Regional Good News!

If you've got something to crow about, contact Joni Sensel at senselj@yahoo.com

Winter 2008 Good News

Dana Arnim recently signed a contract to create a cover for a self-published author’s young-adult book called DREAMSCRAPS, A MA?IC JOURNAL. To double the excitement, the SCBWI International Bulletin will publish one of her illustrations in an upcoming issue.

Andrea Baumgarten looks forward to a stretch of delicious writing time this summer, having been selected for a residency at Hedgebrook on Whidbey Island. Approximately 40 writers are selected each year from among several hundred applicants.

Norma Byr received a check from Highlights for reprint rights to a craft article she wrote. Yay for pay!

Dia Calhoun celebrated the holiday season with the release of her new middle-grade book, THE RETURN OF LIGHT: A CHRISTMAS TALE. Published by Marshall Cavendish, the book follows a Christmas tree who realizes his true destiny is to be a Christmas tree for the homeless people of the city.

Mike Cressy is illustrating a new picture book coming from Houghton Mifflin called THE LINNEY TWINS GET COOKING. He’s also recently created a cover for a Holiday House young-adult novel, THE GHOST, THE WHITE HOUSE, AND ME, and was featured at a recent Starbucks art show in Fremont, WA.

The American Library Association’s big announcements at the 2008 Midwinter Meeting honored a local author for the second year in a row! Sundee Frazier won the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Author Award for her 2007 book, BRENDAN BUCKLEY’S UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING IN IT, published by Delacorte Press. Yahoo!

Mindy Hardwick is excited to announce that her tween short story, “I Believe” will be published as a downloadable audio short story from Sniplits. Mindy says, “The story was inspired by a young writer who said to me, “I believe in dragons, fairies, and Santa Claus,” and I asked myself, “What if there was a character who believed in the imagination but others told her she should grow out of childish beliefs? Would that character find the courage to stand up for what she believed? And the answer was yes!”

Andrea (Andy) Helman’s third collaboration with photographer Gavriel Jecan, HIDE AND SEEK: NATURE’S BEST VANISHING ACTS, will be released by Walker in March. The book explores animals that rely on clever camouflage to hide in plain sight.

In November, Barbara Jean Hicks’ latest book, THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER KITTY, was named a Number Two pick by the editors of Amazon.com for the Best Books of 2007. Barbara also was named an “honorary Chicana” that month by La Bloga blogger Rene Colato Lainez when he posted a talk Barbara gave at a children’s writers’ conference in October.

Kathleen Kemly is illustrating almost faster than books can be released. Her art will appear in SHANNON AND THE WORLD’S TALLEST LEPRECHAUN, written by Sean Callahan and published by Albert Whitman this month, as well as YOU CAN’T DO THAT, AMELIA!, written by Kimberly Wagner Klier and coming from Boyds Mill Press this summer. She’s currently working on illustrations for GOLDEN DELICIOUS: A CINDERELLA STORY, also coming from Albert Whitman and written by Anna Egan Smucker.

Children who participate in the Spring Break Camp put on by the Seattle Public Theater at The Bathhouse will perform improv versions of Nina Laden’s THE NIGHT I FOLLOWED THE DOG during the first week of April. She’s also granted non-exclusive theatrical rights to the Fifth Avenue Theater for school musical performances, but she notes, “I’m still holding the film rights and working on my own animation script.”

The Washington State History Museum received a grant to launch an online kids’ history magazine called Columbia Kids that will be managed and edited by Stephanie Lile, the museum’s head of education. She says they’ll be looking for writers and illustrators to contribute to the premiere issue, expected this August. She adds, “If it hadn’t been for SCBWI Western Washington’s own Lois Brandt, this magazine wouldn’t have come into being. It was her brilliant idea to launch it as an online magazine, and that idea encouraged Verizon to sponsor our premiere issue—and hopefully more to follow!” Contact Stephanie at slile@wshs.wa.gov for contributors’ guidelines.

Writer’s Digest magazine awarded Ruth Maxwell an Honorable Mention in their 76th Annual Writing Competition in the category of writing for children.

FACES® magazine published Jeanie Mebane’s article, “Five Fiery Mountains,” in their September issue.

Two poems by Eric Ode, “We’re Going Skiing” and “Deep-Sea Squeeze,” appear in a new sports anthology, I HOPE I DON’T STRIKE OUT, released this month from Meadowbrook Press. In addition, ABDO Publishing’s Super Sandcastle imprint recently released a series of six books, each designed to inspire kids to write their own poetry. The series used three more of Eric’s poems, one in BEES TO TREES: READING, WRITING, AND RECITING POEMS ABOUT NATURE, and two others in BUSES TO BOOKS: READING, WRITING, AND RECITING POEMS ABOUT SCHOOLS.

Craig Orback celebrated the release of his latest book illustration project last month. An easy reader from Millbrook Press, PRISONER FOR LIBERTY was written by Marty Rhodes Figley as part of Lerner’s ON MY OWN HISTORY series. It tells the true story of 15-year-old African American James Forten’s imprisonment by the British and eventual release during the American Revolution. On top of that, Craig’s NATURE’S PAINTBOX was named a Lasting Connections of 2007 title in the American Library Association magazine, Book Links.

Julie Paschkis’s picture book GLASS SLIPPER, GOLD SANDAL: A WORLDWIDE CINDERELLA made the New York Times Book Review in November with rave reviews.

Julie Reinhardt’s poem, “Lunchtime Blues,” was featured in the November issue of Fandangle Magazine, an online children’s magazine.

DRAGON DANCING, a picture book written by Carole Lexa Schaefer and illustrated by Pierr Morgan, was just named a 2008 Charlotte Zolotow Honor Book by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center. Congratulations!

Suzanne Selfors’s second novel and her first for young adults, SAVING JULIET, came out in February from Walker, and Kirkus called the book “absorbing and exciting.” Suzanne also just sold another young-adult novel, COFFEEHOUSE GIRL, to the same editor.

Juleen Murray Shaw met with Playhouse Disney in December about potential projects she might take on for them. She says, “I had an amazing meeting, and on Christmas Eve Day they contacted me and asked me to write a pitch for them based on my Peabody Award-winning children’s DVDs, NURSERY TAP HIP TO TOE, VOLUMES ONE and TWO. In early January, I delivered my pitch, which would involve me writing, producing, and directing 20 three-minute entertaining/educational music- and dance-related ‘interstitials,’ which is the latest in children’s programming.”

The Northwest Collage Society accepted a poem by Ann Teplick as the focus of a collage that was created for an art exhibit at Cancer Lifeline’s Dorothy S. O’Brien Center at Greenlake. Inspired by the poetry/prose of Cancer Lifeline writing group participants, the collages are presented side-by-side with the poetry as collaborative pieces. The show will run through early April.

Laurie Thompson’s short article “New Life for Retired Tires” appeared in the November/December issue of KNOW: The Science Magazine for Curious Kids, which is published in both Canada and Korea.

The twelfth young-adult book by Pam Withers, BMX TUNNEL RUN, was released by Walrus Books in September.