Current Scratch: Local Events, Good News, Opportunities.

Howdy, folks! Yay, cooler weather is here. Yards are green. Every one's yard is blooming. I hope that your work is blooming too.

JOIN US

Join us on  Oct. 30--Schmooze: “Revisiting Revision”--10 a.m. at Barnes& Noble, College Station, TX. We'll meet at 10 a.m. in the Science corner of the College Station Barnes & Noble. Come early for a gentle critique session that begins at 9:30.

B.V. EVENT

Piney Woods Retreat, Nov. 15-17, 2013 for writers and illustrators in the pines of East Texas at LakeviewMethodist ConferenceCenter near Palestine, TX. This event is for working writers and illustrators who need time, space and encouragement to move forward with their works in progress. Additional information here. And you can register at Eventbrite.

LOCAL EVENTS

Oct. 26-27--Texas Book Festival, Austin, TX

Nov. 9--Sherry Garland’s book signing for Voices of Pearl Harbor, Barnes & Noble, College Station, TX (time to be set around the football game)

Nov. 15-17--Piney Woods Retreat, LakeviewMethodist ConferenceCenter, Palestine, TX (info above)

Dec. 3--Holiday Celebration, 7 pm. Location TBA

Dec. 7--Sherry Garland and illustrator Layne Johnson will sign Voices of Pearl Harbor at the NationalMuseum of the Pacific War (Admiral NimitzMuseum), Fredericksburg, TX.

GOOD NEWS

Kathi Appelt's The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp is on the National Book Awards Long List! From the site: "Newbery Honoree and National Book Award finalist Kathi Appelt presents a story of care and conservation, funny as all get out and ripe for reading aloud." 

Molly Blaisdell fangirl rom-com PLUMB CRAZY-- to Georgia McBride at Swoon Romance,a nice deal, a 2-book deal, for publication in May 2014, reported in Publisher's Marketplace.

OPPORTUNITIES

New Imprint -- all digital -- Bloomsbury Spark -- Read about it in PW.

Macmillian Children's Books has opened a new site called Swoon Reads. Read about it at Galley Cat.

Check out Merit Publishing yet another new publishing venture available to authors.  Read about it on PW.  

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