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We had a jam-packed two-day smorgasbord of learning, honing, marketing, and networking on careers in writing and illustrating for children.
Congratulations to the winners of our Juried Art Portfolio Show:
Grand prize winner: Jennifer K. Mann
First runner-up: Lisa Mundorff
Second runner-up: John Deininger
And hurrah for the following writers and illustrators whose work was submitted for a manuscript or dummy consultation and subsequently recognized by faculty as Outstanding Works in Progress:
Elana Azose
Kimberly Baker
Megan Bilder
Carole Dagg
John Deininger
Jenny Englund
Annie Gage
Angelina Hansen
Kjersten Hayes
Nina Hess
Amber Keyser
Kristin Kirby
Lucy McAllister
Lea McLean
Cara McQuown
Laurie Schneider
Karen Skelton
Laurie Thompson
Linda Thompson ( author of JAKE SANTANA)
Conference Session SummariesKeynote: A History of the Universe from 1973 to the Present
Adam Rex, Illustrator/Author
Reported by Kjersten Anna Hayes
Lunch had ended. We thought Adam Rex was getting up to do his keynote presentation — but no. Instead, some creepy aliens, the Gorg,* pleaded with conference attendees via YouTube and large screens: Please! Don’t read THE TRUE MEANING OF SMEKDAY! Why? Number one, your eyes will pop out and the Gorg will make you eat them. Number two, the book tastes bad. And most of all, it misrepresents Gorg culture!
Whew. I’m glad they warned us.
When the warning was finished, Adam stood up to plead his case. He talked about the evolution of his writing and illustrating career using a funny mix of slides and keenly timed punch lines. By the time he was finished, I think many of us had gut-aches from laughing so hard too soon after lunch.
I guess you could say Adam had us in stitches, which is appropriate, since one of my favorite parts of his talk was his story of how his character, Frankenstein, ended up with red stitching on the shoulders of his clothes. When Adam can’t find the perfect character model to photograph, he often uses clay and paint to make his own. He dressed his Frankenstein model in an old sock with red stitching, which he liked so much, he included it in his paintings. (Find other pictures of Adam’s models on his blog.)
Thanks, Adam, for a hilarious keynote and for contributing so much to our conference!
*I did some detective work after the conference. The Gorg mentioned above were really just kids with scales taped to their faces standing in front of a map of the world in their school library. So rest assured! Your eyes will not pop out if you read any of Adam’s books. To see the video yourself, go to Adam’s blog for the April 30, 2009, post, Slander! Slander and Lies! It’s at http://adamrex.blogspot.com/2009/04/slander-slander-and-lies.html
Keynote: The Extra Adjective
Grace Lin
Reported by Kjersten Anna Hayes
Grace Lin’s heartfelt presentation about embracing the adjective “multi-cultural” that’s been applied to her work and career captivated the conference crowd on Saturday afternoon. Grace told us: “No matter what you do in life, no one else has done it just like you. Tell your own story.” And that’s just what she did during her presentation.
An editor warned Grace early in her career that if all of the main characters in her books were Asian-looking, she’d be limiting her career and would be labeled a “multi-cultural” writer and illustrator. Grace felt weird about the advice, but she took it to heart. For a while, she made picture books with animal characters.
Still, something tugged at Grace’s heart in regards to the “multi-cultural” characters in her early books: the fan mail she received. Letter after letter came from Asian-American kids who loved that Grace’s books had characters who looked like them. She understood their feelings of not having enough books with characters that looked like you in the pictures. Grace and her siblings had been the only Asian-looking kids in her elementary school, and she remembered being saddened when all the girls in her class tried out for the role of Dorothy in the school’s production of The Wizard Of Oz. She had planned on trying out, too, until a friend told her “Dorothy isn’t Chinese.”
So Grace’s fan mail touched her. She decided to embrace the “multi-cultural” label. She dove into her heart and wrote and illustrated what she knew would mean the most to her. She’s since written many more picture books and started writing and publishing novels, too. She speaks from experience when she recommends that everyone should write from his or her heart.
Session 1-A: Be Your Own Editor
Lisa Papademetriou, Author
Reported by Allyson V. Schrier
Not only is Lisa a successful author, she has previous experience as an editor. The goal of this lecture was to learn Lisa's tips for editing your own manuscript. She reminded her audience that lousy first drafts are okay and encouraged us to put away that first draft and let the story percolate before looking at it again.
