Current Scratch: Join Us, Local Event, Member News, Contests, Pipeline, & Just For Fun

Howdy, folks!

Rolling thunder! I hope that these gray skies inspire you to create master works!  Summer is upon us, plan to roll out your most awesome story yet.

Join Us

Join us on May 27, 2015 for discussion, news, and encouragement. Topic TBA. Meet us at Barnes & Noble in College Station. Gentle critique begins at 9:30 a.m. Bring copies of 5 double-spaced pages of your work in progress. Those who have time stay for lunch at a local restaurant. Members and friends welcome!

Local Events

Want to jump start you writing?  Try this. Write Away Day at the Writing Barn in Austin. 

Date(s): May 24, 2015 09:00 AM – May 24, 2015 04:00 PM
Cost: $15
Maximum Class Size: 18
Pay Online: To reserve a spot for May 24th's Write Away Day, please email Lily atwbprogramassistant@gmail.com and an invoice will be issued.

Molly Blaisdell will be holding a 8 week summer workshop called TeensPUBLISH for 7th through 12th graders.  Wednesdays in June and July except July 1.Time: 2:30 to 5:00.   For more info about this event and registration info, please follow this link. 

Member News

Molly Blaisdell's coming of age novel PLUMB CRAZY (Caney Creek Books, 2015) is now available on Amazon as an ebook and in paperback.  Here is the link.

Contest

2016 Helen Sheehan Book Prize from Elephant Rock Books. 

What: unpublished YA manuscripts, only one per author.
Prize: $1000 and ERB Book Contract
Length: Minimum of 50,000 words.
Submission fee: There is a $20 submission fee

For more info. 

PIPELINE 

Interested in what is being acquired by publishing houses. Here is the PW rights report.  Shout out for Texan Don Tate. 

Washington Post's best picture books for May.   Here is one opinion. 

Check out the New York Times picture book list.  Here is what is selling. 

FOR FUN

Daily routines of Famous Creative People.   Who are you like? Check it out.

The story of bees. This might inspire you.  21 days of a bee's life in 60 seconds.  

Here is a three part series with Lloyd Alexander  This charming stuff. How the reality of things is transferred into imaginary.  Here is a link.

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

Current Scratch: Join Us, Local Event, Member News, Awards, Contests, Opportunities, & Just For Fun

April is poetry month! Let's celebrate!

Raindrops fall from skies

Blades of grass dance in delight

Hydrate, world, hydrate

JOIN US

For our Poetry Slam Schmooze Wednesday, April 29th at 10:00 a.m. Meet us at Barnes & Noble in College Station. (Gentle critique will still begin at 9:30.) Here's the PROMPT LIST for our Poetry Slam. Rules are posted on the event page.

Include at least four words from the following list in each poem presented. Plural forms are allowed.

1. favorite

2. open
3. purple
4. rabbit
5. splash
6. sunshine
7. zest


LOCAL EVENT


Young Poets on the Brazos Poetry Contest Join us on Tuesday evening at Larry J. Ringer Library in College Station as we celebrate the winners of our 20th annual Young Poets on the Brazos Poetry Contest. We will start setting up at 6:30 and the poetry reading will begin at 7 p.m. Twenty-four sixth, seventh, and eighth graders will have their poems included in this year's anthology. There will be cake!


BV MEMBER NEWS


It's fun to get to share good news. Let us know what is going on with your work so we can celebrate together. Here's the latest news:

Carol Tollefson will be signing her first book, Lana Ladybug's Garden Party (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2014), from 3 to 5 p.m. Thursday in the Nacogdoches Hastings store. Her second book, McTavich That Rascal Squirrel, is due to come out in June 2015.

Alice Brock has sold her middle grade novel, River of Cattle, to Duke Pennell with Pen-L Publishing in Fayetteville, AR.  She pitched it to him at the Oklahoma Writers Federation convention a couple of years ago, and now she has a three book contract.

Linnea Heaney has two poems coming out this summer in Highlights Hello.

Kathi Appelt’s latest picture books, Counting Crows (Simon & Schuster, March 2015) and When Otis Courted Mama (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, January 2015), were featured in Glenn Dromgoole’s column on March 22. Both books also have received starred reviews.

Author of the picture book biography, Art from Her Heart: Folk Artist Clementine Hunter, Kathy Whitehead attended the opening of "The Murals of Clementine Hunter" featuring the African House Murals and other large format works in their first ever museum installation at the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame and Northwest Louisiana History Museum in Natchitoches, Louisiana.

Congratulations everyone!!!

