SCBWI Oregon NOVEMBER 2012 CALENDAR!

Want to make sure your completed manuscript is ready for our spring conference in 2013? Or ready for submission? Then you've got to revise! And you may need some tools to help you. So, we are offering two tracks for a 3 hour intensive workshop on revision: Novel Revision and Picture Book Revision. You may only choose one option.

Below are the details for each track, plus information about optional written critiques, and our faculty bios.

Oh, and before we forget, we'll be offering our speaker's books for sale at this event.

The Novel Track

This workshop will focus on techniques and tools Suzanne Morgan Williams has learned in revising her novels. The workshop will be hands-on – working with parts of your own manuscript. Please bring at least 20 completed pages (the first 20) of your novel that you are revising, several colors of crayons or markers, at least 15 3x5 note cards, some additional paper or your laptop for writing exercises and rewriting. You may want two copies of your work since we’ll be marking on the pages.

The Big Picture: Focuses on the themes, story arc, and characters of your book. Try out techniques that address confusing plots, flat characters, and emotional distance. We will talk about what your book is really about and how to write to that focus.

The Solid Structure: We’ll dissect and mark up your work with an eye to a tight plot, functional setting, and elegant timing. Everything can be moved around if need be, every scene can have a point, and your book can sing. Get some tools for discovering where and why you want to make changes.

And if time allows: The Considered Details: Look at your work for voice, language, rhythm. Approach your work as art.

The Picture Book Track

This workshop is for every children’s book writer or illustrator who wants to improve his or her craft to a whole new level of Wow! and create the kind of magic that is the picture book. Jodell Sadler will shares 20 ultimate editing tools, which help writers rethink their editing process in a refreshing, new way.

This is not a workshop that explores plot, character, or point of view directly; it’s a workshop that explores a picture book in ways that will engage readers, invites participation, and shares a love of award-winning storytelling. It explores what I suspect we all love about children’s literature: the surprise a page turn brings, how word choice impacts story, how much the sound and meaning of words matter, how rhythm and repetition and description engage on many levelsundefinedall the things that are so essential to crafting a successful picture book.

Everyone will want to bring one or two picture book manuscripts to this all pens, computers or hands-on workshop.

This workshop is a great opportunity to polish and hone your work.

THE FACULTY

Jodell Sadler works as a professor by day and writer/illustrator by night. She received her MFAC from Hamline University, has presented Tutorials on Pacing Picture Books with Writer's Digests, published articles in the Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Market, and is currently launching her new picture book craft book, Picture Book Lunch: 20 Delicious Tools for Writing Picture Books to Wow. For more information, log onto http://www.PictureBookLunch.com, of find her on facebook.

Suzanne Morgan Williams is the author of the novel Bull Rid

er (Margert K. McElderry, 2009) as well as eleven nonfiction books for children. Bull Rider is a Junior Library Guild Selection, is on state award lists in Texas, Nevada, Missouri, Indiana, and Wyoming. It won a Western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy Museum in Oklahoma City. Suzanne’s nonfiction titles include Pinatas and Smiling Skeleton (Outstanding, Parents’ Council and Best Multicultural Book, Independent Publisher’s Book Award), The Inuit, Made in China, and her latest book, China’s Daughters (Pacific View Press 2011). Suzanne is a frequent speaker at schools and writers’ and educational conferences. Her work takes her into classrooms and communities across the US and Canada, from Mexico to the Arctic. She was also named SCBWI Member of the Year at the 2012 LA Conference! Visit www.suzannemorganwilliams.com.

To sum up...

Book lovers of all stripes are invited to attend Flap Flap! This free event features 15 Oregon authors sharing about recent releases. Find out about new titles, mingle over refreshments, and get a jump on holiday shopping (a signed book makes a wonderful gift).

Lee White has launched a book dummy challenge for picture book author/illustrators. Here are the details:

1. Produce a sketched dummy by November 3rd. The sketches don't have to be super tight, just readable.

2. There should be at least one finished spread to show how the book will look when finished.

3. You can use something you have already done or start from scratch.

4. The group will meet on Saturday, Nov. 3rd, at 6:00 p.m. in the Cypress Room, McMenamin's Kennedy School, 5736 NE 33rd Ave. in Portland to share the bounty and offer critiques. Completed picture book dummies only, please.

Contact Lee for more details at l.white@leewhiteillustration. com