**Note: The SCBWI-L.A. Mentorship is a six-month program that alternates between various categories of writing and illustrating. In this post, our 2025 winner, author Julia Edwards, shares her experience with the program. The 2026 mentor will be announced at the end of the post.** 

by Julia Edwards

Last year, I was the lucky winner of the SCBWI-L.A. Mentorship Contest and got to work with middle-grade author Sherry Shahan for six months on my manuscript I Speak for the Trees.

I am so glad I met this human! She is enthusiastic, she asks essential questions, she elucidates truths. She dove into her own research to understand the heart of my story, and we had deep conversations about eco-anxiety, the Wood Wide Web of mushroom fibers that allows trees to communicate, women’s climbing camps, and more. 

After each session, Sherry gave me a new assignment—which might be reworking a scene or pondering what would happen if, say, two frenemies were catching fireflies one evening. Without fail, the assignments were exactly what I needed. I wrote a mushroom harvesting scene with the mom and her two daughters that is now one of my favorites because we feel the absence of the missing father so acutely. 

Early in our sessions, Sherry mentioned some concern about the fact that only one scene transpired at the main character’s school. Everything else happened either in the woods where the family lives or in their small hill town. I argued for the scene for several months. It was essential for establishing the lead’s outsiderhood. It was important because, ultimately, the school kids would show up for her in the forest’s time of need. Sherry understood but gave me a new assignment anyway: to write the scene somewhere else. How had I not seen it earlier? Of course, the scene should happen at the small-town Earth Day Fair, which is now being run by the same unscrupulous developer who, chapters later, threatens their land, their trees, and their father’s life. 

Working with Sherry improved my manuscript and my writing (and revising) chops. It also saved my sanity. My house burned down in January of 2025. Oddly enough, in the very first chapter of this story, a character has a premonition: Everything’s going to burn! When I got the good news about the Mentorship Contest, I didn’t know if I would have the energy. I could barely think. I was the opposite of creative. I was just surviving. But the timing seemed too surreal to ignore. When Sherry and I started our work (and talks and imaginings), I woke up again. Because creating is a part of my survival—inventing worlds, teasing out inner turmoil, driving characters to the brink. The essence of art was laid bare: this is how I understand the world. This is how I imagine better worlds. Better choices. Better futures.

Apply to the Mentor Contest! You will work hard, you will laugh hard, and you will meet a new friend who knows and cares about the characters you’ve created as much as you do. 

2026 Mentorship Contest

SCBWI Los Angeles is excited to announce that Rebecca Langston-George has been selected as our 2026 mentor! As the regional advisor of SCBWI CenCal, Rebecca is well versed in helping fellow writers, and as the author of a whopping 19 books for children, she has accumulated a wealth of knowledge and insights about the craft and industry. 

Rebecca’s books include the internationally popular nonfiction For the Right to Learn: Malala Yousafzai’s Story, and The Booth Brothers: Drama, Fame and the Death of President Lincoln (a former Scholastic Book Club YA nonfiction title). Her most recent releases are both fiction, with a historical fiction middle grade/ya crossover novel, One Fine Voice (January 2026), and her first fiction picture book, Rover Rolled Over (March 2026). The California Reading Association honored her with the Armin R. Schultz Award for writing in social justice in 2016. 

A graduate of California Baptist University, Rebecca holds a Master of Education degree and taught both primary and secondary school as well as served as a mentor teacher for many years. Read more about her and her work at www.rebeccalangstongeorge.com. 

The SCBWI-L.A. mentorship is designed to help members in the early stages of their career. Rebecca is equally comfortable with fiction or nonfiction writers and happy to help with picture books, middle grade, or young adult. While Rebecca is open to most genres, she is not the best fit for rhyme (internal rhyme is okay), romance, or high fantasy. 

Don’t let this opportunity pass you by! For more information about the mentorship and instructions on how to apply, visit the SCBWI-L.A. Mentorship Contest webpage. 

Entries will be accepted from April 15 through May 27, 2026. 

---

For more fantastic content, community, events, and other professional development opportunities, become a member today! Not sure if there is a chapter in your area? Check here.

Julia Edwards is a writer and teacher. Her play Lockdown, published through YouthPLAYS, has been performed in schools across the country, and her one-act A Loser Like You is included in the anthology Bullying, Ink. She was the recipient of the SCBWI-L.A. Sue Alexander Grant twice, for her manuscripts Anno Catti and I Speak for the Trees. She teaches writing for all ages, from nursery school to college, including working with first-generation college applicants through ScholarMatch on the dreaded personal essay. She currently works in the 5th/6th grade ELA classroom at Saint Mark’s School of Altadena, which is thriving after relocating several times after the Eaton Fire. (Long live Altadena!) 

Images courtesy of Julia Edwards and Rebecca Langston-George