AWARDS
SCBWI Announces Golden Kite Awards for 2015. Congrats to all the winners!

CONTEST




We need diverse books short story contest. Details here. Hurry, deadline on May 8th.

OPPORTUNITY

MeeGenius welcomes children's book manuscripts. 
MeeGenius (est. 2010), the top-selling ebook reader app for young readers, is accepting children’s book manuscripts from writers. The publisher works individually with writers to publish stories for young ones (ages 2-8). Visit the link for more details.

JUST FOR FUN

Recently found... 3 scrapped pages of A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle's granddaughter.

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

Current Scratch: Join Us, Opportunities, Awards, Book Biz, For the Illustrator & Just For Fun

I bet we're all hoping March's showers will bring lots of April flowers, right? Something beautiful must come from the torrential downpours we've experienced this month. (And I'm not talking about the accidental mini waterfall which has occurred in our backyard, due to the raging water flowing from the hill, washing out a section of our land.) I'm thinking of writing a story. I'm seeing a fire ant (Yes, I said fire ant. What? They can be cute, too! Sort of. Okay... maybe not.) family facing the extreme challenge of the backyard river. Texas... Fire ants... I may be onto something! What about you? Any new projects springing up?

JOIN US

"Writing for the Youngest Readers" is our Schmooze topic this Wednesday with author Linnea Heaney. Linnea’s poems are being published in the 2015 summer issues of Highlights Hello. A Real Best Friend, her lyrical picture book story, was published at Hunger Mountain: the Vermont College of Fine Arts Journal for the Arts. She brings the perspective of a teacher and researcher in the early childhood and emergent literacy fields to writing for the youngest readers.

Join us for her presentation at 10 a.m. followed by time for questions and discussion. We meet in the back corner of the College Station Barnes & Noble. Gentle critique begins at 9:30 a.m. Bring copies of 5 double-spaced pages of your work in progress. Those who have time stay for lunch at a local restaurant. Members and friends welcome!

BV folks & friends, do you have a Facebook? Join us over at our new group! The more, the merrier!

Kid Lit Coffee Klatch

Join other SCBWI members and friends for a Kid Lit Coffee Klatch for their next meet up in the evening! This is be a chance to meet other writers and illustrators, maybe gossip a bit about our characters, and encourage each other. You can email Liz at lizbmertz@gmail.com for the next date.

OPPORTUNITIES

The Grateful American Book Prize is the only award for excellence in writing, storytelling and illustration for children’s historical non-fiction and fiction focused on the events and personalities that have shaped the United States since the country’s founding. Details from the website: There is a market out there for well-written, well-illustrated and well-researched accounts of the way we, as Americans, were and the way we will continue to grow, prosper and contribute on a global scale in the future. We invite your interest in and support of the Prize. And, of course, we welcome your participation by submitting your books that meet our criteria for consideration.

Writing YA? A small book publisher Intrigue Publishing (est. 2012) is accepting stories for a forthcoming anthology titled, Young Adventurers: Heroes, Explorers & Swashbucklers. Find out details here. Be quick! The deadline is April 1, 2015.

AWARDS

The Jane Yolen Midlist Author Award 2015 winner is Sanna Stanley. Congrats!!

And the runner-up is Jane Mitchell! Congrats to both! You can read about both authors on the SCBWI blog. Just follow the links.

BOOK BIZ

Big publishers selling books through Twitter? Check out this article about Harper Collins & Twitter. Although this is a special promotion for Harper, Hatchette recently explored the same selling adventure. The article above is certainly well worth the read!

What if you could get your books ordered from Amazon by drones? Yes, directly to your front lawn. *shakes head* Crazy thought, right? Well, Amazon just received approval to test. Read about it here.

FOR THE ILLUSTRATOR

This blog post just popped up, literally, as I was putting this together! Check it out. 10 Mistakes the Illustrator Makes on the SCBWI blog. Just read through it. Great tips to pack into your mental toolbox, illustrators!

JUST FOR FUN

This is a hilarious, short article I found on our fabulous SCBWI Blog called, "If Strangers Talked to Everybody Like They Talk to Writers." You can read the entire article here. I had a few giggles over my coffee this morning. Enjoy!

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

Current Scratch: Join Us, Local SCBWI Happenings, SCBWI Opportunities, Events, Agents, Inspiration

Did you miss us? Your intrepid Scratchpad contributors were slammed with stuff last month, but we are back: "better, stronger, faster."  Wow, what great creative weather we are having!  Nothing like dull, rainy days to make us turn to our imaginations. I hope that you are doing awesome things.

