LASCBWI Conference in a nutshell day one: (idea borrowed from my awesome roomie Colleen Ryckert Cook) Registration desk at 6:45 am. 1,342 people. Bruce Colville-Take risks. Get out of your own way. Julie Strauss-Gabel- thoughtful and incredibly smart. Strong wonderful graphics of Denise Fleming. Libba Bray- in your manuscript: "tell me what is intolerable for you to bear alone." For more, definitely check out the official conference blogging team who are doing an amazing job!
Tag: conference
One day and a wake-up until LA!
On Wednesday morning I board a plane for Los Angeles for the 40th Anniversary SCBWI Summer conference! Let the countdown begin. I’ve printed out my schedule, wrote down my Regional Advisor duties, jotted down meetings with friends, looked at pictures of the pool and printed out the running directions from the hotel. (Have to keep up with the triathlon training, right? I hope so.)
While I’ve attended the New York City national conference, this is my first time at the West Coast event. As many of you know, I’m not a shrinking violet and I’m no stranger to the grip and grin. However, there are a thousand people registered for this event not including all the staff and faculty! I’m sure there will be moments that I’ll be overwhelmed.
Nevertheless, there are some things about conferences that just don’t change– the schedule (you got your workshops and your keynote addresses), the food (you can bank on some chicken dish), and most important when you go to an SCBWI event you will be surrounded by people who are kind, by people who are committed to making great literature and connecting children with books.
If you’re going to the conference there will be a published list of meet-ups with Regional Advisors in the States and Internationally. I’ll be meeting with New England members in the Belair Room on Friday evening between 8 and 8:30. If you see me working the registration table on Friday morning, please introduce yourself.
Also, don’t forget the Guidebook App for the conference. You can find it in the Apple or Android Apps store.
Stay tuned for an RA perspective of the conference.
What’s new with SCBWI?
I’ve wanted to post this blog since I came back from the wonderful Regional Advisor retreat in March. I know. That’s a long time and a lot has happened in that time. Of note, I finished my creative thesis and had a wonderful final grad residency at Vermont College of Fine Arts that culminated in my graduation. Yes. I am officially Anna J. Boll, MFA. But enough about me. This post is about new developments at SCBWI and how you can take advantage of them.
1. Headquarters is encouraging Regional Advisors (RA’s) to create programs that are low or no cost events. Here are just a few events that I’ve been thinking of.
Meet-Ups: Host a meet up at a local book store, the library, or popular watering hole. These events can be just social or you can ask a local author/illustrator to read from their new book, or talk about some aspect of craft or marketing.
Group Book Launch: Do you have a book coming out? I’d love to hear about it so I can connect you with others in your area who might be able to do a signing/launch activity at a local book store or library. I’m also happy to congratulate you on my blog.
Sketch Crawl: Get together with other SCBWI illustrators and go to the zoo, the aquarium, or hang out in a local park. There is plenty of subject matter for artists all around.
Portfolio Review: Have a portfolio critique session with other illustrators (live or online) so you can put your best work forward. Especially helpful before trips to major SCBWI conferences.
Museum/Library Visit: Have you always wanted to go to look at Michelson’s gallery? The Eric Carle Museum? Did you know that there’s a great Illustration exhibit in Lewiston-Auburn College until August 12th? Our own NESCBWI member David Kelly and many other authors are slated to speak at the Boston Public Library? If you’re planning to go, let’s tell other members and see if we can get a group together.
Book Clubs: Good writers have to be good readers. Would you be interested in analyzing the works of published children’s authors to discuss what makes a great story /illustration.
Figure Drawing Nights: Figure drawing is a critical skill for any artist. If you are interested, email me and we will try to get a critical mass together to hire models.
Retreat Day: Do you live on a lake, in the mountains, by the ocean? Invite a few SCBWI members to join you for a day of writing with an optional sharing/critique. Have everyone bring a dish to share for lunch and keep costs low.
***If this is a sanctioned SCBWI event, I need to know about it. Send me an email at NorthernNERA at nescbwi dot org.
2. The 40th Annual SCBWI Summer Conference is August 5th – 8th in Los Angeles and I’ll be there! Sadly, I do not own a smartphone. If I did, I’d download the amazing Guidebook App to plan my conference. It gives you a personalized schedule, and information about each speaker and session. You can also browse maps of the event space at the Hyatt, and follow the #LA11SCBWI Twitter feed directly from the app.
The app is compatible with iPhones, iPads, iPod Touches and Android devices.
To get the guide, choose one of the methods below:
- Download ‘Guidebook’ from the Apple App Store or the Android Marketplace
- Visit http://guidebookapp.com/getit from your phone’s browser
The guide will be listed under the "download guides" section of the application.