Trust in your ability to write your story, she said. She went into detail about story structure and spoke about the importance of putting the inciting incident as close to the beginning of the story as possible. Lisa strongly encouraged us to write a story outline and a scene-by-scene analysis of who wants what, what happens if they don't get it, and why now? She reminded us that our character must take a new and different action in each scene, and that we cannot be afraid to cut, cut, cut. Finally Lisa encouraged us to wrap up the crisis in our story fast, and when we think we are done, to use simple tools to clean things up: spell-check, a search for clichés to avoid, too many “to be” verbs, correct sentence structure, and dialogue tags other than “said,” for instance.
“Make the manuscript as strong as you can,” she said, “then move on. Avoid analysis paralysis.”
Session 1-C: Writing on the Edge
Ellen Hopkins, Author
Reported by Sara Easterly
New York Times bestselling author Ellen Hopkins inspired attendees in this session. Already an accomplished nonfiction writer, Ellen began writing her first young-adult novel, CRANK, to help make sense of her daughter’s experience with drug addiction. It didn’t take long before Ellen realized that the story was bigger than the storyteller. “If you have that kind story in you,” she encouraged, “someone will be interested in it.”
Ellen, who spends two to three months just getting to know her characters before beginning to write a novel, shared some of her secrets for building strong characters:
• Remember nobody is all good or all bad.
• Make your characters so real that they feel like friends.
• YA characters should think like teens, but act like the adults they believe themselves to be.
• Antagonists should have reasons for being flawed.
Most importantly, Ellen talked of the importance of knowing where to take the edge and of having the sensibility to know where to stop. She shared examples from Barry Lyga’s BOY TOY and Elizabeth Scott’s LIVING DEAD GIRL, in addition to excerpts from her forthcoming novel, TRICKS.
Session 1-E: Writing for the Children’s Magazine Market
Joelle Dujardin, Associate Editor,
Highlights Reported by Chadwick Gillenwater
Joelle gave great insight on how to publish your work in the magazine market. Her most important advice was to read several issues of the magazine you are marketing to. Find these issues at your local library. Ask:
• What is the fiction/nonfiction ratio of the magazine?
• What do the readers say in the “reader’s mail?”
This is a great way to find out what your audience wants.
A good way to get started in magazine writing is creating puzzles, recipes, and crafts. This will familiarize the magazine staff with your name and give you credibility. When preparing to write your nonfiction article, read as much as possible on your subject. Then, interview professionals. When you find that “Aha” moment, you will know the best angle to write from. Using quotes will help center your manuscript.
Speaking specifically about Highlights, Joelle says that the magazine does not spearhead change but is not opposed to it. Each issue has a theme and a circulation of two million readers. Highlights buys all rights to manuscripts, and Joelle accepts fiction manuscripts up to 800 words.
Session 1-F: What Makes a Great Cover
Elizabeth Parisi, Executive Art Director, Scholastic
Reported by Dana Arnim
The personable, knowledgeable, and experienced Elizabeth Parisi, who oversees books across four imprints at Scholastic, spoke about what makes a successful cover design. Showing examples from decades past, Newbery winners, and picture book, middle-grade and YA titles, Elizabeth explained that a cover should present an image that captures the essence of the story or its main characters, without including too much detail about story setting or specific action.
At the same time, the cover must have marketing appeal to entice buyers and readers to pick up the book. She noted that although YA book covers, in particular, use a lot of photography, there is still demand for illustrated covers for teen books. Often, covers chosen after a long design process — and approved by the editorial department — will be shot down by the marketing department in favor of what they feel will sell the book. Sadly, the marketing department is often responding directly to feedback from the big booksellers, such as Barnes & Noble, Wal-mart, and Amazon, about what they think will move on their shelves. Although this presents additional challenges, the designers and art directors continue to advocate for their books to achieve covers that fulfill all the competing criteria.
As a delightful surprise for the artists who submitted dummies to Elizabeth for consultation, she had created cover art for their books prior to the conference. She discussed imagery choices, color selection, and typography for each.
