Recently, I spent an awesome long weekend at the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Summer Conference. Four days of chatting, listening, and dancing with a thousand other people who are used to spending our days in our caves perfecting sentences and sketches. This is a group of people who know that picture books [...]
Lost Art? Really?
August 19, 2009 – 12:45 pm
Ok… a friend of mine posted this article, The Lost Art of Reading, on my Facebook page yesterday. You can pretty much guess what it’s about. The author proposes that, in this culture of constant buzzing, finding the quiet mental space to commune with a book is becoming increasingly rare. My question then is, Why [...]
SCBWI Conference ’09
August 13, 2009 – 8:43 pm
Another SCBWI Summer Conference come and gone! This year, I won’t bother to summarize what happened, since that’s already done so beautifully by the SCBWI ‘Team Blog.’ Thanks you guys! Instead, I’ll give an illustrated version of a few moments that really struck me. I’ve stolen most of the beautiful pictures and illustrations from other [...]
Collect Them All!
August 5, 2009 – 6:00 am
So… as I may have casually mentioned… THE SCBWI SUMMER CONFERENCE IS COMING! For me, this means checking out great stacks of books from the library, doing my homework on editors, and hitting the thrift store for clothes that say, ‘I’m professional, yet artsy, and you should give me a heap of money.’ I’ve never [...]
Summer (conference) Reading
July 22, 2009 – 11:37 am
When I was a kid, my library, like many others, had a summer reading program. Every book I read racked up points towards stickers or McDonalds french fries or, my most coveted prize of all, the knotted pencil. How did they even do that?? It was the highlight of my summer and I always read [...]
Kite Tales RULZ!
April 1, 2009 – 11:54 pm
Welcome Kite Tales readers and other nefarious individuals! If you haven’t read the Spring 2009 issue of Kite Tales… hop to it. Especially page 24 (and 23). All the cool kids are reading it. You wanna be a cool, don’t you?
Eating Paste
March 4, 2009 – 12:57 pm
Okay… maybe not eating it. So I finished my revision… now what? As a way to deal with the dismal No Man’s Land that lurks between revisions and new projects, I’ve been getting crafty. This past September at the SCBWI Working Writers’ Retreat, the creative Julie Williams gave us some unusual ideas about how to [...]
No Jumping, No Wings. Ever.
September 10, 2008 – 12:05 pm
So… it’s that time again. Time to debrief from the SCBWI Summer Conference. What? What’s that you say? I already wrote about the conference? Well, tonight I have to host a whole SCBWI Schmooze on the topic, so you’re gonna hear about it again, whether you like it or not! In hopes of inspiring people [...]
Not, not, not a box!
August 26, 2008 – 3:01 pm
*First off, apologies to Antoinette Portis and her modern classic picture book, Not a Box for leaning on her wonderful pictures and themes. Go buy Not a Box! * A box is a cozy place to be. It’s dark and quiet, with plenty of corners to curl up in. You can touch the walls around [...]
Conference Karma
August 11, 2008 – 6:01 pm
Recently I’ve been really feeling good about my writing. I’ve had quite a few “Aha!” moments and, slowly but surely, my story is transforming into a novel. By this, I don’t mean that I’ve been making it longer or writing the acknowledgements page (don’t worry, you’re totally mentioned). No. What I mean is that before, [...]
100 days, 1000 books
September 23, 2007 – 12:00 pm
Linda Sue Park recently said, at the SCBWI Summer Conference, that before you can write a good picture book, you had to read 1000 of them. There was a similar equation for novels, 500 novels (or, she amended, any type of book) before you could write one yourself. Well, I’m fairly certain I’ve accomplished the [...]
A meeting of equals
August 11, 2007 – 1:21 pm
I’ve decided to do little mini entries about the conference as something strikes me. Here’s to the first of many. Also, click on Arthur Levine to check out the SCBWI website (where I shamelessly stole this picture, thanks!) for a great summary of the conference. Arthur Levine is a genius. And I don’t mean because [...]
Learning how to be an elephant
August 10, 2007 – 5:22 pm
“It kinda feels like being an elephant in a room full of elephants, speaking on the topic of how to be an elephant…. I’m not sure what I know about being an elephant.” This is how John Green (author of Looking for Alaska) started his speech about writing at the Society for Children’s Book Writers [...]