3. Awards and Grants:
If you haven’t looked at the SCBWI Awards and Grants recently, follow this link!
http://www.scbwi.org/Pages.aspx/Introduction
Today I’m highlighting the SCBWI Book Launch Award which provides two annual awards of $2000 each for an author or illustrator to use for marketing a book scheduled for release from a PAL publisher during the next calendar year. We all know that authors and illustrators are increasingly responsible for their own marketing. The money from this grant can be used for any kind of promotional purpose that will increase sales and visibility of the book, such as launch events, speaking engagements, book tours, curriculum materials, advertising, book trailers, website development, or community events.
Watch this space for more grant information and interviews with recent winners!
Have a great weekend.
Peace,
Anna
Five on Friday
1. Friday is supposed to be my writing day and I’ve failed miserably. After many self-admonishments to keep Friday’s sacred for writing I spent most of the day editing the newsletter for my paying job. I know, relax, right? Money is a necessary evil and I had all of Wednesday to write because of the snow day and I’ve been keeping up with my early morning writing sessions. In fact, I’m at a point where I should just print what I have and revise through the weekend. My deadline is Tuesday and I want it to be good. So I should just chill.
2. Snow. A lot of it. It’s beautiful and a heck of a lot better then the mud that’s sure to follow. Enough said.
3. The NESCBWI conference registration opens on the 15th of February. Go to the website and check out information about schedule and special offerings. This is New England’s 25th anniversary conference so there’s tons going on. Get your manuscripts ready for Quick Queries, and Critiques.
4. I’m excited that I have some books lined up to review for the spring. March is Women’s History Month and I’ll be reviewing Women of the Golden State written by Linda Crotta Brennan and others. Later in the spring, J.L. Powers will be joining me in the Chaos for an interview regarding her book This Thing Called the Future which is due out May 1. I have a couple of others up my sleeve if I can get to them.
5. My boys are amazing, smart, and talented and that’s just my unbiased opinion. I’m taking them to Blue Man Group on Sunday to celebrate report cards, swimming races, and performances. I am so very lucky to be their Mom.
What’s with that race and religion stuff in the NESCBWI eval?
First, I want to thank Anindita Sempere ( ) and Greg Fishbone for an amazing conference. The expertise of faculty was fabulous, the keynoters engaging and informative and the company… well I absolutely thrive and am inspired by all the wonderful NESCBWI members.
Over the weekend, I had no responsibilities so I was happy to meet people (whom I could remember since I wasn’t in Director-land) and listen to some concerns in my brandie new position as Northern New England RA. One that I heard more than once was about the demographics questions on the evaluation sheets. I inserted those into the eval last year so I thought I could explain the thinking behind that.
The theme of last year’s conference, if you remember, was "Many Voices." I chose that theme because it is important to me that every child recognize themselves (or someone like themselves) in books that we write, illustrate and publish. To that end, many of the workshops had to do with sensitive portrayals of various cultures, issues and concerns in "mulitcultural" publishing, etc. I made a sincere effort to recruit and hire well-qualified authors and illustrators of color onto the faculty in the hopes that this would ultimately draw new minority voices to the membership of NE SCBWI.
But how would we measure that?
I designed the demographic questions to be short and to the point so that we could collect data and establish a baseline from which we could see how the membership trended. We hope to collect this data for the next 5 or so years.
But what about that religion question? Why do you need to know that?
Well, I am Jewish. And I always feel that when I fill out those questionnaires that just saying that I’m "Caucasian" leaves my cultural identity uncounted. I’m sure there are others from various cultures who feel that way too.
Of course it is your choice to respond to the demographic questions at all, but now you know why they are there.
Busy Writer/Mom/Triathlete Links on Life
Oh goodness. It has been over a month, a month? since I’ve posted and I’m so sorry. That means I’ve done NO book review Wednesdays for a month. Ack. (And I thought those would keep me blogging.) March has been a month of deadlines and to excuse my absence I quickly fill you in on some of the deadlines that I’ve been meeting and working towards. If you follow me on Facebook, you’ve probably see a lot of this already so my apologies.
March 1: Final illustrations for the book Fufu and Fresh Strawberries You can see some of those illustrations here.
Forum assignment for my Picture Book Certification Semester at Vermont College of Fine Arts (VCFA)
March 15: Final egg paintings for the Great Goose Egg Auction. You can see the eggs here.
March 17: My 2nd packet was due for VCFA
March 22: Forum assignment for my Picture Book Certification Semester at VCFA
March 23: I did my first multisport event. An indoor triathlon at the Naval Air Station Brunswick. The event was a 1000 meter row on an ergometer, a 5 mile bike on a stationary lifefitness cycle, and a 1.5 mile treadmill run. You can see pictures of me and Mike (the gentleman paired with me) in the event and read more about it in the captions here. I used this indoor triathlon to train for an event that I am doing in May, The Tri for the Casco Bay Y. If you’d like to donate a small bit to the scholarship funds and to my team the MIghty Mamas, please take a look at our fund raising page where you can donate online. I’ll be swimming and cycling and my friend Rachel will tag off to do the 5K run.