Join us at the College Station Barnes and Noble on March 25 (Last Wednesday of the month). for discussion, news, and encouragement. Topic "Writing for the Youngest Readers." Gentle critique begins at 9:30 a.m, our program stars at 10:00 a.m. Bring copies of 5 double-spaced pages of your work in progress. Those who have time stay for lunch at a local restaurant. Members and friends welcome!

LOCAL SCBWI HAPPENINGS  

Kid Lit Coffee Klatch

Join other SCBWI members and friends for a Kid Lit Coffee Klatch on Monday, March 16, 2015 7-8 p.m. in the Starbucks at the corner of Hwy. 6 and Rock Prairie Rd. This will be a chance to meet other writers and illustrators, maybe gossip a bit about our characters, and encourage each other. You can email Liz…

The Deets: 

Date: 03/16/2015
Time: 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Location:  Starbucks, 3985 State Highway 6 South, College Station, TX, Un

BV Illustrator Event! Free Lecture by The Neuland Concept Designers

Concept designers Margaret Wuller and Patrick Hannenberger will discuss their work for film projects such as The Croods, Rise of the Guardians, Monsters vs. Aliens, and How to Train Your Dragon. The free public lecture begins at 7 p.m. in the Geren Auditorium at the College of Architecture on the A&M campus. http://www.theneuland.com/about/

Date/Time: 04/16/2015,7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Location: Langford Building, College of Architecture, Texas A&M Universtiy, College Station, TX,

SCBWI OPPORTUNITIES

TAX Seminar, Phone

It's tax season, and to take away some of the pain, we've arranged for a seminar to help. Tax Tips for Writers & Illustrators will be given by Robert Pesce, a CPA with the New York firm Marcum LLP. The one-hour seminar is for both writers and illustrators, self-published, traditionally published and pursuing. Click here for more info.

Date/Time: 03/17/2015, 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm

SCBWI Work-in-Progress Grant

SCBWI provides numerous grants to unpublished writers. The application window is currently open! 

Please click here for more info.

Crystal Kite Award Deadline

The annual Crystal Kite Award is a peer-given award to recognize great books from 15 SCBWI regional divisions around the world. ~~Deadline: You must enter your book published in 2014 by March 15th, 2015. For more information, visit: http://www.scbwi.org/awards/crystal-kite-member-choice-award/ ​

EVENTS

Do you want to participate in the East Texas Book Festival?  Click here for all the info. 

NF4NF Childrens Writers' Conference.  Do you write Non-fiction? Are you interested? Check out the link to the conference held in Rosenburg, Texas on September 17-20.  

AGENTS

This listing of children's literary agents may be interesting to you. Follow this link thanks to Casey McComick at Literary Rambles. 

INSPIRATION

Because you freaking need inspiration.  Here are links to many podcasts that are sure to stir you up. Here is the link. 

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

Current Scratch: Join Us! Regional Events, ALA Youth Media Awards, Grants and Contests, News, Fun

Howdy, folks!  New year is in full swing! We are in February. I hope you are working hard at your goals. I've already snagged my first rejection for the year. (That makes me a real writer!)  I know that the sunshiny days are hard to avoid right now but carve some time out for creativity.

Join us for discussion, news, and encouragement.

Next SCBWI Brazos Valley Schmooze: Feb. 25, 2015 at 9 a.m. at the College Station, Barnes and Noble. Topic: Writing for the Youngest Readers. Gentle critique begins at 9:30 a.m. Bring copies of 5 double-spaced pages of your work in progress. Those who have time stay for lunch at a local restaurant. Members and friends welcome!

REGIONAL EVENTS

Webinar Opportunity--Author and teacher Leslea Newman will teach The ABC’s of Poetry: Writing in Poetic Form for Children and Young Adults on Feb. 17, 7-8:30 p.m. Click the title link for details and registration. Member discounted registration is $10.+

SCBWI Austin 2015 Writers and Illustrators' Working Conference. A two day conference with over a dozen publishing professionals. Check it out on March 3/7-8/2015.

SCBWI Houston 2015 Annual Conference. A two day conference with an included intensive. Check it out 4/18-4/19/2015.

If you want to go to SCBWI International Conference,

ALA MEDIA YOUTH AWARDS. 

The Newbery goes to Kwane Alexander for his book THE CROSSOVER  

The Caldecott goes to Dan Santat for his book BEEKLE. 

The Printz goes to Jandy Nelson for her book I'LL GIVE YOU THE SUN 

All these folks are members of SCBWI. Check out this SCBWI article. 

