2012 SCBWI Summer Conference:
An illustrator’s perspective Part I
I am recovering from spending 4 breathless, exciting,
mind-bending days - that seemed like 8
days – at the annual summer SCBWI conference. SCBWI stands for:
Society of
Children’s
Book
Writers and
Illustrators.
Strange acronym, isn’t it? No one seems to know how to
pronounce it.
I represent the ‘I’ as an illustrator – and as you can tell
from my work, much of what I do is for children’s books, also known as kid lit.
This was my third conference. In 2010, my graduate advisor,
Hala Swearingen, urged me to go – so I did, and it was great advice. I’ve been
hooked ever since, since the kid in me is still very present and comes out when
I’m illustrating anything. Even at this year’s conference, Cecilia Yung (Art
director and VP of Penguin Young
Readers Group) reminded us that we still have to entertain the little
kid in us. But I’m jumping ahead of myself – that was from the “Illustrator
Intensive,” that happened on Monday, 8/6/12.
The conference was full of info. Look for more blog posts on
the conference, which you’ll relate to if you:
·
Have kids.
·
Read stories to kids.
·
Love art (especially for kids)
·
Love reading.
·
Have gone to SCBWI.
·
Are a kid at heart (that’s meeee!)
I stayed at the Hyatt, so I got a full immersion. I shared a
room with Nadia Roldan, an illustrator and educator, who was a joy to share the
experience with. She taught me so much about social media! Here is her blog:
http://mizzleadventures.blogspot.com/,
and she’s having a show on August 18
th that must not be missed:
http://www.rawartists.org/roldan
From the first day on, we were flooded with information. Just
the stats were interesting: There were 1,234 attendees. 411 of us are published
(I am fortunate to be among this population), and 941 were known to be female
and 171 were known to be male. The rest had names that couldn’t be
distinguished by gender.
The conference faculty likes to introduce themselves with a
single word, like this:
“moxi” – Linda Pratt
“Flexibility” –
Cecilia Yung
“seduce (me)” –
Neal Porter
“climax” – Eugene
Yelchin
“dream” – Tony
DeTerlizzi
“charming” – Lauren
Rille
One faculty member –
a famous YA (Young Adult) writer said: “penis!!!” and ran away –loved her!
I would say: “Overwhelmed.” And so would most of us who attended the
conference.
Enough intro…here is the good stuff:
We heard from Arthur Levine, who has his own imprint with
Scholastic, who told us that timelessness is a quality he looks
for, when deciding on what to publish.
So I had a new word that supplanted “overwhelmed” – which is
now: “timeless” –thanks to Arthur
Levine.
Then, Tony DiTerlizzi, a bestselling author and illustrator
took the stage. He won a Caldecott Honor for his book
: The Spider & The
Fly. http://diterlizzi.com/home/
He asked us to be aware of this, while working on a book for kids; e.g.: what does the 10-year old Tony want in a book?
This is if you want to connect with your audience - if they're ten.
Cecilia Yung asked us later, what does her 4-year-old self
want in a picture book? This is if you want to connect with 4 year old kids...and you have to appeal to their parents who buy the books.
We have to tap into the kids that still exist within us. If
you’re not careful, every year we get older puts us a little further. You have
to remember.
More later. I’m overwhelmed!! The kid in me wants to go out
and play.
Look for Part II….
