Current Scratch: Join Us, Going There, Little Red, Awards

Hello and welcome to 2016! It's the New Year and with it comes new resolutions, goals, and plans! It will be exciting to see what the year brings for us all!

JOIN US If you haven't made any resolutions or find making plans daunting join us for our next meeting on Wednesday, January 27th at 10 a.m. in the College Station Barnes & Noble for a presentation on Goal-setting for Creatives. We'll also discuss news and provide encouragement. Gentle critique begins at 9:30 a.m. Bring copies of 5 double-spaced pages of your work in progress. Those who have time may go to lunch at a local restaurant. Members and friends welcome!

GOING THERE Another opportunity for YA writers coming up in January is the Texas SCBWI webinar; Going There: Romance & Sex Writing in YA Literature with Carrie Mesrobian. The webinar will help writers comfortably tackle those more intimate scenes in their characters lives, and provide discussions about how to approach sexual relationships in a story. Also, a limited number of post-webinar single-scene critiques are available. Sign up for critiques when registering for the webinar.

Lisa Cinelli, First Place Winner: Tomie dePaola Award

LITTLE RED Anyone wanting to take a gander at the talented artists in SCBWI should head over to the Tomie dePaola Award Gallery and look at all the wonderful entries for this year's contest. Winners have also been announced and you can see those here.

2016 Newbery "Last Stop on Market Street" Cover

2016 Caldecott "Finding Winnie" interior spread

AWARDS The 2016 Newbery and Caldecott Awards have been announced! The Newbery went to Matt de la Peña's "Last Stop on Market Street," illustrated by Christian Robinson. The 2016 award is notable as it is the first time the medal went to a true picture book and the first time a Latino author won the gold. The 2016 Caldecott went to artist Sophie Blackall for her work in the book "Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World's Most Famous Bear." It is a story of friendship between a soldier and a real bear, a bear who eventually inspired A.A. Milne's famous Pooh.

The views expressed here are my own, and not necessarily those of the SCBWI.