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Princeton Theological Seminary
Stuart Hall and Mackay Campus Center
Princeton, NJ

Event kicks off at noon on Saturday November 1, 2914 and parts run through Sunday, finishing at 5 p.m.

Editors/agents include: Amy Cloud (editor, S&S), Janine Le (agent, Sheldon Fogelman Agency), Leon Husock (agent, L. Perkins Agency), Brooks Sherman (agent, The Bent Agency), Connie Hsu (editor, Roaring Brook Press), Shauna Rossano (editor, G.P. Putnam’s Sons), Patrick Collins (creative director, Henry Holt). Author/illustrators include: Joyce Wan (author/illustrator), Darlene Jacobson (author), Kit Grindstaff (author), Laurie Calkhoven (author), Yvonne Ventresca (author), Ame Dyckman (author),  … plus more to be announced!

Saturday, Nov. 1, 2014 ~ Craft Afternoon

(FREE SCBWI Members / $45 Non-SCBWI Members)
Noon to 5 p.m. (Stuart Hall)
Enjoy an afternoon of craft-related workshops with editors, agents and author/illustrator presenters, to help you further your writing/illustrating skills in the world of children’s books. Afternoon includes editor/agent panel, picture book, MG/YA workshops, and more! Bring a bag lunch.

*Registration is required, even for SCBWI members. 

Saturday, Nov. 1, 2013 ~ Dinner with the faculty

($65 SCBWI members / $85 Non-SCBWI Members)
Relax for dinner with our Saturday guest editors and agents.
6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. (The Lounge, Mackay Center)

Filed under: authors and illustrators, Conferences and Workshops, Editor & Agent Info, Events, illustrating, opportunity, writing excercise Tagged: Fall Craft Weekend, NJSCBWI, Princeton Theological Seminary

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Re-Imagining Your Picture Book

Workshop by Harold Underdown

written by Jennie Chan

         Look under, down and deep, even into your character’s underwear.

If you need better advice than that, then you should invest in Harold Underdown’s The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Publishing Children’s Books.  To my surprise, although he had every opportunity to hawk his own book, Mr. Underdown started the workshop by encouraging us to get what he described as “The Bible”: Ann Whitford Paul’s Writing Picture Books: A Hands-On Guide from Story Creation to Publication.  If you can’t decide whether you’re approaching children’s book writing more as an idiot or zealot, then you should check out www.underdown.org for sample chapters and detailed reviews.  Or, you can read the rest of this article to get a sense of what Mr. Underdown personally offered at the June 2012 NJSCBWI conference.

As a former teacher, I was impressed by how Mr. Underdown ran the workshop.  Efficiently yet gently, with the highest form of technology being a hardcover picture book, Mr. Underdown guided us through a 5-step routine 5 times:  He read an excerpt.  Pointed out a perspective or strategy.  Asked questions to help us apply what we’d learned to our own picture books.  Gave us time to write.  And listened to us.

If you have a picture book manuscript that could use some re-imagining, here are the 5 writing exercises (in parentheses are the titles and writers of the books that Mr. Underdown read from—in addition to illustrating his points, they are recommendations for the best picture books):

1)      Character—Do you know your character?  Can you fill a page with your character’s likes and dislikes? What is character’s room like? What is character’s favorite ice cream and why? What is character’s favorite book and why? What interesting quirk does your character have?

(Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are)

2)      Underlying emotion—What is your character feeling? Does the feeling change? How does your reader know what your character is feeling? Can the feeling be intuited or is your text telling it? Are you telling a feeling because it’s easier or because of a better reason, such as a rhythmic refrain?

(Ezra Jack Keats’ The Snowy Day)

3)      Language and voice—How would your story change if you were to write it from a regional dialect? A jargon used by a particular group, such as parents or firefighters?  A style that has a different degree of formality than you’re used to?

Think of a voice you’d like to adopt and rewrite a couple of your manuscript’s sentences in this voice.  Even if the results don’t work for your story, developing this skill would be useful in broadening your appeal to a variety of markets.

(Cynthia Rylant’s The Relatives Came)

4)      Point of view—This is not just about a first, second or third person narrator; it can also be about revealing story and character through a different form, such as letters.

If you were to write a letter from your main character, which character inside or outside the story would it be addressed to? What would the letter focus on?

(Sarah Stewart’s The Gardener)

5)      Setting—How does the setting impact your story? What would happen if you changed the setting? What else would change?

(Vera B. Williams’ A Chair for My Mother)

If you want to try a “whole other workshop” on your own, here’s a sug

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A big weekend for me is approaching! I have a SCBWI ( Society of Children's Books Writers and Illustrators) Conference this weekend. I am very excited because it has been at least three or even four years since I attended one. The New Jersey Chapter has seemed to have expanded quite a bit because they added a day. The Friday session will be an illustration intensive where I get to meet the art director fro Sterling Publishers. We were preassigned a project where we were given several choices of narratives in which to illustrate from. The story I chose was from a manuscript Sterling will actually be publishing in the near future titled Cecily Beasily. I wanted to do a montage of Cecily doing all sorts of mischievous things. I had a lot of fun with the background, too. It seems to be that getting hands deep in a messy paint splattering fiesta is my new thing. :) I am very excited to see what the other group of illustrators bring to the table and then actually get a chance to look at the work from the actual illustrator from the upcoming title visualized.

