Posts Tagged ‘Jean Feiwel’

Feb

16

2016

The 2016 New York SCBWI Winter Conference Recap Part 1

Filed under: Author Events, Book Signings, Check-it-out, Community, Conferences, Freaky Friday, Publishing, Reading, SCBWI, Stuff I Love, Writing for Children, YA Books, Young Adult (YA)

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It’s here, it’s here–it’s finally HERE! The #NY16SCBWI Winter Conference. And while we froze our writer and illustrator parts off this year–you know we still had a blast. Right along with the arctic blast. Here’s the highlights of the weekend…

I was thrilled to be able to head down bright and early–very, very early…

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…for The Professional Author’s Forum Intensive. For all you PAL members of the SCBWI, this was such a lovely addition to the weekend. You should absolutely look for more of these PAL events in the future.

We started off the day with the fabulous and hysterical Lin Oliver and the chance to introduce ourselves and state our questions and goals. It immediately cemented us into a workshop style, intimate group instead of an audience in a lecture.

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Lin Oliver, SCBWI Executive Director

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Half the room of the PAL Intensives

After the intros, we got down to business with the very informative Agent, Ruben Pfeffer talking about PUBLISHING WITH MULTIPLE HOUSES (INCLUDING WHAT TO DO WHEN YOUR EDITOR LEAVES)

This was a very informative session, focusing on the reasons to publish or not publish with multiple houses. He hit upon the strategic, contractual, our preferences, economic need and circumstantial factors.

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Agent, Ruben Pfeffer (Ruben Pfeffer Content, LLC)

Next up was the I always get nervous around him even though he gives me no reason to, but come on he was the editor for the Harry Potter books, Arthur Levine chatting with Lin Oliver about LONGEVITY; HOW TO SUSTAIN YOUR CAREER.

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Arthur Levine, Publisher, Arthur A. Levine Books and Lin Oliver

Here are some of my favorite bits from the conversation…

*What is essential about people doesn’t change despite our fears about publishing.

*Produce a BODY OF WORK–stop flogging just one thing.

*Find contemporary analogies to your book AFTER you’ve written it.

*When we get sucked into our anxieties, we lose track of what stories we can write and who wants to read them.

The next fabulous collaborator for the Intensive was Martha Brockenbrough, author and SCBWI TEAM BLOG talking about DEVELOPING A SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM THAT’S APPROPRIATE FOR YOU.

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I’m not kidding–I’d love to see Martha do a detailed, whole day intensive just on this topic alone. She is a wealth of information and there were more questions than time to hear all her answers.

Martha started off by reminding us of our tendency to believe that when it comes to social media–If we build it they will come…

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That would be a NOPE.

But don’t worry, she gave everyone a wealth of advice on building relationships, finding your audience and focusing on platform, being positive, looking long term and being authentic. She was also able to compare and contrast FB, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter and Goodreads. And this was followed by tips on how to keep it all manageable. If you ever get a chance to take a workshop with Martha, I highly recommend you take advantage of it.

After a quick and yummy lunch break, we were back in the saddle again hit the iconic kid lit author, Jane Yolen–ISSUES IN BEING A MID-LIST WRITER.

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Among a plethora of informative and inspirational information, Jane reminded us that as Mid-list authors, we could be writing three kinds of books…

  1. A Head Book-The book you’ve been thinking about because research or experience had made you curious.
  2. A Heart Book-You don’t know why you have to write it, but you just do. It’s about you, but it’s also about the kids too.
  3. A Pocketbook Book-You know you can sell it $

She also reminded us to write the best book you can and don’t forget to nudge yourself in the path of luck.

Next up, was BRANDING YOURSELF: CHALLENGES IN WRITING MULTIPLE GENRES AND CATEGORIES with Linda Pratt Agent, Wernick and Pratt Literary and Jacquelyn Mitchard Author and Editor-in-Chief of Merit Press.

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Linda Pratt

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Jacquelyn Mitchard (Deep End of the Ocean–Oprah’s Book Club)

Here are some of the highlights…

*YA is not a genre, it’s a category.

*Being Branded means that you’ve gotten to the point where readers will buy your book in any category or genre because it is recognizably YOU!

*There’s nothing you want more than to be a habit.

*If you wanted to be careful, you should have been a dental hygienist ROTFL!

Bonnie Bader was up next and I forgot to take her picture! What? But you don’t need to see her to benefit from her talk on SUPPLEMENTING YOUR INCOME. Bonnie gave us valuable information on Packaging, Work for Hire, License work and Ghost Writing. But you can see Bonnie sitting next to Arthur Levine during our Summary, Conclusion and Questions time. And of course they had to kick us out after 5pm because there was so much to discuss with the faculty of the day. It was an amazing group.

