Reminder: Northern Network Schmooze TONIGHT!

The WWA SCBWI Northern Network wants to invite you to our December Schmooze--TONIGHT!

Northern Network Schmooze

Wednesday, December 1, 7:00-9:00 pm

Barnes & Noble (café), Bellingham, Washington

“Writing Picture Books: An Author’s and Editor’s Perspective”

More than twelve years of experience making products for children—books, toys, games, and puzzles—has given our special guest speaker, Liz Mills, a unique insight into the business as both a writer and an editor.

She’s sat on both sides of the desk, hiring authors and illustrators and selling her own work. And she’s also watched the picture book market evolve and transform from a small section of retro classics to an explosion of color, creativity, and voice across bookstore walls.

How do we navigate such a vast market? How do authors and illustrators work together and what is the role of an editor? Will our stories make a splash in an ocean of bestsellers? Are picture books rapidly becoming a thing of the past?

Liz looks forward to hearing your thoughts and questions and discussing the wild and wonderful world of picture-book publishing!

Please join us for an encouraging evening as we tackle these questions and more.

No RSVP required. Questions or comments? Please contact Angelina Hansen: yascribe@comcast.net

Hope to see you there!

Sincerely,

Angelina C. Hansen

Northern Network Coordinator

SCBWI Western Washington

Northern Network Schmooze--December 1st

The WWA SCBWI Northern Network wants to invite you to our December Schmooze!

Northern Network Schmooze

Wednesday, December 1, 7:00-9:00 pm

Barnes & Noble (café), Bellingham, Washington

“Writing Picture Books: An Author’s and Editor’s Perspective”

More than twelve years of experience making products for children—books, toys, games, and puzzles—has given our special guest speaker, Liz Mills, a unique insight into the business as both a writer and an editor.

She’s sat on both sides of the desk, hiring authors and illustrators and selling her own work. And she’s also watched the picture book market evolve and transform from a small section of retro classics to an explosion of color, creativity, and voice across bookstore walls.

How do we navigate such a vast market? How do authors and illustrators work together and what is the role of an editor? Will our stories make a splash in an ocean of bestsellers? Are picture books rapidly becoming a thing of the past?

Liz looks forward to hearing your thoughts and questions and discussing the wild and wonderful world of picture-book publishing!

Please join us for an encouraging evening as we tackle these questions and more.
No RSVP required. Questions or comments? Please contact Angelina Hansen: yascribe@comcast.net

Hope to see you there!

Sincerely,
Angelina C. Hansen
Northern Network Coordinator
SCBWI Western Washington

Liz Mills at Secret Garden Books

Liz Mills will be at Secret Garden Books for Ultimate Tuesday, Oct 26, at 7 p.m. with singing, book signing, music, treats, and THE SPOOKY WHEELS ON THE BUS! Find out more about Liz on her website.

Trolling for Trenches Tales

Straight from our own Chinook Editor, Liz Mills...

As surely as the Fremont Troll grabs VW Beetles off the Aurora bridge for lunch, I am low on Trenches interviews! Let there not be an issue without juicy stories of how we are making our way through the wild, woolly world of publishing. Have you recently sold a magazine story? Are you a regular contributor to a magazine column? Did you recently sign with an agent? Did you recently get a book deal or sell your millionth book? We want to hear from you--how you got your start, where your ideas come from, how we can learn from you and follow in your footsteps. Contribute, or I'm personally sending the troll after each one of you. And there have not been many Beetles going across that bridge, let me tell you. Please email me at tfttnw@gmail.com for a list of questions. Otherwise, there'll be a contribution from the Troll, I promise!!

Good News for Liz Mills

Liz has just released her book, THe SPOOKY WHEELS ON THE BUS. It's now on sale at Santoro’s Books, which will host a book launch party September 11, 2010. This is Liz's thirtieth book! The link for this is found on the PhinneyWood.com website.

Liz also puts together our SCBWI Chinook, and sends me wonderful links to post for the Update! You can find more information about Liz on her blog. Congratulations Liz!

Looking for Tipsters for the Chinook

The Chinook is looking for tips about writing query letters. Can you help?

How many query letters have you written in your writing career? What helpful tips have you learned from those that were successful and those that weren’t so successful? Would you contribute those tips to an article in an upcoming issue of the Chinook? We’d love to learn from you!

Email your tips to Elizabeth Mills at tfttnw@gmail.com.

Online picture book class with Liz Mills

If you can't make a real-life class for whatever reason, this virtual one taught by our own Liz Mills might be just the thing:

From Cover to Cover: A Picture Book Class

Are you brimming with picture-book drafts after NaPiBoWriWee? Do you have a drawer full of stories clamoring to be completed and polished? Then I have the class for you! Together, we’ll explore your ideas for their marketability, review your drafts to make them the best they can be, discuss the importance of making a dummy book even when you’re not an illustrator, and tackle submission guidelines. All in four weeks! The class will be conducted online, with up to eight participants. I will send out an email at the beginning of each week with information, guidance, and writing prompts. Then as you send in your work, I’ll send each of you feedback. We’ll work on one story a week. I encourage all participants to critique as well. We learn best from each other. Come write and revise some stories with me!

