted it. It might have been different had they taken it to YA publishers instead of adult. St. Martins does both.

Her agent describes her work as "funny/sad," which means it's sad but still makes you laugh a lot. "It's so much harder to be funny than it is to be sad," she said. "You can read the newspaper if it's sad. I personally like things better if they're both."

"Sometimes the pressure of writing makes you want to sound official, so you aspire toward something that's not you because it sounds more professional," she said. When she was a journalist, she used to imagine telling the stories she was writing to her husband or her mom.

When writing fiction, she gave herself permission just to write—not to go back in and edit and change things. If it made her laugh, it was good enough.

Lin observed that many of Rainbow's characters seem to be outsiders. But to Rainbow, more people feel like the outside than feel on the inside, especially young people.  It wouldn't have occurred to her to write people who don't feel this way. "It's who we are."

Rainbow likes to talk about her characters with her agent. The characters appear to her pretty well formed and compelling. But talking to good listeners who don't try to build on her characters, and instead just let her develop them, is helpful. She adds details as she's talking about it. She also builds playlists that help her fill her characters out a bit.

Sometimes her characters don't do what she expected them to do in scenes. She gets to know them better as she writes.

CARRY ON has Star Wars, Superman, Harry Potter and Twilight references. It's a book she wrote for people who had some of the same pop culture references as she does. This meant she didn't have to explain a lot of references, but that she could also play against people's expectations.

Rainbow has a lovely and resonant philosophy about her characters and their stories (and about human beings in the real world too): We're all good people trying hard. And there is value in trying hard. 

She shared so much advice and insight for us and really showed us where her magical books come from: her generous heart. Her voice on the page is her voice in real life. If you haven't read her books, you're in for an extraordinary experience. Move them to the top of your pile.

Rainbow's website
Rainbow on Twitter
Rainbow on Facebook

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Giuseppe Castellano, senior art director at Penguin Random House, gave a great talk on children's book illustration in general, not just as it relates to single portfolio pieces.

He feels a lot of artists' work is often too 'children's booky' looking. A lot of the samples he sees have very standard color choices and character choices—the skies are blue, the grass is green, the girl is white, the details aren't necessarily different enough to be interesting, or they seem there to over explain the scene to kids, not allowing them to use their imaginations to fill in the story gaps.

Giuseppe picked out a few Tomie dePaola Award gallery pieces from this year's contest to highlight what images WERE NOT too 'children's booky' looking and had clearly been developed beyond the standard tropes he is hoping we learn to avoid.

The first piece he liked was by Tatiana Escallon. Giuseppe loved that it looks handmade, and not cleaned up/shiny digital. The play and pull of the shapes with each other and within the composition are dynamic, the colors are fun, there are a lot of "gaps" for the reader to fill in with their imagination.

Tatiana Escallon

The next piece he liked was by Claire Lordon. Also has a handmade look, this time it's a screenprint. He liked the play of the colors against each other.

Claire Lordon

Rivkah LaFille's piece appealed to Giuseppe because of its great line work and limited palette. He felt like this piece looked like a sophisticated piece of art you'd see up on a wall and told us, "Children's books should be like mini art galleries... Give kids more credit that they can appreciate fine, complex art."

Rivkah LaFille

Giuseppe gave the room a very cool handout and had them do some simple but awesome, in-class exercises. I'll leave you with a little bit of his thoughts about color:

Color is absolutely a character in your story, says Giuseppe, it's the foundation you build a piece of art on. That doesn't mean it has to be loud, wild crayon color everywhere, he says, "Color choices are like music, you can have loud and soft areas."

Some examples of great color Giuseppe shared are M. Sasek and Ezra Jack Keats's work:

And holy crap, you guys, follow Giuseppe on Twitter and check out the classes he offers via The Illustration Department! I know I will.

