I Made The Lisa Yee Blog...

Click here to see Lisa Yee's continuing coverage of Peepy's conference adventures, including one involving me. (Peepy is fun at parties.)

Note: One scene depicts violence against an editor. Parental discretion is advised.

PW Fall Children's Announcements Issue Available...

For some odd reason I decided to go through my inbox this morning (it's tall, scary, and often avalanches onto my office floor), and lo and behold I found this:


It's the Publishers Weekly fall 2008 children's books issue, featuring listings of 2000+ new titles. Flipping through the ads is like viewing mini catalogs from pretty much every children's publisher that matters. The cover price is $12 so head to your newsstand, or check out the info on the PW website.

Check Out Stephanie Meyer on Good Morning America...

Toward the end, she talks about Writer's Market.

If only she would have said Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Market...but that's quite a mouthful to get out on live TV.

My Last SCBWI Conference Post...


Wrapping things up...


Speakers Who Made Me Cry:

• Bruce Coville on the first day in his opening speech
  
• Yuyi Morales during her Golden Kite acceptance speech and during the SCBWI Success Stories panel
• Sara Pennypacker during her Golden Kite acceptance speech (for the second year in a row)
• The tribute to Sue Alexander
• Susan Patron in her conference-closing address

(Note: No one has yet to beat readergirlz's Justina Chen Headley who made me tear up a dozen times during one breakout session in 2006.)


Hours of Sleep I Got During My Five Nights in LA:

• Twenty-eight
  

Things I Really Dug About My Conference Experience:

• The first person I ran into was my oldest conference pal, illustrator Kevan Atteberry
  
• Gretchen Hirsch introducing herself as Stephanie Meyer at the faculty dinner
  
• The steel cut oatmeal at the Breeze, and seeing Arturo the long-time host who always remembers my name
• The Literary Ladybugs
• “Reading Is Power” red rubber bracelets (with graphics that could possibly be interpreted as “Dreidel Equals Muscles”)
• Steve Malk’s party at Equator Books in Venice, even though I left before Nicholas Brendan got there
• Hundreds of people eating Dove ice cream bars outside the ballroom
• Being saved from technical difficulties by audience members
• Riding in Aaron Hartzler’s pickup truck
• Yoga class and dinner with Martha Brockenbrough from Washington (who has a daughter named Alice which I find brilliant)
  
• My one celebrity siting: Jami Gertz (best role: Muffy Tepperman in "Square Pegs")
• Having my photo taken by Sonya Sones
• Getting my photo taken with Lisa Yee’s Peepy
  
• Micheal Stearns' chart that explains the entire publishing industry using a few overlapping circles
• Autographing and cupcakes
• Scoring an SCBWI hoodie
• Chatting with everyone at the wrap party at Lin Oliver's house (even though the food wasn't super vegetarian-friendly)
  
• Discovering that Paula Yoo loves Skyline Chili, the official favorite food of the Nati
  
• Being on the faculty
• Lin Oliver ending the conference in a fit of giggles after announcing someone lost a shoe ornament
  

Things I Didn’t Dig About the Conference:

• The 2009 CWIM didn’t show up for the bookstore
• The gaping hole in the lobby bar that used to be filled by Darlene the (former) Century Plaza cocktail waitress
  
• The X Bar (especially because they stopped serving the awesome onion rings they used to have on the menu)
• The oddly bright red veggie burger I ate a few bites of at Houston's in the mall (my dinner companions, however, were stellar)
  
• Leaving--and the hell that is LAX. (I apologize to the woman at the Delta check-in counter with whom I had some angry words. Next time you wait on four people who came up after me because they can't figure out how to use the kiosk and you make me stand there for 10 minutes in that hot crowed space when I haven't gotten much sleep I'll try to be a little more patient.)

The End of the Conference: Autograph Party Photos...

After half a chocolate cupcake and half a yellow cupcake, I got some shots of the autograph party (which I didn't have to participate in because the 2009 CWIM didn't make it to the bookstore which in a way was OK because I feel a little silly signing books).


Susan Patron, Sara Pennypacker, and Ann Whitford Paul look happy about autographing.


Washingtonians Holly Cupala (who is holding one of the roses from the gorgeous bouquet her husband sent in celebration of her very recent two-book deal!) with RA Jolie Stekly and her stack of books.