Session 2-A: “Make ‘Em Laugh — Writing Humor for the Young Reader”
Steven Mooser, Author and President/co-founder of SCBWI
Reported by Kerri Kokias
Humor may come naturally for some, Steven says, but it can also be developed. Whether you consider yourself a funny person or not, here are some ways to incorporate humor into your storytelling:
• Incongruity between what’s expected and what actually occurs
• Someone in an awkward or uncomfortable position
• Role reversals
• Exaggeration
• Understatement
• Gentle foibles or behaviors not appropriate to the situation
These categories of humor can be used to develop entire plotlines or characters, or you can implement them in into your manuscript in more subtle ways. For example, Steven talked about how he incorporates humor into his series. First, he comes up with a strong central character or group of characters and puts them in different and humorous situations. Then he puts a timeline on the plot to build suspense. Finally, he creates ways that plot and subplot come together to solve the main story problem.
Session 2-B: Strength of Character
Kevan Atteberry, Illustrator
Reported by Laura Kvasnosky
When Kevan invents characters, his aim is to make them look engaging, endearing, and evocative. He had a chance to fine-tune how he achieves this result when he created Clippy, the cartoon character who offered user help on Microsoft products. Clippy went through over 200 versions and extensive market research.
Kevan talked about how an illustrator can use intuition and careful reading to bring characters to life. He read a selection from the text he received for LUNCH BOX AND THE ALIENS, written by Brian W. Fields, and showed how a close reading revealed the characters’ unique physique: in this case, tentacles, eye stalks, and a belly that smiles, traits that Kevan worked into two very likeable characters.
After showing us some of his favorite characters invented by other artists, including Tedd Arnold, Lane Smith, and Oliver Jeffers, Kevan focused on the look of a few selected best friends in picture books. (Did you ever notice that without their clothes, James Marshall’s George and Martha are virtually identical?) He also showed how peripheral characters can add humor and expand a text, using the example of his own illustrations for FRANKIE STEIN, written by Lola M. Schaefer. For that story, Kevan invented a friendly ghost and a small, funny, blue “rat/mouse” that he worked into the art but that are not mentioned in the text.
All in all, the session provided good examples of engaging, endearing and evocative characters — much like Kevan himself.
Session 2-C: Promising the World — How to Pitch, Persuade, and Promote
Sarah Shumway, Senior Editor, Katherine Tegen Books
Reported by Molly Blaisdell
Sarah offered her take on how to pitch, persuade editors (or readers), and promote books, along with an insider's look into the acquisitions process at HarperCollins. With 800 submissions per year and eighty percent of the material they publish being purchased from agents, Sarah made it clear that to rise to the top you must offer a distilled idea that creates enthusiasm, reveals commercial appeal, and shows distinctive innovation.
She put into very concrete terms what makes a book attractive to her publishing house. From the importance of voice to the lesser importance of curriculum tie-ins, Sarah stressed that every author needs to understand where his or her book will fit in the market. She segued from there into a beneficial hands-on activity that immediately put her advice into practice. With her guidance, each participant put some time into creating an effective "pitch" sentence for a current work. Sarah graciously offered her savvy, concrete critique to many participants on the strengths and weaknesses of their pitches. In all, Sarah's session was vibrant and informative, and it wholly unwrapped the mystery of acquisitions.
Session 2-D: Rhymes with Fresca
Jon Sciezka, Author and National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature
Reported by Dana Arnim
His Excellency the Ambassador demonstrated abundantly to his audience why he was chosen to advocate for children’s literature. His presentation was lively and fun, and it included his list of suggestions for success in the long process of creating and publishing books for children. Highlights included:
1. Don’t listen to the critiques of most of your friends, (or of Carlos Fuentes), who either:
• Wish they could write like you, or
• Want everyone to write like they do.
2. Be sure your spouse works for a great company, making lots of money so you can take time off to write. Or marry someone with good connections. (He realizes this could be tough for everyone to accomplish.)
3. Have your first book sell very well, so that you have freedom to write what you want on the second. (It helps if that first book is designed by the talented coworker of your collaborator’s spouse.)
4. Make sure books for boys are:
• Very thin,
• Have a lot of illustration to cut down on the word count, and
• Have really cool cover art
6. Don’t fight your best instincts—write what you like to read. (He and Lane Smith got loads of rejections from editors who thought their True Story of the Three Little Pigs! was way too dark and weird. Clearly those people hadn’t spent much time around second and third graders.)
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