This year’s New England SCBWI Conference is Friday, April 29th through Sunday, May 1st. It’s my regional conference and I look forward to it every year. This year’s conference is particularly special because co-director Juliana Spink Mills lives in my town. It’s wonderful that a writer-friend is running the show!
I wanted to get the word out about how great this conference is (in case you haven’t read my articles on the 2018 or 2019 conferences). So I sat down with Juliana to get the inside scoop.
We’re all disappointed that we won’t be in person. There’s nothing like the energy in a ballroom filled with writers and illustrators inspired by a keynote speech. BUT, there are some big upsides to a virtual conference. Let’s talk about them.
The best thing about a virtual conference is that it’s accessible. In terms of cost, it’s only $50 for SCBWI members. There are no hotel or meal costs. Even the conference fee is much lower than for an in-person conference. This covers:
- 34 workshops (8 of which are intensives)
- Keynote speeches by author Tara Lazar and illustrator John Parra
- Words of Wisdom from Jane Yolen, author of over 400 books
- A conversation on craft with Golden Kite award winner Rajani LaRocca and Heidi Stemple
- A guided meditation by award-winning author Padma Venkatraman
- A publishing industry panel with agents and editors
- 12 Ask-a-Mentor sessions
- And as much social mixing through Zoom breakout rooms as participants can handle.
I’m going to need a good supply of coffee to keep up with all that!
Yes, a weekend-long virtual event is tiring, but you don’t need to take it all in at once. The workshop recordings will be available to watch for a month. So, if there are two workshops in one time slot that you’d like to see (or more!), you can see them both.
And the recordings bring me to my second point on accessibility. We’ll have captions available on all the recordings.
That sounds great. With all this great content, what are you most excited about, Juliana?
I’m excited about it all. But with that said, Tara Lazar’s keynote will be wonderful. Tara is the author of 7 Ate 9, The Monstore, Bloop, and many other picture books. She’s also the organizer of Storystorm on Twitter. She brings so much energy to her talks, she’ll inspire everyone.
As will Rajani LaRocca and Heidi Stemple. They’ll talk about how to keep your creativity going during these difficult times.
John Parra, award-winning illustrator of Round Is a Tortilla: A Book of Shapes, Waiting for the Biblioburro, and many other picture books, will inspire us with his art as well as his words in his keynote speech.
And we haven’t even gotten to the workshops yet!
We’ve organized the workshops by track. You can pick your track and find a workshop in each session on that topic, or you can mix and match different tracks. Our tracks are:
- Picture books
- Middle grade/young adult books
- Professional development (marketing, lessons learned from a pandemic debut, self-publishing)
- Illustration
- General publishing (voice, lessons from BookTok, writing for the work-for-hire market)
There’s something for everyone.
Yes, that’s what we’re trying to achieve. The other thing I’m excited about is seeing all our plans come together. To see people enjoying the speeches and workshops and mentor sessions.
Let’s talk more about the social aspect. We all love conferences for the chance to catch up with old writer friends and make new ones. I met one of my long-time critique partners at the New England Conference. How much opportunity will there be for chatting with other writers and illustrators?
At my first NESCBWI conference, Kris Asselin tweeted out on the conference hashtag to meet up in the lobby. I was anxious to meet some writers and asked if I could join. Fast-forward a few years, Kris and I are running the conference together, so I definitely understand that the social aspect of the conference is important.
We’ve been trying out different tech options to find the best and will be using Zoom Events. Zoom provides the functionality everyone’s already grown comfortable with and the ability to create breakout rooms that will be open throughout the entire conference. Attendees can select rooms on different topics to find writers or illustrators who work in their category or genre, or who want to share tips on similar topics (marketing, social media, self-publishing, etc.)
What advice do you have for first-time attendees?
Drop by the social rooms. Writing and illustrating are both solitary pursuits and we all want to find our people. It can be tough because many of us are introverted, but put yourself out there. It will be worth it.
I also want to make sure everyone knows that while the workshops will be recorded and available to watch for a month, the keynotes and other presentations won’t. So make sure you tune in live for the Words of Wisdom from Jane Yolen, Creative Conversation with Rajani LaRocca and Heidi Stemple, the guided meditation with Padma Venkatraman, Tara Lazar and John Parra’s keynote speeches, the Ask-a-Mentor sessions, and the industry professional panel.
But if you have to drop out of a workshop session, you’ll be able to watch that later. You can watch all 34 if you’d like!
What advice do you have for veterans?
Veterans tend to be worried that a virtual conference won’t be a “real conference,” like the ones they know and love. They’re right. It won’t be the same. It will be something entirely different. Something where they can try more workshops because they’re available via the recordings. They can step out of their comfort zones and try something new.
Last question (I promise!) I know there’s a ton of work that goes into running this conference. You’ve been busy! What’s the first thing you’ll do when the conference is over.
I’m looking forward to going through three years of notes to find all the important ones and then passing that off to Jim Hill. Jim is co-director of the conference with me this year. Next year he’ll be running the conference with a new co-director.
I’m sure that passing the torch on to the new team will be a good feeling!
Special note from Rebecca: I’ve been invited to speak at the New England Conference for the first time! I’ll be speaking on writing High-Low Books and with Meg Thatcher on Writing for the Work-for-Hire Market. (Check out this post for a preview.) I’ll also be around for the rest of the conference. Say “hi” on Zoom chat if you attend!
Thanks to Juliana and the whole volunteer team for putting together this great weekend of children’s book writing and illustration info. And for taking the time to share the details with The Winged Pen!
Sign up for the conference here. It’s $50 for SCBWI members and $100 for non-members (but you can join and get the discount!) We hope to see you there!
