21 Wednesday Feb 2024
Posted in Toot Your Horn!
Tags
biography, historical fiction, mystery, nonfiction picture book, picture book, poetry, published, publishing, SCBWI community, SCBWI members, YA Fantasy
SCBWI members’ publishing news is something to celebrate here at Kite Tales! Check out whose book is coming to a platform near you or around the world. Horn-tooting and digital high fives welcome in the comments!
31 Wednesday Jan 2024
Posted in Author's Perspective, Poet's Perspective, Tips and Tools
Tags
April Halprin Wayland, interview, Janet Wong, Myra Cohn LIvingston, Orange Marmalade, Paige Vinten Taylor, poetry, poets, Pomelo Books, publishing, Sylvia Vardell, TeachingAuthors.com, UCLA, writing, writing tips
by Paige Vinten Taylor
In her own words, April Halprin Wayland is “a writer, a mother, a wife, a speaker, a fiddle player, an organizer, a teacher, a poet, a doodler (see blog posts), a daughter, a sister, a performer, a storyteller, a peace activist, a traveler, a walker, a hiker, a meditator, an aqua farmer, a sun farmer, an animal lover, a cloud collector, a procrastinator, an infrequent twitterer, facebooker (sometimes) and instagramer. All!”
Paige Vinten Taylor: Welcome to Kite Tales, April. We’re so glad you’re here with us to talk everything poetry. Can we begin at the beginning? When did you first decide that you loved poetry?
Continue reading29 Wednesday Mar 2023
Posted in Author's Perspective, Central Coast, Tips and Tools
Tags
authors, CenCal, craft, Patricia Toht, poetry, publishing, rhyming, SCBWI community, SCBWI events, SCBWI members, writing, writing tips
by Ann Rousseau Smith, SCBWI CenCal News Liaison
Join us on Thursday, April 13, at 6:30 p.m. for a webinar with Patricia Toht titled “Let’s Get Rhyming!” Despite what some may insist, it’s not a crime to write in rhyme! But it does take effort to master your verse. Join author and Rhyme Doctor Patricia Toht as she shares her new releases, Together With You and Pick a Perfect Egg, along with other wonderful books in rhyme, and reveals key elements that make them shine. The price will be $12 for SCBWI members.
Continue reading13 Wednesday Jul 2022
Posted in Contests & Grants, Writers Days
Tags
Christine Van Zandt, contests, Erica Rich, middle grade, Nicholas Ponticello, nonfiction, picture books, poetry, SCBWI events, SCBWI members, Toni Gallagher, Writers Day 2022, young adult
by Brenda Scott Royce
Why do we enter writing contests? Prizes are awfully nice, and hearing your name announced as the winner is a definite thrill. But perhaps even more motivating is the validation that comes with recognition of your work. There’s nothing like learning that the speck of an idea you plucked from thin air and coaxed into shape over weeks, months, or maybe even years, actually has wings and can fly.
Continue reading09 Wednesday Sep 2020
When you dream something and envision it, goals drive you onwards.
At the encouragement of my childhood friend, I became an SCBWI member and attended the 2013 Los Angeles summer conference. Although I wrote marketing copy or non-fiction often at work, and had developed stories and poems for fun, I never considered myself a writer. In my misbelief, only English majors became authors. That was not me. I could not write like them.
Regardless, I attended the 2013 SCBWI Summer Conference.
17 Friday Apr 2020
Posted in Poet's Perspective
Tags
COVID-19, Lyrical Language Lab, pandemic, picture book, poetry, poetry month, Renee LaTulippe, rhyming, writer, writing
Top poet, author, and teacher Renée LaTulippe shares what it’s like working from Italy during the pandemic and her advice for children’s writers.
CHRISTINE VAN ZANDT: Welcome to Kite Tales! I’m currently enrolled in your online ten-week Lyrical Language Lab. Your instruction (from Italy!) during the pandemic has been seamless. How has teaching this course been different?
08 Wednesday Apr 2020
Posted in Contests & Grants, Los Angeles, Tri-Regional News, Writers Days
Tags
contest winners, middle grade, news, nonfiction, picture book, poetry, verse, Writers Day 2020, young adult
by Karol Ruth Silverstein, SCBWI-L.A. Contest Coordinator
The SCBWI-L.A. is thrilled to be able to bring good news to some of our members at a time that’s been so difficult for all of us.
Let us begin by expressing a hearty thank you to our anonymous judges for selecting the 2020 honorees. As usual, manuscripts were submitted in four categories: Young Adult, Middle Grade, Picture Book, and Other (which includes poetry and non-fiction). If you’d like to contact any of the winners to request their manuscript or discuss publication, please let us know in the comments below!
This year, the first-place winners in each category will receive a manuscript critique from one of our faculty members plus free tuition to either the rescheduled 2020 Writers Day event or to next year’s Writer’s Day.
Here are the 2020 honorees: Continue reading
16 Wednesday Oct 2019
Posted in Author's Perspective, Central Coast, Writers' Retreat
Tags
April Halprin Wayland, authors, Beach Retreat, Cencal 2020 Retreat, More Than Enough: A Passover Story, New Year at the Pier: A Rosh Hashanah Story, picture books, poetry, SCBWI events, To Rabbittown, writing, writing tips
By Ann Rousseau Smith, SCBWI CenCal News Liaison
(Photo: Morgan Eagle)
April Halprin Wayland will be joining us for our picture book retreat, January 10–12, 2020, in San Simeon, California. She writes poetry and picture books, including More Than Enough: A Passover Story and the Sydney Taylor Gold Book Award winning New Year at the Pier: A Rosh Hashanah Story. She was named UCLA Extension Writers’ Program Outstanding Instructor of the Year, and blogs with five other children’s authors at TeachingAuthors.com. April will be presenting four sessions during the retreat weekend, which is open to the public, and will include time to write, join small critique groups, stroll on the beach, and enjoy a beachside campfire in the evening.
ANN ROUSSEAU SMITH: Welcome to the Kite Tales blog! Most people love origin stories. Can you tell us a little bit about your first published picture book?
Continue reading
19 Wednesday Dec 2018
Posted in Ask an Editor
Tags
“Ask an Editor” is a forum wherein SCBWI members submit questions that are answered as part of our quarterly Kite Tales blog. This month, we feature a guest host, Renée M. LaTulippe, children’s poet, freelance editor, and founder/teacher of The Lyrical Language Lab. 
Dear Editor – I’ve written a rhyming picture book, but now that I’m starting to search for an agent it seems a lot of them don’t want rhyming picture books. What should I do?
—Sam, Los Angeles
Dear Sam:
This is a question that gets a lot of airtime in kidlit writer circles, and for good reason. After all, we can all see how many rhyming picture books come into the world each year, so someone is writing and selling and publishing them, right? Seeing so many agents and publishers put up “No Rhyme Allowed” signs on their clubhouse doors is frustrating indeed. Continue reading
18 Friday Nov 2016
Posted in Great News!
Tags
authors, community, news, picture books, poetry, SCBWI members, YA, young adult
SCBWI loves celebrating our members’ successes and noteworthy news, and there are many! Read on to find out who’s got something to shout about. Digital high-fives welcome in the comments!
Joan Bransfield Graham’s poem “Tuck a Poem in Your Head” is featured in former U.S. Children’s Poet Laureate Kenn Nesbitt’s new poetry anthology One Minute Till Bedtime, which debuted on November 1st.
Betsy Rosenthal’s An Ambush of Tigers was selected as a 2016 Notable Children’s Book in the English Language Arts and consequently, she has been invited to serve on a panel at the upcoming National Council of Teachers of English annual convention.
Kite Tales 