The awesome Paula Yoo listens to a conference-goer as she prepares to sign her first novel, Good Enough.


Authors Katherine Applegate and Jay Asher--both of whom I interviewed for Insider Reports in the 2009 CWIM.


Rachel Cohn happily passes one of her novels off to a conference goer (note the red "Reading Is Power" bracelet) while Bruce Coville concentrates on signing.


Marla Frazee and her line of autograph seekers. (I wonder if her hand got tired.)


SCBWI RAs/authors Esther Hershenhorn (Illinois) and Ellen Hopkins (Nevada).


Down the row: Linda Zuckerman, Paula Yoo, Lisa Yee, Mark Teague, and Adam Rex (who you can sort of see).

Lisa Yee: On Revision...

It was standing room only for Lisa Yee's session on revision. Lisa started out by talking about her first version of her novel Millicent Min, Girl Genius which she said was "episodic and weird." In her next version, 11-year-old Millicent was in college, but editor Arhtur Levine suggested Lisa explore a version in which the main character interacts with kids her own age. She continued to revise--and what was constant through each revision was her character.

There was a show of hands to see who loved revision and who hated it. Those who love revision, Lisa said, often love is so much that they can't stop themselves. Those who hate it can't get started.

Lisa, who is currently revising a work-in-progress from first person point of view to third persion, said she she can fall so much in love with her writing that she doesn't want to cut any of it. But when you look at your work, she says, ask yourself, "If I had to cut my story by 20%, what would I cut? She said that generally her first three chapters can be thrown away.

One tip she gave was taking your document and making a copy of it, changing the font, adjusting the margins just slightly, and making it look like something someone else wrote--this can help you look at your story in a different way. She also suggested reading your manuscript out loud as you revise to hear words in a different manner than reading it silently. Also circle what you think is really great in your story and that becomes your standard to adhere to.

For revise-a-holics, she suggests setting deadlines for yourself, or have your writers group set them. This way you can force yourself to write to a deadline and write on a schedule.

Finally, she recommended everyone check out the radio program Bookworm on KCRW featuring an interview with Tobias Wolf (there are two--try the fiction one) in which he talks about his writing process--he just keeps cutting.

The Golden Kite Luncheon & Awards Presentation...

The conference Golden Kite Luncheon took place on Sunday (I'm posting out of order a bit--I used various notebooks that ended up in various places when I packed), during which lots of awards are given out (and I always cry).

After the food (the vegetarian dish was delish) we were entertained a capella by conference-goer Tyler McGroom, who participated in a contest involving singing during last year's event (for which I, as his table mate, got free SCBWI merch from the bookstore) and volunteered to croon once again.

Next SCBWI Illustrator Coordinator Priscilla Burris announced the winners of the portfolio showcase (which, as usual, she did a bang-up job of coordinating). Here they are:

• Best in show: Patricia Cantor (she wins a trip to New York to meet with art directors and you'll see her illustration on the cover of an upcoming SCBWI Bulletin.
• 2nd place: Ken Min
• 3rd place: Hyewon Yum
• Picturebook page winner: Stephanie Roth Sisson

The judges for the event:Left to right: Abigail Simoun, editor with Tricycle Press; Laurent Linn, art director at Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers; my favorite agent, Steven Malk of Writers House; Frieda Gates, coordinator of the annual NY Children's Illustrators Conference; and illustrator Joe Cepeda.

Next Erzsi Deak was named SCBWI member of the year--because she's awesome.

Then there was the crying...

First SCBWI showed a video tribute to the late Sue Alexander who passed away suddenly last month. Sue was a driving force behind SCBWI from the organization's inception, and the first official member. The touching words from Lin Oliver combined with a James Taylor song...tears.

And Here are the Golden Kite Winners:

• Picture Book Illustration: Yuyi Morales for Little Night (made me cry)
• Picture Book Text: Sara Pennypacker for Pierre in Love (made me cry)
• Nonfiction: Ann Bausum for Muckrackers
• Fiction: Katherine Applegate for Home of the Brave

Cecilia Yung: Everything You Ever Wanted to Ask an Art Director…

There was a full room for Cecilia Yung’s session in which the Penguin Young Readers Group art director fielded questions and offered advice.

