A huge thank you to the design department at NHIA for this beautiful poster. Special thanks to Melissa Sweet for the images, Jim Burke, Illustration Department Chair, Ryan O’Rourke, and Lara McCormick.
Feel free to spread the word and the image. Tweet away!
Note: This event used to be called “Illustrator Day.” SCBWI members you have dibs on registration for this event for a week. Also, this is my first time working with PayPal on a Google form so if anyone chooses those links for payment, could you leave me a comment telling me that it worked and sent you back to the form or (eek) didn’t.
NESCBWI and NHIA present
Melissa Sweet in
The 2nd annual Children’s Book Illustration Symposium
When: Saturday, September 29, 2012
Time: 9:30-4:30
Where: Emma Blood French Auditorium (The French Building) on the New Hampshire Institute of Art campus in Manchester, NH.
Keynote speaker: Melissa Sweet
The workshops:
“The Process, Challenges, and Rewards of Teamwork.”
Melissa Sweet, Author/Illustrator, Rachel Newborn, HMH Designer, Crystal Paquette, HMH Print Production Coordinator will discuss the teamwork required to publish the ALA Sibert Winning book Balloons Over Broadway. The panel will focus on the processes, challenges, and rewards of working with/and integrating two and three dimensional art.
“Color Your World”
As poet Lucille Clifton said, “The literature of America should reflect the children of America.” But in the 21st century, the children’s book field is not nearly as racially diverse as our society – neither in those who select, create and produce the books, nor in the books themselves. We’ll review some of the reasons for this reality, including some good news: research demonstrating that exposure to diverse children’s books can actually reduce prejudice. For the bulk of the workshop, Anne Sibley O’Brein will focus on what illustrators can do now, including exploring your own experience of race, creating characters from races different from your own, drawing racial differences (we’ll do some quick drawing exercises), supporting writers and illustrators of color, and choosing diverse books. Together we’ll imagine possibilities for creating books in which all of our nation’s children can see themselves reflected.
“How to Sell Your Book Without Selling Your Soul”
Brian Lies has had his books read on NPR, his Batmobile spotted at book signings across America, and his artwork used for public library summer reading programs. In this workshop, Brian will give you concrete marketing tools to become the best advocate for your book.
Portfolio Critiques:
We are introducing a limited number portfolio critiques at this year’s event. Critiquers (starred in the presenter list below) will be randomly assigned by the conference staff. Critiquers will use the SCBWI Illustration “gold form” to give feedback. Since the critiquer will not have the work before the symposium, we have asked them to give their first impressions regarding the areas on the “gold form” in a way they might if they were at the office, got a postcard that interested them, and took a first look at your online portfolio. The critique fee of $45 is not included in the symposium fee.
Registration Fees/Dates:
SCBWI Members, $70
Portfolio Critique, $45
SCBWI Registration opens Monday, August 27th. There are limited spaces available for portfolio critiques. Please register/pay early.
Payments may be made by check or online.
If you choose to pay by check, your registration is not confirmed until we receive your check. Checks should be made payable to: NESCBWI Checks should be sent to:
Denise Ortakales, Illustrator Coordinator
711 Shore Drive, Laconia, NH 03246
Those who choose to pay online will incur a $5 processing fee.
Click here for registration and payment, speaker bios, and a schedule of events.
I’m just back from a two-week research/family trip to Italy where I visited Florence and small red-roofed, hill topped towns in Tuscany. I’ll be posting more about that later this week, but first I’m passing on some of the news, blogs and articles that I missed while I was away. Perhaps these are just old news, but perhaps you missed some of these too. Hope they are helpful.
Most important on my list is this announcement from SCBWI. The On-the-verge Emerging Voices Award. I’ve been sitting on this since before my trip, itching to tell you all about this news and then they go and announce it at the LA SCBWI National Conference. Follow the link above for the full press release but here is a quick snippet.
The annual award, established by SCBWI and funded by Martin and Sue Schmitt, will be given to two writers or illustrators who are from ethnic and/or cultural backgrounds that are traditionally under-represented in children’s literature in America and who have a ready-to-submit completed work for children. The purpose of the grant is to inspire and further the emergence of diverse writers and illustrators of children’s books.
Here is the link for the grant eligibility, process, and deadline.
This issue is close to my heart. I hope that writing programs across the country, most notably VCFA, my alma mater, and Hamlin College– and publishing programs, NYU and others will stand up and take notice. Action can be taken to increase diversity in publishing. Here are some thoughts from the CBC Diversty blog from those in the industry.
Here is a wonderful post from Laurie Halse Anderson that discusses the lack of diversity on the recently released NPR YA list. Happy & Sad about the NPR Top 100 YA List In her post she also posts the following links which are important enough for me to list them again here:
On NPR’s Very White Best Young Adult Books List, by Shaker Laurie.
Reading in Color’s Booklists
And… one of my favorite sites The Brown Bookshelf.
(The link for the NPR Top 100 YA List is here if you haven’t seen it.)
In other old news:
Women On The Rise Among The World’s Top-Earning Authors This is an interesting article on celebrity authors but I’m not exactly sure what it says for the rest of us. The article celebrates that there are now six women on the list at all. Perhaps I’m a glass half empty person, (No, I’m not.) but what I see here is a continuation of women earning 78% of what men earn. Even if you go from the Stephen King’s $39 million (instead of James Patterson’s $94 million) 78% of that is about $30 mill. That- and below- is where we find the women.Of course, once you get into the millions of dollars, this may matter less but it is still true. For more on gender and writing see my post here or take a look at VIDA- Women in the Literary Art’s annual count for 2012.
Publishing Is Broken, We’re Drowning In Indie Books – And That’s A Good Thing Okay. I need a while to both read and process something like this but if you are interested in the economics of the publishing industry and are concerned/interested in the changes in traditional vs. digital, this is the article for you.
That’s it for today, friends. Read, write, draw and do at least one of those outside. Two weeks and counting until kids go back to school in the home of Creative Chaos.
Arrivederci!
I’m off to Italy. Creative Chaos will return in late August. In honor of the Olympics, a poem from the Poetry Foundation archives.
BY VICKI HEARNE
Vicki Hearne, “The Archer” from Tricks of the Light: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 2007 by Vicki Hearne. Reprinted by permission of The University of Chicago Press.
Source: Tricks of the Light: New and Selected Poems (The University of Chicago Press, 2007)
Creative Chaos 