This past week I’ve been revising and polishing the first 10 pages of my novel, working on the synopsis and query letter for the deadlines associated with the New England SCBWI spring conference critiques and quick queries. While the Friday and Saturday registration is full, there are still spots for Sunday so check it out.
I also just got back from the post office, where I was sending a picture book to for the April 1st scholarship deadline at VCFA and a trip to the library where I was stocking up with a new load of 25 picture books for VCFA Packet 3!
All of this with my husband out of state for the first three weeks of March and two kids who need me.
So you see, I’ve been an extremely busy Writer/Mom/Triathlete but we’ll see if April, with its extended sunshine hours, allows me to find more time to blog. Happy Passover to all who celebrate. Look for my Wednesday review of the book: The Matzoh That Papa Brought Home.
The Writer’s Rap by Erin Dealy
Day two for posting videos. Sign up for the New England SCBWI conference before it gets filled up! http://www.regonline.com/nescbwi10
No emails
For the last 12 months I have had a plethora of emails. Every time I sat down to the computer there would be at least 30 emails and this would be true about three times a day. Yesterday 10. Today 6. I am not complaining. I am rejoicing. The conference is done and it far exceeded my expectations. Our keynote speakers, Cindy Lord and Floyd Cooper were absolutely amazing.
Cindy gave us a practical and touching keynote about the work that is necessary to create honest writing. It is this kind of writing, she explained, that will allow your readers to connect to the story in an authentic way. Cindy is a personal friend but we have not been in close proximity for a while. Never the less, her speech seemed like a conversation that discussed all the challenges I currently face in my writing. It was as if the other 400 people in the room melted away and we were sitting together having tea and cake. Truly, this is the mark of an excellent speaker.
Floyd was charming, funny and informative. HIs positive and laid back style was accessible to everyone in the room (artist or writer). He told us about his experiences in the industry over the last 20 years, and the challenges facing illustrators willing to take on characters from diverse cultures. He shared his subtractive method with ease and aplomb. (Which anyone can do. Ha.)
Our faculty was generally knowledgeable, prepared, and accessible. I actually got to attend three workshops over the weekend and all of them were excellent.
Of course it is the conference within the conference that takes my breath away: seeing old friends, making new connections, learning from peers.
Thanks to everyone who made this conference a reality. I delegated quite a bit this year as I was directing from afar. Everyone kept the juggling balls in the air and put on a super show.
Now I’m free to do my creative work, and that’s what it is really all about. To do:
- Final 36" x 36" drawing for college drawing class due Wednesday on "The mythology of epiphanies."
- Submit application packets for Falmouth and Brunswick art teacher positions.
- Work on VCFA personal and critical essays for submission next Friday.
- Final paper and project due for Color Theory, May 11.
- Revise picture book for agent.
- Re-read novel taking notes.
At least I don’t have as many emails.
Four Days Left
Well friends, at this point the conference is pretty much on auto pilot. Saturday is sold out and I’m so excited to see it all come together. What isn’t on autopilot is my creative work. For some wacko reason I signed up for the poster showcase and a portfolio review. HA! Ha-Ha. This is me laughing at my insane overestimation of my own ability to create on deadline. I’ve got the next three days to paint a couple of new images that are all sketched out and get copies of them. The poster needs to be printed out too. I figure if worse, comes to worse, I can just bring my laptop and show it to the art director. (I’m joking! Don’t do this.)
In other news, Scholastic said "no" to my novel. This was a big disappointment as I met the editor at the conference last year and she had asked for my full manuscript. I was so hopeful. I wasn’t even expecting a "yes, we’ll take it," I was hoping for an editorial letter. Basically she told my agent that there was some nice writing but it was a little didactic and heavy handed. (My words not hers.) I’m looking forward to the time to revise it with this in mind. I’ve applied to the Lesley MFA program. If I get in, it will be the perfect environment to break my work down and build it up better than before. And so, this quote:
Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
30th president of US (1872 – 1933)
Bengali New Year AND the countdown begins.
TEN DAYS UNTIL THE CONFERENCE! and in other news…
Look at these amazing masks from Pahela Baishakh, the Bengali New Year 1416. Today, Bengalis marched in the capital Dhaka and across the country. What fun it would be to recreate these masks with kids. They look like they might be paper and plaster. Does anyone have experience with these or more information about the symbolism of the animals?
Creative Chaos 