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And I’ll leave Friday behind with this great reminder from Arthur Levine…

“Our job is not to start trends, it’s to write books.”

After lots of meet up hugs with friends, a large group of us heading for dinner at Grand Central’s Oyster Bar (picture to come when Zainab figures out how to send it LOL!) the typical behavior of Lobby Rats hanging out in the lobby and not enough sleep (I can’t help but talk to my roomie Jodi Moore for half the night) it’s time to OFFICIALLY kick off the conference.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2016

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This group is more than ready…

For Lin Oliver’s conference stats:

*1,151 Attendees

*337 Published authors and 815 pre-pubbed

*48 states were represented. Considering the weather in NY we excused Hawaii for ditching us. But we also decided that maybe the reason North Dakota was ditching us was that no one lived there. :o)

*19 Countries in attendance including the USA

*Our ranks included a micro biologist, coffee roaster, oil trader, ventriloquist and a psychic!

The first Keynote of the day was William Joyce–BOOKS ARE LIKE THE ICE CREAM SANDWICH: HOW NEW TECHNOLOGY DOESN’T CHANGE MUCH OF ANYTHING BUT IT’S KIND OF COOL

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William immediately had us cracking up, telling the story of how he forgot why he’s picked that topic when he first agreed to be a conference speaker LOL! But he quickly found the original thread and sewed it all up for us.

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*Books=Ice Cream Sandwiches–hard stuff on the outside and good stuff in the middle.

*When people put a book on an app or e-device they claim they are doing it because they want the story to be “interactive.” What the heck do these people think happens when you read a book? You interact with it *head thunk*–to call something interactive it has to be more than just reading it on a screen vs between a cover.

*On starting his own Multimedia company: “Don’t make anything crummy.”

*Strong and better realities of a start up: Having to tell new, young employees they had to pay taxes. LOL!

*I highly recommend winning an Oscar–it’s the most fun I’ve ever had in my clothes.

Oscar Win – Moonbot Studios from Moonbot Studios on Vimeo.

*Doing THAT (see above video) with all those young kids–amazing!

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And if you want to see something fantastic…check out the app IMAG-N-O-TRON:The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore.

But be sure to come back to this blog and keep reading because I’ve got a Panel Discussion up next. THE BIG PICTURE: CHILDREN’S PUBLISHING: NOW AND IN THE NEAR FUTURE.

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MOD: Lin Oliver

MT: Megan Tingly–Executive Vice-President and Publisher, Little Brown Books for Young Readers

AP: Andrea Pappenheimer–Senior Vice-President, Director of Sales/Associate Publisher HarperCollins Publishers

ML: Mallory LoehrVice-President, Publishing Director, Random House/Golden/Doubleday Books for Young Readers

JF: Jean FeiwelSenior Vice-President and Director, Feiwel and Friends/Macmillian Children’s Publishing Group

JA: Jon AndersonPresident and Publisher, Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

I hate to tell you this–but this was such a good session that I listened without taking as many notes as I should have. I apologize but I’m pretty sure Team Blog will have some excellent tweets and recaps for you.

Then it was time for the day’s first break-out session or workshop. There were so many great sessions to choose from, but I picked CREATING TEEN CHARACTERS with Martha Brockenbrough and Rainbow Rowell.

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For this session I pulled up some rug in order to stretch my legs. Here were some of my favorite take-aways…

*Art inspires art

*I didn’t experience the events that happened in my books, but music got me to those places.

*It’s fiction, you get to make it up. (Oh, wait–Dragons ARE fake!)

In order to balance out my recap posts, I’m going to save the rest of the conference for your Thursday reading pleasure. While you wait, you can get a good laugh at all of us eating picnic style in the lobby.

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And remember–if you’re there at next year’s conference–Debbi Ohi will share her cookie with you. She couldn’t get anyone to split it with her!!! If she’d only showed up BEFORE I ate all that chocolate. *sigh*

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See you on Thursday with the #NY16SCBWI Conference Recap Part 2! While your waiting, tell me what session was your favorite if you were there. Or which one you would have loved to attend.

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Mar

4

2014

The 2014 NY SCBWI Winter Conference – Part 1

Filed under: Conferences, Publishing, SCBWI, Writing for Children

It’s time for your 2014 NY SCBWI Conference Recap!!! But I have to start with an apology–I wasn’t able to figure out where the heck I “packed” my good camera. *pulls out hair* It drove me crazy all weekend long. I love my iPhone but for some of those shots, I really needed my Canon. But since there is nothing I can do about it–we are just going to have to use our imaginations. Pretend all those pics are crystal clear and fabulous.