Length of class: Four weeks
Cost: $75
Payment by check or Paypal
Start Date: July 5, 2010
Registration ends: June 20, 2010

About me: I am a freelance editor and author who acquired, edited, and managed more than a hundred books in all kinds of formats as an editor at Scholastic. I have also written thirty books, including THE EVERYTHING KIDS’ EASY SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS BOOK and TICK-TOCK SHARKS. My picture book, THE SPOOKY WHEELS ON THE BUS, will be published by Scholastic in July 2010. In my spare time, I am the editor of The Chinook, a quarterly newsletter for the Western Washington chapter of SCBWI, and I’m a member of the Northwest Independent Editors Guild. Visit my website, and contact me at jemills1 AT gmail.com.

Write for the printed Chinook

This comes from Liz Mills, our Chinook editor: 

Our next issue of The Chinook will focus on submission and promotion.

Who among you has an interesting insight into the vast and somewhat confusing world of submission? Perhaps an unusual path you took? Some interesting and diplomatic perspectives on some of the newer publishing houses and imprints? Creative ways to handle rejection letters, such as using them to repaper the bathroom? Tips on how to handle THE phone call--the one we all wait for with the juicy offer?

And does anyone have suggestions from personal experience on unique ways to promote oneself as an author and/or illustrator in this busy world of social media and instant communication? We want to learn from you! 

Please send your articles and ideas to me at tfttnw AT gmail.com. Even if you're not quite sure how to formulate your thoughts into an article, drop me a mail. We'll work on the piece together! I look forward to reading your sage advice.

Getting serious about series #scbwiwwa

Kevin Emerson, Suzanne Young, J. Elizabeth Mills, and Trudi Trueit are talking about their work writing and editing book series.

Suzanne Young: her quirky character led to the creation of a series from a single book (THE NAUGHTY LIST). Write relatable characters you want to be around. If she'd known it was being a series, she might have set it up more, and it wouldn't have felt as satisfying to read.

Kevin Emerson: He used to get psyched out about creating unique characters. It helps to be thinking in a genre. He had some rules he could use or change. He had some models to work from when he did OLIVER NOCTURNE. It was helpful for him to work with incremental elements (offering a big "prize" development at the end of the books). He also goes back to his character's age and thinks about what makes for good trauma/conflict (road trips and dances! oy!)

Trudi Trueit (SECRETS OF A LAB RAT): Find characters who are really honest. She writes out a character sheet--all the things her characters like. What's in Scab's pocket? What does his room look like? One of her characters has a lab/bedroom with piles of laundry and stacks of fossils. This makes characters come to life. "Sometimes you just start with one character and it develops as a series." Once you get that series going, you're locked in. So make sure the supporting cast is a good one.

Liz Mills: For the STABLEMATES series, Liz travels back to the age she's writing about and remembering the feelings of envy and jealousy, and how to work it into a story. The quest for perfect hair, for example, makes for good episodic content.

A query about queries

This comes from Elizabeth Mills, editor of The Chinook, our printed quarterly.

How many query letters have you written in your writing career? What helpful tips have you learned from those that were successful and those that weren’t so successful? Would you contribute those tips to an article in an upcoming issue of the Chinook? We’d love to learn
from you!

Email your tips to Elizabeth Mills at tfttnw@gmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you!

Write an article for the printed Chinook!

Feeling crafty after cutting and pasting all those handmade valentines? Full of exciting revision ideas and suggestions after writing and rewriting romantic sonnets? Brimming over with thrilling new ways to deviously devastate a dastardly handsome villain or invent idiomatic inklings of invisible plot twists?

The May issue of The Chinook is dedicated to craft-based articles to get you ready for the Summer Revision Smackdown. So share your knowledge, write up a short but insightful article, and send it along to editor Liz Mills at jemills1 AT gmail.com by March 22.

And as always, if you're an author or illustrator with PAL status, and you're interested in participating in our Tales from the Trenches column, email me at tfttnw AT gmail.com.

Good news for Liz Mills

Liz co-wrote a geography book that is on Amazon's 4-star list, as well as a glowing review from Helium:

Incredibly written, this book is not only educational, but entertaining. Jane P. Gardner, with a degree in geology, uses her knowledge to put together an amazing tool for parents and educators to buy for their children. J. Elizabeth Mills, also an author to the book, is an experienced children's book writer.

This book is a useful resource for home schooling, for summer and winter indoor activity book, and useful for long car trips. Many children may find it fun to take along on camping trips. Parents can easily combine additional activities with many sections of the book. For example, when reading about Vermont, information is included about how maple syrup is made. How to cook pancakes or waffles, making your own syrup, or visiting a maple tree farm would combine nicely with it.

Congratulations, Liz!