Tags
illustrating, Julia Edwards, mentor, mentoring, mentors, mentorship, Mentorship Award, MG, nonfiction, PAL, PAL events, picture book, Sherry Shahan, writing, YA
by Sherry Shahan
I’ve been a proud member of SCBWI since the mid-1980s. I was a young, unpublished writer who met other dreamers at a National Convention in Southern California. Forty or so years later, we remain best of friends, with children’s books that cross age groups and genres. I was thrilled to be selected as the mentor for the 2025 SCBWI-Los Angeles Mentorship Contest for Middle Grade Authors. Giving back is a rewarding way to honor the many mentors who helped shape my career.
The SCBWI-L.A. Mentorship program alternates between picture book writers, illustrators and novelists. And this year, it’s the novelists’ turn again.
For the past four years, SCBWI-L.A. has been offering mentorships to pre-published members, switching between writers and illustrators. It will be illustrators’ turn again in 2019, and that’s where out PAL illustrators come in!
Author/Illustrator Cassandra Federman was born and raised in Massachusetts where she spent her childhood reading comic books, playing action figures, drawing super heroes, and participating in all things nerdy. She graduated magna cum laude from Brandeis University and moved to Los Angeles, where she became a hand model. When she isn’t pretending to be famous people’s hands, she’s creating art and literature for children. She is the 
SCBWI-L.A. is thrilled to announce the winners of the 2018 Mentorship Contest. These two lucky writers will each enjoy a six-month mentorship with their respective PAL member mentors. To all those who applied but were not selected, please know that our mentors considered the competition very steep. Your applications definitely made it difficult for them to choose their mentees.
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.
Kite Tales 