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It’s not an international SCBWI conference without Lin Oliver giving the conference stats. I know I’m a dork, but I look forward to this every time I go.

*1,085 people in attendance

*867 women

*153 men

*65 people who refused to state what they were.

*We hailed from 47 states. What’s up with those two damn Dakotas? And yes, we’d all rather be in Hawaii too–so they get a pass this year. LOL!

*20 countries were represented–meaning 19 foreign countries and Canada. Love you, Canada!!!!!

*In addition to my local Shop Talk clown (which Lin stated I can not take credit for unless I AM the clown ROTFL!) We also had a Waldo Impersonator that no one ever found. Tricky little devil–where is that Waldo? And an Expert in No Particular Subject. I kid you not. It has become apparent that I need to get more creative with my registration packet.

*Because we writers are directionally impaired, this year there were extra staff at hand herding us in the right direction as we wandered around the hotel. The illustrators (with the amazing spatial awareness) were encouraged to go about their business as usual.

Then, as an inspirational treat, we got to listen to SCBWI success story and cancer ass-kicker Kristin Fulton. Go check out her website and read about her recent 2 book deal. *fist pump* photo

 

And besides Kristin being fabulous, the bonus we discovered when chatting, was a mutual friend–one of my fabulous critique partners. <3 Commence singing It’s a Small World.

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I was so captivated by Jack Gantos I never took a picture of him speaking, but here he is signing books at the end of the conference. I think that Jack may now hold the title for the longest Keynote title. What do you think?

Keynote: How everything I learned about fiction and nonfiction in picture books, poetry, short stories, novellas, or, angst, dialog, a hundred drafts, and good luck all end up in the crown jewel of literature: THE NOVEL.

After Jack was done with his keynote, I leaned over to a friend (a first time NY SCBWI attendee) and whispered…”FYI–if you went home right now, you would have gotten your money’s worth.” And it’s the truth. I wish you’d been there to take it all in. It was amazing. Because I love you, here are some of my favorite highlights from Jack Ganto’s keynote…

*A great character will carry a weak plot, but a plot will not carry a weak character.

*The reader has to feel what the character feels…without empathy you don’t have a good book.

*There is not one good ending–there is always two. (the external ending and the emotional one)

*If you see it, you want the reader to see it too.

*The reason we read books is to change. As writers we have to infuse change into our writing so the reader feels it. “If that character does not change–I would be ashamed to write the book.”

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Next up was the Keynote Panel: The Future of Authorship

PA–Paul Aiken (Executive Director, The Author’s Guild)

JF–Jean Feiwel (SVP Publishing Director Macmillan Children’s Books)

JFriJane Friedman (Web Editor, Virginia Quarterly Review)

AGAbbi Glines (Author)

TT–Timothy Travalini (Director of Children’s Acquisitions, Open Road Media)

Moderated by: LO–Lin Oliver

 

Here are their best bits of advice…

JFri–New tools and trends are driving the discovery of work in a noisy industry. Now that everyone  CAN publish, the DO publish.

PA–It has always taken persistence in this industry. What has changed? We’ve lost 60-70% of our shelf space. Picture Books need to be picked up and held to be discovered.

AG–I was turned down by agents 55 times, so I self published my first novel. It got really bad reviews because it was really bad LOL!

AG–Writing a book is like a muscle–it gets better with use.

AG–You want your followers (twitter) to be organic –they should want to hear what you are saying.

JFri-An author platform comes out of your body of work.

JFri–It isn’t going to take much more erosion for bookstores to be unsustainable.

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AM Breakout Session with my FABULOUS editor Anica Rissi  <3 — Writing Contemporary Fiction

There is soooooo much good stuff!!! I couldn’t even write it all down–but THAT was no surprise to me because Anica is an amazing editor. Here’s her best…

*If you continuously find yourself to be the exception to all the rules–you might need to reevaluate.

*Be a brave soul.

*NO ONE WANTS TO READ YOUR FIRST DRAFT!

*Revision is what makes you a publishable writer.

*Give the reader something to wonder about.

*We learn about people (characters) in context.

*Kids won’t wait around–write opening lines that engage

*Your story needs to have a plot arc and an emotional arc.

*Stories are universal–it’s your details that matter.

*You should be writing the story only you can tell.

*You can’t decide who your characters are and you can’t force it–teens will smell a fake a mile away.

 

I find myself at a natural pausing spot as I’m pouring over Anica’s advice and inspirational words all over again. Guess this means it’s time for all of us to stop here and savor what’s been shared. I know it’s already made a HUGE difference in what I’m currently working on.

What is the most recent piece of advice or inspiration that’s found it’s way into your process and informed your writing?

 

 

 

 

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