January 2018 events

SCBWI WWA events:

January Northern Network Meeting 

2018. Doesn't that sound like a year full of possibilities? Is one of your New Year's resolutions to write/ illustrate more? Let's ring IN the New Year with a Write-IN/ Draw-IN! Bring a current project to work on.  Nothing current happening? I'll have some writing/ drawing prompts to get those creative juices flowing!

Wednesday, January 3, 7:00 p.m., The Bellingham Barnes & Noble (4099 Meridian Street) Questions? Email Rebecca at rebecca_vanslyke@hotmail.com. 

The Critique Group Road Show

Seattle on January 3rd at Victrola Coffee and Art in Seattle (411 15th Ave E) at 8 pm! Come out and learn a proven method for critique group success. Bring 3-5 pages of your work-in-progress for feedback.

and... 

January 13th at 10am-1pm at the Charles Pink House on Lawrence in Port Townsend. Space is limited, so RSVP to andrea_peninsulakidlit@olympus.net.

Monthly Meeting

January 10
January meeting with Michèle Griskey and Megan Kelso. Demaray Hall at SPU, 7-9. Find more details here. 

The Great Critique
January 20
The Great Critique! Preregistration required. 

Matt de la Peña: Hey, Author Person, Get Out Of My Way

Matt de la Peña followed up his Friday Fiction Intensive, focusing on dialogue, and his Saturday Keynote address with a terrific breakout session on the use of the narrator in fiction--getting out of the way of your characters and clearing the stage for them to do the work.

Matt spoke to the importance of the author being patient, of stepping back in the writing so as not to show off to the reader--allowing the character, setting and action to reveal the story and create more space for the reader to participate in the narrative.

Some nuggets I took away from his session:

• Start a scene (or the book) as late as possible and end it as early as possible: get in, get your beats and get out
• The reader wants to be thrust directly into the story; they want to watch and discover. Are you starting your book too soon?
• The idea of the writer and the reader being in collaboration – stepping back from the work allows for a wider interpretation on the part of the reader, and that’s a good thing.
• In dialogue, what’s inside the quotation marks is the character. What follows (the tag: she said for example) is the writer. Make that tag, and the author’s presence, as spare as possible.

Notes by Tina Hoggatt

Keynote Speaker Matt de la Peña: Working Class Writer

"You are what you do when nobody is watching you"
Keynote speaker Matt de la Peña gave us a brief history of his journey from reluctant reader to published author (and avid reader).

Matt's books share stories of identity, class, code-switching and being bi-racial. He empathized that our profession is all about patience and encouraged us to "embrace the possibility."

For more information on Matt, and his work, you can visit his website.

Matt de la Peña and Cultural Censorship

Upcoming conference keynoter Matt de la Peña visited Tucson last week.

The trip bears mention because the students raised the money themselves to bring Matt out to speak, and Matt spoke at one of the schools that had recently removed his novel MEXICAN WHITE BOY (and a lot of other books) for being too Latino.

You can read about Matt's experience here, and see the New York Times coverage here.