She told the audience that there are five people in her department. She works very closely with printers to get what she wants in terms of achieving the specific vision of picture book artists. There are three components of her job: work with artists, work with her staff, and work with printers (which she demonstrating by showing several takes of a spread from a Tomie de Paola book whose color she worked on perfecting through slight adjustments in the inks).

In responds to a question about what to do when you get a positive response to a postcard mailing, she said when art directors (or editors) show a positive interest, they’re seeing a quality in your work, but they’re not ready to use you; they’ll keep an eye on you. She advises illustrators to keep updating their work—don’t keep sending the same postcard sample. They keep postcards on file—and they’ll keep building that file as you send new images.

Very often, she says, editors are the ones who find an illustrator. She doesn’t have to love the work of every illustrator she’s working with—she can find some qualities of the work she appreciates. When working with illustrators, she doesn’t think in terms of a book, but a career.

“I can’t make you brilliant,” she said, “But I can teach you how to put a picture book together.” Whomever you work with, she says, should be asking you a lot of questions, not doing all the talking.

And she said that illustrators have to accept that original art is original art and reproduction is reproduction—it’s never going to be exactly the same.

Emerging Editorial Voices Panel…

The last day of the SCBWI conference opened with a great panel of emerging editors, featuring four editors relatively new to the industry—Nancy Consescu of Little, Brown; Amalia Ellison of Abrams; Gretchen Hirsch of HarperCollins; and Namrata Tripathi of Hyperion/Jump at the Sun.

Krista Marino of Random House moderated, and opened by saying that, just as each writer has her own voice, each editor has her own unique voice in terms of what she acquires and how she acquires. Publishing, she said, is an industry based on apprenticeship. Editors start as editorial assistant (honing their Xeroxing and mailing skills), all the while learning from their mentors who pass their philosophies onto them.

Gretchen Hirsch include Allyn Johnston and Liz Van Doren among her mentors, and she currently works under Farrin Jacobs at Harper. She said she’s learned different skills from each of her mentors. She signed up two picture book authors at a recent regional SCBWI conference. She learned from Allyn Johnston that even when you think you’re done working on a book, you might not quite be there. She’s interested in smart teen chick lit, paranormal YA, and offbeat picture books. She said Harper is currently growing their picture book list. Books about dogs are an interest.

Amalia Ellison started as an intern at Scholastic before moving to Random House and now Abrams. She’s been working in publishing for three years and describes her interests as eclectic/commercial. She feels that writers should be really plugged into what kids are into—it’s valuable in abstract ways. She’s just recently completed her fist acquisition which was through an auction. She’s interested in “just something good.”

Namrata Tripathi describes herself as part analytical and part nurturing. She works on picture books through YA fiction and describes her style as eclectic/literary. She learned from Brenda Bowen that “interesting people make interesting editors.” Her interests are varied, including picture books, nonfiction, fiction, and funny, quirky, truthful, and heartbreaking all appeal to her.

Nancy Conescu started working on paperbacks at Penguin then mass market books. Now she’s at Little, Brown working with Andrea Spooner, Liza Baker and Megan Tingley. She favors books that are ultimately somehow hopeful when it comes to fiction, and irreverent when it comes to picture books. She sometimes finds new talent (illustrators) online in places like blogs or etsy.com. She’s interested in a strong chapter book voice, which she says is missing on her list.

I'm Leaving L.A....

I'm about to go downstairs and check out of the conference hotel, and I'm really sad to be going. The four days of the conference went by so fast. I had fun, made some new friends, connected with some old ones, talked to some interesting people, and got a lot of ideas for CWIM.

Although I've blogged on many of the sessions, I haven't talked about all of the ones I attended so I'll be continue to post about the conference through the end of the week. (It will give me an excuse to not look at the 87 million email in my inbox.)

So stop back soon for more on the conference.

I'm off to the airport...

My Session #2: Keeping Current Roundtable...

After the agent panel, I had a breakout session that was part of the Published Authors track called Keeping Current on Market Research: A Roundtable Discussion. Instead of doing all the talking myself, I started by asking the audience questions. I wanted to know whether they do anything different in terms of market research now that they're published. I wanted to know what their concerns are. And I wanted them to share information with one another--and they did. The audiences included several SCBWI RAs and authors like Susan Patron, Linda Joy Singleton, and Verla Kay.

Verla talked about the boards on her website that registered members can access, such as the agent boards and response time boards--really useful stuff.