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Elizabeth Bicknell is Executive Vice President, Executive Editorial Director & Associate Publisher at Candlewick Press. She edits picture books, fiction, poetry and nonfiction. Two recent picture book projects include Mac Barnett and John Klassen's Sam and Dave Dig a Hole

and Carole Boston Weatherford and Ekua Holmes' Voice of Freedom





Liz spoke about the different kinds of picture books, using examples of 12 books she's published to, well, illustrate her points. Story picture books, concept books, biography, poetry collections...

It's fascinating that she's able to break those twelve down into six that had an author/illustrator create them, and six books that had different authors and illustrators. (Additionally, eight of the eighteen people were not agented at the time she acquired their work.)

She tells us that she's "a sucker for dog stories," and jokes that now that she's said that, "everyone feverishly changes their main characters to dogs."

Some quotes:

"I am very fond of poetry."

"I like books that are a little bit wicked."

"There are no rules you can never break."

Liz tells us more about what she's looking for, breaks down the reasons she really doesn't like rhyme, and talks about those critical first (and last) lines.

There's lots more good stuff, some handouts, and so much wisdom. Here's one last bit of wisdom:

"If the ending isn't working, really the whole thing isn't working."

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Sarah Davies is the founder of The Greenhouse Literary Agency, which represents authors of YA, MG, and picture books.

Sarah loves literary fiction with a strong commercial hook. Middle grade fiction is really the first that immerses young readers in new worlds and introduces them to empathy. These books often are among the most important people read.

We are in a fabulous, golden time for middle grade. Librarians and educators play a bigger role in linking readers with books, and it's sometimes a slow process.

How can you raise the level of your writing and make your manuscript stand out?

She has identified eight common denominators of great, salable middle grade. Here are a few things she looks for:

1. Know your market. What is middle grade? Her submissions inbox tells her a lot of people don't know what they're trying to do or who they're writing for.

At the younger end, it's chapter books that are typically 15,000-25,000 words long and illustrated with line art. Her client Tricia Springstubb writes these. They can be character led or concept driven. Clementine by Sara Pennypacker is an example. The Magic Treehouse is concept driven.

Novels for older middle grade readers run 30,000-60,000 words. (If it's longer, ask yourself why.) These core middle grade novels are about characters from 10 to 13, with a sweet spot of 11 to 13. THE TRUTH ABOUT TWINKIE PIE by Kat Yeh is an absolutely delightful middle grade that received a lot of buzz.

There's also a "tween" category that tends to be pinker and fluffier and deals with crushes, clothes, and friendships. Aladdin does this sort of book well.

2. Know your reader. How is MG different from YA? The YA protagonist is older, with a protagonist who is 15 to 17. But it's not just simply about age. The interior world of the pre-teen child is different from the older teen. If all good fiction has some rite of passage in it, the older teen's right of passage is "who will I be as an adult." For a middle grader, it's about firsts, the beginnings of finding an identity separate from your parents. Asking who am I, what am I?

3. Voice. Her client Mark Maciejewski had a funny voice. His submission needed work, but that voice struck her. Sometimes she can hear the adult behind the voice--and adult who is trying to remember how they think children sound. "Can you access the real thing? If you can, you're two-thirds of the way there. If you can an agent will spot you."

Let your voice shine through in the opening, rather than dumping plot info up front.

Read a lot and listen to children speak and understand their phrasing and logic. "You've got to develop your voice muscle."



The Greenhouse Literary Agency
Follow Sarah on Twitter
Like The Greenhouse Literary Agency on Facebook

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I'm so excited about this session! Rainbow Rowell is the New York Times bestselling author of the Young Adult novels Eleanor & Park and Fangirl and Carry On. She's even received a Printz Honor for Eleanor & Park!*

Martha Brockenbrough is our very own team blogger, author of the YA novels The Game of Love and Death and Devine Intervention.**



They're talking about Creating Teen Characters, and you'd think it would feel like this:


But it really felt like this:


Rainbow and Martha had great, in-depth discussion and we were right there. They spoke about the shift that happens for writing a teen's perspective, and the shift that happens for a teen reader (versus an adult.) Rainbow said,

"I don't think about audience... I can get stalled."

