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Announced at the 2018 SCBWI Summer Conference by Laurent Linn and Debbie Ridpath Ohi, the new social media mentorship award for illustrators identifies emerging illustrators or author/illustrators with a debut book coming out in the next year and offers them guidance on social media and building their presence and brand. This year's two winners are... Check out Rahele Jomepour Bell's website here . and Check out Taia Morley 's website here Congratulations to both!

An intimate circle, the group included conference faculty guests Laurent Linn, Emma Dryden, Ellen Hopkins, Jane Yolen, Heidi Stemple, Jeffrey West, Arthur Levine, and Erika Turner. We went around the circle, everyone introducing themselves and sharing what they're working on that has LGBTQ characters and themes, sparking lots of discussion. Standout moments: Ellen Hopkins on why she includes LGBTQ characters in her novels: "I write the teen landscape." And how the current political and cultural climate makes it "more important than ever" that we're here talking about LGBTQ characters and themes in books for young people. Emma Dryden on how agents are telling her that they're looking for manuscripts in which gay is incidental... Which lead to a broad discussion on how we need all kinds of books on the LGBTQ experience, books that star the LGBTQ character and books where they're part of the ensemble, books where it's about the LGBTQ experience, and...