Saturday will be a day full of workshops and seminars. It is also a great networking day because we sit and eat lunch with agents, art directors, editors, and others like me in the industry. I will also be showing my portfolio this day to the art director of Simon and Schuster as well as an agent. There will be a portfolio display this year supplied with our business cards so that when people walk by they can view our work and take a card. I was also asked to bring in a print of one of my best pieces for an art contest they will be holding as well. As if this wasn't enough, SCBWI has us coming back Sunday for a few more workshops, another luncheon, and then followed by a book signing where those of us who have been published can sell books to one another. I am very excited and hope to get a lot of feedback, and hopefully some more insight how to better succeed in this industry.

Just when I couldn't think this weekend can get any more exciting I also have a school visit on Tuesday at an elementary school in Jackson, NJ. I get the opportunity to read my book A Bailar!/ Let's Dance! to three first grade classes. After I do the reading I will be showing them how to make their own maracas and teaching them a few salsa steps. I hope to take some pictures of both events and post them to my blog some time next week :)

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Come out and join us.  I promise you will have a dog gone good time.

The last two Summer Networking Dinners are being held next week on Aug. 23rd and 24th.  We have a spot available for Aug. 23rd and one spot on Aug. 23rd.  If you are already secured your spot for Aug. 23rd, then please look for my e-mail listing your dinner choices.  People on the 24th do not have to make their entree choices in advance.  People on the waiting list for September 8th in Princeton, NJ.  I am working hard to try to add and editor or agent for that dinner, so don’t give up, yet.

Remember you can sign up for the First Page Session taking place at the Wyndham Hotel and Conference Center on September 20th.  Sarah Dotts Barley, Associate Editor at HarperCollin and Ariel Colletti, Assistant Editor at Atheneum/Simon and Schuster will be joining us for the session and dinner afterwards.  Click here for more details.

There are two spots available for the Writer’s Retreat being held at the at the Hyatt Regency September 30th to October 2nd in Princeton, NJ.  Connie Hsu, Editor at Little, Brown, and Company and Heather Alexander, editor at Dial Books for Young Readers will be out mentors.  Click here for more details.  Anyone who has sign up to attend, please make sure you have your manuscripts ready to submit.  The deadline is August 27th.

Don’t forget that about the NJSCBWI Free Craft Day on November 5th.  Space is limited, so you need to register in advance.  There will be a dinner afterwards with the editors and people can chose to stay for dinner and hear our quest speaker, agent Stephen Frazer.

On November 6th, there will be a Mentoring Workshop and Illustrators’ Day.  The Hyatt Regency is giving us a reduced price for anyone who wants to stay over on Saturday night.  Here is the link to more info for this weekend of events.

So many of us know Rebecca Frazer, Aquistions Editor at Jabberwocky/Soucebooks.  I have confirmed that Rebecca has resigned and will be letting me know very soon as to what she has up her sleeve.  In the meantime, it will not help to mail your manuscripts and query letters to Rebecca.  Check back for more details on this turn of events.  We certainly wish Rebecca the best and hope she can still be involved with all of the SCBWI.

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy

Filed under: authors and illustrators, Editor & Agent Info, networking, News, Publishers and Agencies Tagged: Networking Dinners, NJSCBWI, Writer's Retreat, Add a Comment

Stephen Barbara, literary agent with Foundry Literary + Media in New York City has agreed to join us this year at the New Jersey SCBWI Conference being held in Princeton on June 3rd to 5th.  He will be conducting the Writer’s Intensive on Friday afternoon, doing half hour consultative crititques and workshops. 

For those of you who have not met Stephen, he is a great agent, a wonderful person, extremely knowledgable and a mover and shaker in the children’s Industry.  He’s a great addition to the conference and I know you will love him.  If you were on the fence trying to decide if you should attend, this might be just the thing to push you to register.

Stephen focuses on books for young readers from picture books through young adult.  He also does adult fiction and nonfiction geared to a younger demographic, and he has enjoyed some notable successes with debut authors. His clients include:

New York Times bestseller Lauren Oliver, Newbery Medal winner Laura Amy Schlitz, Edgar Award nominee Jack D. Ferraiolo, School Library Journal blogger Betsy Bird, and popular teen author Todd Strasser, among others.

A graduate of the University of Chicago (AB ’02, English), Stephen previously worked at HarperCollins and as Contracts Director of the Donald Maass Agency.

Publishers Marketplace reports 27 children’s book contracts in the last two years – that’s not counting all the film and TV deals.  Many have been from debut authors and many of them have been very good deals. 

Talk Tomorrow,

Kathy

PS:  Don’t cry girls Stephen just got engaged.  Congratulations Stephen!

Filed under: Agent, children writing, Conferences and Workshops, How to, opportunity Tagged: Foundry Literary + Media, NJSCBWI, Stephen Barbara, Writing Intensive 0 Comments on Announcement: Stephen Barbara – Writing Intensive as of 1/1/1900