It’s been nearly a month since I attended the SCBWI Summer Conference in LA, yet it feels more like a day! I enjoyed meeting a couple of great ladies from my critique group, fabulous speakers, fantastic workshops, and sitting next to the esteemed Eve Bunting at the Golden Kite Luncheon. SCBWI does a bang-up job of putting together conferences - a hearty kudos to all involved. If you weren’t able to attend, check out SCBWI’s conference blog at http://www.scbwi.org/Pages.aspx/International-Conferences.
Aside from meeting some of the author’s I’ve worked with for the past few years, one of the most exciting benefits of attending the conference was meeting Eve Bunting, award winning author of more than 250 books for children. I first read Ms. Bunting awhile back when I decided to try my hand at a middle grade novel. I didn’t know anything about the middle grade market and knew the best way to start getting to know it would be to read as many middle grade books as I could get my hands on. I went to the library and randomly pulled three books off the shelf. I don’t remember the other two books, but I remember Ms. Bunting’s. I read the book (Blackwater) in one day - almost in one sitting. It was that good. When I finished the book, all I could thinks was, Wow. This woman can write! I had no idea at the time what an accomplished author she already was! In fact, I didn’t find out until I read the bios for the conference faculty. I was thrilled that I’d be able to hear her speak, so imagine my delight when I actually got to sit next to her at the luncheon and exchange a few words. So if you ever happen across this, Ms. Bunting, it was very nice to meet you!
One of the other highlights of the conference was having a manuscript critiqued by award-winning author/illustrator Marla Frazee. I had felt like I had hit a wall with my picture book manuscripts. I had gotten them as far as I could go, yet I knew not far enough. With Ms. Frazee’s guidance, I feel like I have a better grasp of what changes need to be made and am excited to make them - not just on the manuscript that she critiqued but on a few of them! A bit of advice from Ms. Frazee - “A lot of dialogue is dangerous.” Too much dialogue is tough it illustrate; it doesn’t give her much room to draw. She prefers open ended, evocative sentences that inspire her to think, “What can I do with this?”
As this post is getting be a bit long-winded, I’ll just mention one last highlight. Allyn Johnston and Beach Lane Books. It was absolutely fascinating to see what goes through an editor’s mind when working on a book, specifically picture books. One of Ms. Johnston’s examples included Scarecrow by Cynthia Rylant (author) and Lauren Stringer (illustrator). We’re big fans of Cynthia Rylant in this house, and Scarecrow was perhaps the second or third book of her that we had gotten. We were drawn to this book not just because of the text, but because of the illustrations as well (as it should be with a pb!) Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing some of the artwork and layouts that never made it to print.
Again, I highly recommend visiting SCBWI’s conference blog for more information about the event and workshops. They did a great job - way to go TEAM BLOG!
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