They both worked as journalists, and Rainbow spoke of the good training that was (like how it was great for dialog and made her not so precious about her writing) and the challenges that same background created (her voice got "slammed out.") Rainbow joked about her contemporary realistic novels,

"What I'm doing is journalism, but lying."

Martha played the song "Hast Thou Considered The Tetrapod" by The Mountain Goats so we could all hear a bit of it. Rainbow then told us about how the song (and the whole album) inspired her novel Eleanor & Park, and "how it unlocked me." They spoke about different tools they use to get into the writing. Martha used period photos for The Game of Love and Death. Rainbow uses music as a "shortcut to get back to the emotion of that scene," describing a particular scene from Eleanor & Park and how it had a specific song.

They spoke about diversity of characters, aspirational characters versus real characters, and Rainbow's breakthrough in writing fantasy. It was a great story, about research and tropes (and playing with tropes) and how Rainbow ultimately realized that for fantasy, "I've read enough to find my own voice in it."

There was so much more, and Rainbow also answered questions from the rapt audience.

Two final bits of wisdom:

Speaking about today's teens versus the teens of the 1980s, Martha Brockenbrough said,

"We've been this age, we know what we need to know." 

Telling us of a particular character she found challenging to write, (Agatha in Carry On), Rainbow said,

"As an author, you need to find your way in."

And then she explained how she found her way into Agatha... So fascinating!

Useful. Inspiring. Very special.

What a breakout session!




*Check out all of Rainbow's titles here.

**Check out all of Martha's titles here.

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Jean Feiwel is a senior vice president and publisher at Macmillan Children's Publishing Group, where her eponymous imprint has published wonderful books such as Marissa Meyer's Lunar Chronicles Series.

She also oversees Squarefish, Swoon Reads, and Henry Holt. (Macmillan has nine imprints in all, including one called Imprint—ha!)

Her career in publishing is incredibly distinguished: at Scholastic she invented the Baby-Sitter's Club series, and published Goosebumps, Animorphs, Harry Potter and other blockbuster series.

And it's not just novels; the picture book On the Night You Were Born by Nancy Tillman was the first title she published at her imprint, and more than 3.5 million copies are in print.

She was one of five editors featured on a panel about publishing and its future.

At Macmillan, the company compiled imprints that had all been independent. "The decision was made to create what I call the Star Wars Alliance," Jean said. This unified their sales and marketing and retained the individuality of the imprints. As a result, their net business has grown 70 percent.

The growth of the industry has changed things, she said. After Harry Potter, it wasn't enough to have a bestselling book. You had to have a phenomenally bestselling book.

"If your bar is that high, you can miss a lot of things happening under that bar," she said. At Macmillan, they're supposed to grow by a certain percentage overall, and they're supposed to make great books.

"Slow and steady wins the race. It's pressure, but it's not the kind of pressure that's a carrot on a stick getting higher and further away."

Jean described different kinds of excitement. One is when you place a big bet on something—as she did with Marissa Meyer's Lunar Chronicles. It's the No. 1 bestselling series on the NYT list this week.

There are other kinds of risks—like a book called MY BIG FAT ZOMBIE GOLDFISH. "It's whizzing along nicely."

She loves being able to build things from the ground up. Risk-taking and developing new ideas is the hallmark of what Macmillan loves to do, she said.

She urged writers to do what they do best, and do it well. Stick to it and believe in it. It's not about trying to write to a trend.

Starting a crowdsourced imprint, Swoon Books, let her see a broader variety of manuscripts than agents were sending (they were too swamped for a slush pile). Seeing a range of submissions and mining self-published work is interesting and useful for publishers.


