February PSM Last Night with Jolie Stekly and Margaret Chodos-Irvine

Thanks to everyone who came out last night for a dash of Scrivener and a dollop of Portfolio Critique! We were minus a few of our Adcom volunteers due to illness, including Co-Regional Advisor, Kim Baker, here's a get well message for her:

We missed you all! Giant gobs of thanks to Laurie Thompson, Brenda Winter Hansen, Erik Pulkka, and Dana Sullivan who filled in for our sick comrades. The middle name of all our Advisory Committee members is DEDICATED.

And thanks to all attendees for being patient while we were low on volunteer hands. And for putting up with just me MC-ing the meeting. Gazing out at the audience, I know what the faces of Romans looked like in 476 A.D., the year the Roman Empire officially declined (at least they didn't look like the faces of Pompeiians circa 79 A.D.!) I can only promise we are working on attaining even a hint of the panache and smarts exhibited by our former Co-RAs.

If you missed last night, you missed YA author Jolie Stekly. She's not only a panache-y/smarty former Co-RA of SCBWI WWA, she's also a fantastic blogger, and an instructor for the University of Washington Extension's Writing for Children certificate program. Jolie gave us a live demo of Scrivener, and if you attended last night's meeting, you had a chance to win one of six Scrivener licenses. All attendees also left with a discount code for Scrivener, thank you, Jolie and Literature and Latte.

Jolie (and offscreen, her giant arrow)

We also had the privilege of hearing Caldecott Honor Winner Margaret Chodos-Irvine lay down the portfolio law. Margaret's Portfolio Tune-Up had us looking at the portfolios of members (submitted in December) and Margaret's critiques of the pieces were helpful for all artists trying to build a perfect, focused children's book illustration portfolio.

SCBWI Western Washington is TOTALLY STOKED to see a new blog being run by Margaret, Julie Paschkis, Julie Larios, and Laura McGee Kvasnosky! We can't wait to see all their future posts, please be sure to check out Books Around the Table:

Thanks again to speakers Jolie and Margaret, and to Dana Arnim for wrangling the portfolios.


Hope you will join us MARCH 13th for our next Professional Series Meeting!