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Oh, boy!—what an abundance of information Debbie Ridpath Ohi offered to illustrators. Debbie is a social media guru, but she's also a successful illustrator and an SCBWI success story. She won the portfolio showcase at the 2010 SCBWI LA Conference, and has gone on to illustrate several books, including Sam & Eva and Where Are My Books? (Simon & Schuster), more. Fortunately, most of what Debbie offered in her workshop is also available on her website, including  BONUS MATERIALS!

The finale of the 2018 SCBWI Summer Conference is a celebration of the whole three past days, full of inspiration and community, and chances to meet and have books signed by the amazing conference faculty! The Roller-Coaster Line for Lois Lowry... And all the authors and illustrators at this Sunday end-of-conference signing...

We are so sorry to miss Marc Brown due to a family emergency and are sending him every good thought and wish. In his stead, Bruce Coville has graciously stepped in to give us a closing keynote. As you may know,  Bruce Coville  has published over 100 books for children and young adults, including the international bestseller My Teacher is an Alien , the four book “ Unicorn Chronicles ” series, and Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher . Before becoming a full time writer in 1986, Bruce was a teacher, a toymaker, a magazine editor, a gravedigger, and a cookware salesman. In 2001 he created FULL CAST AUDIO, an audiobook company devoted to producing full cast, unabridged recordings of material for family listening. He has produced over 120 audiobooks, directing and/or acting in most of them.  Here is a taste of his keynote: Bruce knows most of us are here because we have this crazy belief that children are worth our best efforts. Crazy because society seems to be sayin...

Dashka Slater is the author of many fabulous picture books as well as the much lauded 2017 YA true crime novel, THE 57 BUS. But between these latest titles and her first few, Dashka felt stalled in her career for years. During that time, she bravely reached out to a fellow author she thought might be in a similar position, Marsha Diane Arnold. They became complaining buddies—Dashka highly recommends this as a coping strategy. As she looks back on those formative seven years of not selling, Dashka sees now it made her a much better writer and author, and that reflecting on that stalled time will help her the next time this happens because she has also learned this career is not a straight road. Dashka shares some goals for this session: Goal #1: Diagnose the stall Goal #2: Get your mojo back Goal #3: Know that you are not alone Goal #4: Protect yourself against future stalls Dashka contacted other writers besides Marsha that also had seemed to stall. Here are a few of those stall examp...

Eliza Wheeler Eliza Wheeler is the extraordinary author-illustrator of  Miss Maple's Seeds , which debuted as a New York Times best seller list. She's illustrated many picture books, including  Wherever You Go  by Pat Zietlow Miller (an SCBWI member who just hit the NYT list this week!) And she's illustrated several novels, including the Newbery Honor-winning Doll Bones  by Holly Bolack, The Left-Hnaded Fate  by Kate Milford, and the Cody  series by Tricia Springstubb. A SCBWI suc cess story, she won the National Grand Prize for best portfolio in 2011, and was a Sendak Fellowship recipient in 2017. Here are some of her very beautiful books. Eliza's keynote took us on a journey through her process, through the human brain, through JRR Tolkien's creation of a language and the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings series, which took 18 years to be published in three volumes when Tolkien was 63 years old. Eliza identified 7 stages of creativity (with 1/2 stages for chec...

SCBWI Golden Kite Award Winner Candace Fleming writes nonfiction and fiction (more than 40 books!). Most of her nonfiction is historical YA, but she has recently taking a foray into science picture book nonfiction. How is writing nonfiction different from writing fiction? Candace says, "I always think of everything I write in terms of cake. As a writer it's my job to create a cake that all of you want to gobble up in three minutes. When I write fiction I get to buy all the ingredients I want to put in a cake that I pick out myself, like coconut and chocolate chips and maple syrup. When I write nonfiction the goal is exactly the same, but I didn't get to go to the grocery store, I have to use the ingredients my partner Eric brings home, like flax seed and pepto bismol, and find a way to make that into a gobble-able cake." What's your favorite part of writing nonfiction?  The biggest part of nonfiction is figuring out how to take all the research you do and turn it...