MacKids: the homepage of Macmillan Children's Publishing
Feiwel and Friends website
Feiwel and Friends on Facebook
Follow Feiwel and Friends on Twitter

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Jon Anderson, President and Publisher of the S&S Children's Division, has been at his job for seven years, but in the book business since high school—as a B Dalton bookseller!

At Simon & Schuster Jon presides over the nine different children's imprints, which publish for toddlers to teens: There is Little Simon, which is predominantly preschool/boardbooks, all the way up to Simon Pulse, which is the S&S teen imprint.

Jon says S&S has five publishers who oversee the nine children's imprints. Each imprint reflects the tastes of their individual editorial directors. The nine editorial directors also share a sales force and two marketing teams. The editorial directors are nine, living/normal human beings, not to be confused with any other famous group of nine, they are absolutely not Tolkienian ring-wraiths—could a person as delightful as someone like Justin Chanda ever be allied with something as evil as Mordor? I don't think so.

Justin Chanda works for Jon, this is how he greets Jon at the office every day.

Lin asks about the health of the market:

Jon says his adult colleagues are very jealous of the never-ending revenue stream that is a children's book publisher's backlist.

Lin asks for Jon's interpretation of the S&S mission statement and it is:


"We always look for quality first. We have a huge commitment to cover diversity with our books, cover all age ranges with our books."

All of the presidents/publishers on the panel ask for authors and illustrators to have realistic expectations in all areas of publishing: advance amounts, marketing, potential sales...

Jon mentions a surprise success story, a book that everyone on the publishing team loved, but was bought for not too much money (a realistic amount) as it was considered a bit of a niche book that would only reach a certain sales level. But that book—look at all the awards it's got on its cover(!)—has gone on to sell over 200,000 copies.




How do you break in and/or succeed in a children's book career? Jon says attending events like this can help, not only because there are opportunities to learn about the craft and the competition, but to be in proximity to the industry professionals and gatekeepers. And at events like this, you are much more likely to meet those people in person in organic ways (unlike the less organic way of accosting an editor in a bathroom at a tradeshow like BEA).

Maybe, if there is time for Q&A, Jon will finally clear up the age-old riddle: Is this a picture of Simon? OR SCHUSTER?

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Mallory Loehr is Vice President, Publishing Director for the Random House, Golden Books and Doubleday children's imprints--representing everything from board books to young adult hard covers and trade books to licensed books.

With Random House Books for Young Readers since 1990, she's edited household name titles and authors including Dr. Seuss books, the Magic Treehouse series, Bruce Coville and Tamora Pierce!

Some highlights from what Mallory shared:

On the advantage Children's publishing has over adult publishing:

"Children's books backlist, which means they live on and on and on."

On Random House Books for Young Readers' mission, how they're

"thinking about that kid reader, wanting them to be totally engaged... and make them a reader for life."

and when asked what defines success for her, Mallory tells the room about an illustrator/author she discovered on Etsy, Emily Winfield Martin.

Mallory Loehr on screen talking about E

Mallory speaks of how Emily's career has grown, defining success as the growth of an author/illustrator's career. Emily's first book, a middle grade, did well but wasn't huge, her next book, a picture book, sold less than they'd hoped, and it's her current, third book, the picture book, The Wonderful Things You Will Be, that hit the Best Seller lists and has been there for 20 weeks! So it's not just the single book's success, but the growth of this author/illustrator's career--and how success will continue to happen for her--that Mallory defines as success.


The optimistic panel also discusses changes in the retail environment, ebooks, publisher expectations of their authors and illustrators and much more.

It's an amazing window into children's publishing today!

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From Left to right, SCBWI's Lin Oliver (at podium), Megan Tingley (Executive Vice President and Publisher, Little Brown Books for Young Readers), Andrea Pappenheimer (Senior Vice President, Director of Sales/Associate Publisher HarperCollins Publishers), next at the table and shown on screen is Mallory Loehr (Vice President, Publishing Director, Random House/Golden/Doubleday Books for Young Readers), Jean Feiwel (Senior Vice President and Director, Feiwel & Friends/Macmillan Children's Publishing Group), and Jon Anderson (President and Publisher, Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division.)

