#KT250 Winning Entries: 1st Quarter 2018

26 Friday Jan 2018

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#KT250 is our first Kite Tales quarterly community contest! We’re proud to announce this quarter’s winners and share the first 250 words of their unpublished manuscripts. We encourage agents, publishers, and mentors to reach out to any winners whom they find intriguing!

To find out how YOU can enter for next quarter, check out contest info here. Entries are now being accepted for next quarter!

GRAND PRIZE WINNER: Continue reading →

SCBWI Central Coast Regional News, First Quarter 2018

24 Wednesday Jan 2018

Posted by in Central Coast, Contests & Grants, Mentorship Contest, Tri-Regional News

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By Ann Rousseau Smith, SCBWI CenCal News Liaison

 

SCBWI Cen-Cal 2018 Mentor Program: Matching Successful PAL’s with Promising Writers

Our 2018 Middle-Grade Mentor is Mary Hershey.

About Mary: Mary Penney Hershey (a.k.a. Mary Penney) is the author of five humorous (and heartfelt, she hopes) middle grade novels. Her next novel, entitled Green Eyes & Ham will be published by HarperCollins in winter 2018. Mary holds a Master’s Degree in Education and is a certified personal and executive coach. She is a long-standing SCBWI Cen-Cal member and served on the board for our region for a number of years. She has taught workshops for Cen-Cal events and served on the faculty at SCBWI nationals. She is profoundly grateful for all the guidance she has received over the years from other writers and is thrilled to serve as our 2018 mentor.

About the Program:  Continue reading →

Having a Mentor Just Might Lead to a Manuscript That Sells

17 Wednesday Jan 2018

Posted by in Contests & Grants, Mentorship Contest

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by Karol Ruth Silverstein, Contest Coordinator

It’s common knowledge that having a mentor can impact your writing career in wonderful ways. Sometimes the impact is immediately apparent; other times it takes a while for the coaching a mentee receives to translate into career success.

My own experience falls into both categories. Continue reading →

LitMingle Minute: The Birth of South Los Angeles LitMingle

10 Wednesday Jan 2018

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By Jean Perry, SOLA LitMingle Coordinator

*EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was accidentally emailed before Christmas, but was not scheduled to post on the blog until today. So just in case you missed it or were looking for it on Kite Tales… Here it is again!

Left to right: Karen English, Marjorie Smith, Jean Perry at Meeting #1

The idea for a South LA LitMingle was born where so many great ideas in Los Angeles are born: in traffic. When construction projects increased traffic congestion, my drive-time from South LA to Hollywood, as the then-Hollywood LitMingle Coordinator, went from thirty-five minutes to one hour. Returning time wasn’t much shorter. If it was too much of a commute for the coordinator, what about potential attendees coming from the same area? The answer seemed reasonable: set up a South LA Mingle.

I was surprised to find the shorter commute didn’t exactly bring in the minglers. Where did all the people go? My first meeting consisted of two friends plus me. The second meeting was me with a woman who wandered by during the last fifteen minutes. My third meeting is coming up on January 25th. One writer is interested in writing about her family, another about a trip to West Africa, another about a childhood experience. None have shown up more than once. Continue reading →

#KTWriteOn with Editor Melissa Manlove: Non-Fiction Submissions

03 Wednesday Jan 2018

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KTWriteOnJust in time to help power your new year’s writing resolution, we’re introducing the Kite Tales Writing Prompt: #KTWriteOn. Each quarter, we’ll feature a writing challenge crafted by a kid-lit publishing professional. To kick things off, here’s a writing prompt created by Chronicle Books Senior Editor Melissa Manlove. As a bonus, Melissa is inviting submissions related to this exercise. Read on for details.

By Melissa Manlove

This writing prompt is for storytellers. Even those of you not interested in nonfiction—keep reading! We need you!¹

Continue reading →

HarperCollins Editor Karen Chaplin on Defining Voice, Trends, & Time Management

27 Wednesday Dec 2017

Posted by in Editor's Perspective

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Karen Chaplin began her publishing career at Scholastic. She was an editor at Puffin Books/Penguin Young Readers Group for six years before she moved to HarperCollins Children’s Books, where she is currently a senior editor of picture book, middle grade, and young adult fiction and nonfiction. Karen received her undergraduate degree in English from the University of Delaware, and her MA in English from Simmons College. When she’s not working, she enjoys spending time with her family, traveling, finding DIY projects to do, and dabbling in photography. She also has graciously offered to do a Q&A with us!

Sarah Parker-Lee: As an editor, it’s your job to take a writer’s labor of love and not just fine-tune it but take it to the next level. What are you looking for when you first begin this process?

Karen Chaplin: One of the first things I look for in a manuscript is voice. The voice of the story, of the main character, of all the characters, really needs to draw me in from the first few pages, and if that happens, then the author has got me hooked. Plot points, character issues, the ending—all of that can be modified. But the voice is difficult to accomplish, and if an author nails that, it’s a fantastic start.

SPL: Any advice for writers working with an editor, whether they are first-timers or old pros? Continue reading →

Holiday Wishes From CenCal SCBWI!

22 Friday Dec 2017

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For more fantastic content, community, events, and other professional development opportunities, become a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators today! Not sure if there is a chapter in your area? Check here.

Season’s Greetings from SCBWI L.A.!

20 Wednesday Dec 2017

Posted by in Los Angeles

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For more fantastic content, community, events, and other professional development opportunities, become a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators today! Not sure if there is a chapter in your area? Check here.

Ask an Editor: Query Letter and Cover Letter

13 Wednesday Dec 2017

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“Ask an Editor” is a forum wherein SCBWI members submit questions thatAskAnEditor_2 are answered as part of our quarterly Kite Tales blog.

Dear Editor – What is the difference between a query letter and a cover letter?

—Marissa, the Valley

Continue reading →

Emma Chichester Clark’s TOTO Illustration Process and Her Muse—Her Dog, Plum

08 Friday Dec 2017

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Emma Chichester Clark is the illustrator of the beautiful middle-grade chapter book, Toto: The Dog-Gone Amazing Story of the Wizard of Oz. Its 250+ full-color images showcase Chichester Clark’s signature style.

CHRISTINE VAN ZANDT: Welcome to Kite Tales! In Toto, you collaborate once again with author, Michael Morpurgo. How does illustrating well-known stories differ from working on new fiction? Does having a dog as the narrator change your focus when you work on the art?

EMMA CHICHESTER CLARK: In fact, it’s my sixth collaboration with Michael. We have also done versions of Pinocchio, Aesop’s Fables, Hansel and Gretel, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, and a Christmas story called The Best of Times. Almost all of them were about well-known characters and I had to find my own ideas about that. This is a challenge because the images we all already know so well are imprinted in our heads. With each character, I have to draw and redraw them, over and over again, until I find someone that belongs to me but who is, at the same time, true to the character I’m representing. [In Toto], having a dog as the narrator was the most fun of all because I adore dogs. I have one, Plum, who is not unlike Toto in appearance and I spend a lot of my time trying to interpret what is going on in her doggy brain.

CVZ: You are also an author. Please give us some insight into your process, both as an illustrator and an author-illustrator.

Continue reading →