Also check here for more info!

GRANTS and CONTESTS

Follow the links for more info.

SCBWI WIP Grants

Master of the Ink Pot at David Fickling Books.

The Katherine Paterson Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Writing 

NEWS

Small but Mighty Small Presses. Check them out in this article in PW. 

Hatchette sales were down 4.8 % in 2014.  Read about it at GalleyCat. 

FUN

Mac Barnett: Why a Good Book Is a Secret Door.   

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

Current Scratch: Join Us, Opportunities, Book Buzz, Craft Tip, & Agent Opportunity

Hello, SCBWI Brazos Valley & Friends! Maybe it's because it's a New Year. Maybe it's because the sun has shined its light on us for three days straight. But I feel fabulous things heading our way! Completed works. Requests. Contracts. Publishing deals. They're just around the corner.


Are you inspired yet? If not, maybe you should join us for our Schmooze tomorrow!


JOIN US


SCBWI BV Schmooze--Where do you look for inspiration to keep creating? Do you have a favorite quote, practice, or place that gets you going again when your creative well starts to run dry? Join us on Wednesday at 10 a.m. in the College Station Barnes & Noble to talk about filling the well. Gentle critique begins at 9:30 a.m. Bring copies of 5 double-spaced pages of your work in progress. Those who have time stay for lunch at a local restaurant. Members and friends welcome!


Webinar Opportunity--Author and teacher Leslea Newman will teach The ABC’s of Poetry: Writing in Poetic Form for Children and Young Adults on Feb. 17, 7-8:30 p.m. Click the title link for details and registration. Member discounted registration is $10.


OPPORTUNITIES


Preparations for the 2015 Texas Word Wrangler in Giddings is already in full swing. If you're a Texas author and/or illustrator and have published a book and would like to participate, contact Deidre Harry through the link provided.


Pockets Magazine seeks stories on role models for October issue.


We Need Diverse Books hosts a new Short Story Contest. Deadline May 8th.


BOOK BUZZ


Read about how a little press on the prairie races to keep up with sales. An amazing story! An annotated edition of the 1930's biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder PIONEER GIRL


 2015 Edgar Award Nominations for Children's and YA. *scroll down to see children's and YA on the list*


SCBWI Announces 2014 On the Verge Emerging Voices Award


CRAFT TIP


Do you write YA? Check out the latest post over at SCBWI: The Blog about how understanding the adolescent psychology may help us write better YA fiction. Interesting information, folks.


AGENT OPPORTUNITY


Polish up those queries! Young Adult, Middle Grade, Picture Books, etc. Elena Giovinazzo at Pippin Properties is back from maternity leave and is accepting queries.




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

Current Scratch: Join Us!, Regional Events, Contest, Resolutions, Publishing, For Fun

Howdy, folks!  Welcome to the New Year, SCBWI Brazos Valley! Sorry this is a day late. I spent yesterday celebrating my son's 17th birthday.

Time to get working!

I hope you have made solid New Year's resolutions. I have found that people with a plan find good success!  Send me a sentence goal for the New Year, and I will post it the sidebar!  It can be anonymous or not. Accountability always helps.

JOIN US!

Next SCBWI Brazos Valley Schmooze: January 28, 2015 at 9 a.m. at the College Station, Barnes and Noble. Details still to come!

REGIONAL EVENTS

SCBWI Austin 2015 Writers and Illustrators' Working Conference. A two day conference with  over a dozen publishing professionals. Check it out on March 3/7-8/2015. 

SCBWI Houston 2015 Annual Conference. A two day conference with an included intensive.  Check it out 4/18-4/19/2015.

CONTEST

Highlights Fiction Contest.  This year's theme is mystery stories. The deadline is 1/31/2015.

RESOLUTIONS

Every writer should have dedicated office space. You could do this if you could find your manuscript. Here are some Pinterest Boards to help you organize your office: Organizing Tips and Tricks for Writers, Office and Organizing, Simplified Offices,

Develop a plan for your writing future. This might help you. 

How to write a business plan.  This might help you move from a hobbyist to a professional.

Write a book in a month.  This might help light a fire under you.

PUBLISHING

Good news. Children's sales up at Independent Books stores! Read about it in PW.

What is going on with sci-fi and fantasy readers?  Where are the younger readers? This discussion at PW might be interesting to you. 

FOR FUN

Neil Gaiman offers advice on how to become a writer.  It is much simpler than just writing down your ideas. Check it out on his blog.


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