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William Joyce, the creator of so many amazing books and now movies, is here! You may remember The Leaf Men, Dinosaur Bob, Santa Calls, Bentley & Egg, A Day with Wilbur Robinson, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore???

Joyce compares a traditional printed book to an icecream sandwich: The hard stuff's on the outside, the good stuff is in the middle.

When asked by technology companies to help them achieve true interactivity with their products, Joyce asks them what the hell they think happens when a kid opens a book.

Joyce appreciates the apprenticeship style of the publishing industry like he felt he received decades ago. Getting the time, maybe 5 or 6 years, to get to know the people working at a publisher, getting to learn how to craft a book with them by working on smaller books, forging creative projects together.

Joyce's advice: Befriend/understand/know the problems/trials/process of the people publishing your book.

"Most of the people in publishing are in it for the same reason you are, they love books."

Joyce talks about getting a phone call from a guy named John Lasseter. He knows we understand how solitary the typical children's book creator's creative daily life is. But with his film work, Joyce was excited by the collaborative nature of such projects and finds balancing both makes a much nicer work life.

After his time in Hollywood, Joyce decided he might try his hand at his own film production company, but closer to home, which is when Moonbot Studios became a reality. The idea of making an animated movie in Louisiana, he says, would have gotten you escorted from the room [to a looniebin]. But Joyce and his partners wanted to prove it could be done in Shreveport, and so they did, and in 2012 it won the Oscar for Best Animated Short. (Fun fact! They made FIVE THOUSAND MINIATURE BOOKS for this short!)



Bill describes their (Moonbot's) thought process behind making their Lessmore story app unique from both the paper book and animated short. He shares a mini tirade with us about simulated page gutters that's pretty entertaining.

Bill's advice for bookmakers looking to develop online versions of their work:

"Don't just regurgitate what you've done. Make it separate, make it special."

Check out his delightful Instagram feed! Here's a cool piece, don't you want to know what happens to the snowman??!!

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Children's authors and illustrators are well known around the world for their love of math, which is why we start each conference with some statistics about our attendees.

Here's how this New York international conference breaks down:

• 1,151 attendees - a record numer
• 337 are published authors and illustrators
• 813 pre-published

Yes, we know these numbers don't quite add up. "We're one number off and I'm damn proud of it," SCBWI founder Lin Oliver said.

Attendees travel from 48 states. The missing ones? Hawaii and North Dakota.

They also traveled from 19 countries including the United States.

And we come from many different professional backgrounds, including a ventriloquist, a psychic, and a dressage trainer. (But these are not the same person.)

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We're so glad you're here -- in person and/or following along on this blog.

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(If you know the musical that's from, you can chime in--or sing along--in comments!)

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For the last few conferences, we've been asking a handful of illustrators to share a page from their conference journals/sketchbooks of something that inspired them during the conference. (You can see some recent entries here.)

The idea is that it gives illustrators a spotlight, and shares a multi-faceted visual take on all the craft, inspiration, business, community and opportunity of an SCBWI conference!

This time around, we're changing it up, opening it up, to ANY and EVERY illustrator attending #NY16SCBWI who wants to take part.

Just add a link to your image that you've posted somewhere online here in comments. It's that easy!


Ready? Set? Illustrate!

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Here's the interview I did with Megan Tingley, Executive Vice President and Publisher at Little, Brown and Company Books For Young Readers.

We talked about the increasing visibility of trans and other LGBTQ stories in children’s literature, what makes her say about a submitted manuscript not only, "YES, this is a Little Brown Book," but "I want this for MY list!”, and Megan even shared her favorite piece of advice for authors.

Thanks, Megan!

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It's concise, intriguing, and packs some good advice. Check out Jolie's pre-#NY16SCBWI interview with Gary Schmidt here.

Illustrate and Write On!
Lee

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