How to use this Page

Every year at the June conference we run and Silent Auction and Chinese Auction to raise money for our Scholarship Fund.  We always use all the money to help members with financial problems throughout the year attend our events.  The money went fast this year with so many members finding themselves in difficult situations due to the economy. 

The Scholarship Fund helped over 16 members this past year attend events they otherwise would not have been able to afford.  It looks like the economy is starting to tick up, which is a good thing, but we still need to replenish the fund for this coming year.

Members who have helped the chapter by attending New Jersey events, donated their time or donated items to previous raffles, get top priority over other members with similar financial needs.  So your efforts to help the chapter and others does not go unnoticed and could someday end up helping you, too.

Here is what we do:

I call every editor and agent who attended one of our events to see if they can donate a critique and join us at one of our Summer Networking Dinners.  The results get listed in the Silent Auction.  Attendees bid on the things that interest them throughout the conference.  With the Silent Auction you can write down a dollar amount and then if someone wants to beat your bid, that person writes in a higher amount.  This goes back and forth until the person with the highest bid at the end of the conference wins.

We usually have a few full manuscripts critiques in addition to many partial critiques.

The Chinese Auction consist of items people have donated.  Here are some things people have donated in the past:  All-in-one color printer, Phillies baseball tickets, vacation in Maine, theatre tickets, restaurant gift certificates, wooden desk sets, office supplies, gift cards, framed art work, books, massages, exercise equipment, theme baskets, Free year SCBWI membership, Free entrance to a New Jersey event, and much more.  We sell tickets and you can place your tickets in the container that corresponds to the item you want to win.  At the end of the conference a winning ticket will be pulled for each item.  You can win more than one time.  Everyone who donates an item worth more than $25 will receive five free tickets to use.  You do not have to attend the conference to donate an item. 

Note Published Authors: - Even if you are going to attend the conference, donating a few of your books is a nice way to get your name out there to promote you and your books. 

Note Illustrators:  You can only  have one piece  of art in the Art Exhibit.  Donating another piece of your work will get a second piece seen by all the faculty.  Again even if you can’t attend, this is a great opportunity for an illustrator to get their work in front of the art directors, agents and editors.  A small price to pay to help create some buzz.

Please contact Betsy at [email protected] if you would like to donate something to help.

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy

As writers we often learn things about our industry and craft through trial and error. It can be painful at times, but inevitably we survive these experiences being smarter and stronger. We asked Jennifer Bradbury if there was anything that made her think she might never get published.

I never thought I'd get published when I started trying to write YA back in 2002. I learned about the Delacorte press contest for first Young Adult Novel and decided that I would try and write and submit to this contest—having a deadline has always helped me be more productive. That first year, I actually got a really nice, detailed rejection, and ended up speaking with the editor and resubmitting later. I blew it, but felt the next year, when I submitted a story that I thought was way, way better that things would go differently. And they did. But not well. I got the standard, speedy form rejection.

And I was devastated.

Now when I look back at that manuscript, I realize it isn't even close to as wonderful as I thought it was then. But at the time, I was certain it represented the best I could ever pull off. Was certain it was superior to the one I'd submitted the year before. And I sort of folded up and felt sorry for myself for a while.

Eventually, I started revising, bought a copy of The Children's Writers and Illustrators Market, and started querying agents with that same story. And though no one ever bought it, getting through that disappointment was necessary and made me a better writer.

Incidentally, I submitted an early, very rough version of SHIFT to the contest as well (because by then, I'd sort of established a pattern of writing a novel a year and getting rejected). And whether it just wasn't ready, or the people opening the envelopes were put off by the fact that my well-meaning friend (who I had print and submit it for me because we were still out of the country) printed it double sided, I'll never know. But that rejection came back even more quickly than the two before it!


Double-sided? Eek! We're betting that's it. Tomorrow we're going to get to know Jennifer a little better by flipping through her photo album. We'll find out why she was in jail and where she found state-shaped blocks of cheese.

I recently watched Head, the 1968 movie featuring the Monkees. Man, talk about weird! The movie is comprised of vignettes strung together in an odd way that makes sense and leads to the ending. Jack Nicholson cowrote the screen play. This movie is not for everyone--there are clear drug references and the fragments give the movie a weird, dreamlike quality. For me, the movie was strange and literary. I'm still thinking about it.

If you like all things sixties/seventies, if vintage is you, if you use words like dig and groovy, this movie is for you. Head intrigued me enough to Google it. When the movie first came out in 1968, it failed, but it has a strong cult following, even now. Proof: Cameron Crowe used the Porpoise Song to close Vanilla Sky, the 2001 movie featuring Tom Cruise. The Porpoise Song also closes Head.

Check out the Porpoise Song in my new sidebar feature: Clip of the Week (scroll down a little). But before you go, please leave a comment and vote in Summer Friend's first ever Battle of the Bands: The Monkees VS Smash Mouth, performing "I'm a Believer."

The Monkees


Smash Mouth