We actually ended up talking a lot about promotion. We discussed MySpace and using it as a means to connect with readers. We talked about getting mentioned on blogs and doing blog tours, and in fact had an author in the audience, Tina Nichols Coury, who interviews tons of authors and illustrators on her own blog.

Someone mentioned Library Thing, a site where you can enter books and be connected to others based on the books you share--a way to find readers reading your own books.

I really enjoyed this session and felt like I learned a lot from the participants and got some ideas for CWIM. Thanks to all who attended and share information and asked great questions. Please remember to email me if you'd like a handout.

All About Agents...

My Sunday morning started out with an agent panel moderated by Mark McVeigh Editorial Director of Simon & Schuster imprint Aladdin. And here's some news--Mark revealed that Aladdin is now a hardcover imprint and will be publishing picture books through novels for teens.

The panelist were Dilys Evans, president of Dilys Evans Fine Illustration; Michael Stearns, editor-turned-agent with Firebrand Literary; Michael Bourret, agent with Dystel & Goderich; and Laura Rennert, senior agent at Andrea Brown Literary.

Mark asked the panel: Why does a creative person need an agent?

Micheal Stearns: He said writers need agents for two reasons. First, to work out deals with the editor so as not to pollute the writer-editor relationship. (Or, as Mark McVeigh put it, "Let the writer make the snowballs and the agents throw them. He is very much a pro-agent editor.) And second, because agents keep on top of the market in ways that a writer cannot.

Michael Bourret: He said a writer need an agent for direction as the writer builds her career.

Laura Rennert: She said agents are the advocates to deal with situations of problems that arise as the industry changes.

More from the panelists:
Michael Bourret: He shared a success story about his author Jill Alexander whom he met at the SCBWI conference last February. (She also met her editor there). He was taken in my her a title A Hood Ornament in the N0-Jesus Christmas Parade and knew he wanted her as a client. Her book will come out next year. (He agents Sara Zarr, a National Book Award finalist.)

Laura Rennert: She describes herself as a "literary omnivore," and says she's looking for a strong voice, a voice she takes pleasure in, a new perspective, a fresh and unusual angle. (She agents NY Times bestselling author Jay Asher; and Kathleen Duey, also a National Book Award finalist.)

Dilys Evans: She says agents must establish great working relationships with their editors--they must find ways to get what they want, smiling. (Mark McVeigh referred to agents as "honest sharks.")

And I wish you all could have been there to here Dilys Evans tell stories--she was terrific.

This Morning....

I wish that I drank coffee.

Seeing Red: A Paint the Town Red Party Photo Essay...

Here are some shots of the outfits at the annual themed-party-by-the-pool with free drink tickets and questionable guacamole and much dancing. Sadly I did not stay long enough to see the Disco Mermaids. I hope someone else got a shot of them. If I can scare one up tomorrow, I'll share.

The Literary Lady Bugs.

Guy dressed as one of his superhero guy characters.
Superhero guy and another guy.

A sea of red with lots of black and gray, cause, ya know, red's not for everyone.
Don't be fooled--there were not Wristrong bracelets for party goers--these are SCBWI's Reading is Power bracelets.

Hawaiian shirt, one of a bunch (this one worn by David Gale).

Hawaiian shirt, two of a bunch.

Hawaiian shirt, three of a bunch.

A crayon taking a picture instead of coloring one.

I'm not sure what this costume is, but I believe part of it lit up.
Who wants to publish the Big Bad Wolf? No advance--just fresh meat!

This was my choice for best costume until I discovered it was the Scarlet Letter, not an A for Alice.

Portfolio Showcase & Reception...

There was a portfolio showcase today. I, as usual, volunteered to help because it's fun to look at all the portfolios before anyone else does and watch the judging going on.

Here's a glimpse.


There were lots of portfolios on lots of tables. Some of them were awesome. There were some judges. And they looked at those portfolios. And stood around and had judge-y conversations. And they picked some of the awesomest ones to win prizes. And I know who won. But I'm not telling. I'm keeping the judges secret, too, because I promised I would and I'm that kind of volunteer. And I like secrets.

After the hours of judging were over, the room looked like this.


Tomorrow during the Golden Kite Luncheon all the secrets will be revealed, the prizes given away, and I'll be allowed to spill the beans in this space.