
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!
Continue reading
27 Wednesday Oct 2021
Posted in Great News!

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!
20 Wednesday Oct 2021
Posted in Author's Perspective
Moni Ritchie Hadley is the author of the picture book, The Star Festival (2021, Albert Whitman). A half-Japanese military brat, she bounced back and forth from the USA to Japan as a child. Daydreaming was a favorite pastime. She received a BA in Psychology at UCLA and later became a home/hospital teacher for the LAUSD, where she taught students with medical needs. Also published in Highlights magazine, The Star Festival is her picture book debut.
CHRISTINE VAN ZANDT: Welcome to Kite Tales! The first printing of your debut picture book, The Star Festival, sold out almost immediately—wow! Were you expecting that?
MONI RITCHIE HADLEY: I wasn’t even aware of this until I noticed that my publisher’s site (Albert Whitman) listed my book as “sold out.” My book released on April 1st; the second run was ordered on April 2nd. “Sold out” is relative to size of printing, and that can vary greatly between publishers, but it was a pleasant surprise that my book exceeded expectations!
Continue reading13 Wednesday Oct 2021
Posted in Central Coast, Tri-Regional News, Writers' Retreat
By Ann Rousseau Smith, SCBWI CenCal News Liaison
Need a boost to your creative juices? Join us for a weekend of writing and revising beside the sea on January 21 to January 23, 2022.
Our get-away-to-write retreat will be held at the Cavalier Oceanfront Resort in San Simeon, overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
Continue reading15 Wednesday Sep 2021
Posted in Author's Perspective

Erin Dealey is the author of more than a dozen children’s picture books. Today, she shares information about how her journey has evolved over the years.
Continue reading25 Wednesday Aug 2021
Posted in Great News!

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!
18 Wednesday Aug 2021
Posted in Author's Perspective, SCBWI Summer Conference
Tags
Aiden Thomas, Big50 Summer Conference, Dan Santat, inspiration, Malinda Lo, Nadia Salomon, SCBWI community, SCBWI events
by Rieko Mendez
Is your brain exploding after the SCBWI The Big Five-Oh Summer Conference? Mine is! The conference had over one hundred faculty — a diversity of voices, seasoned and new — and I am still combing through the volume of handouts available to hone our craft. True to the tone that Lin Oliver sets for SCBWI, I connected with the authenticity and generosity of all the faculty sharing their experiences and insights. While professional, their sessions felt like fireside chats in their homes. What hit me was that creativity takes a community and SCBWI is a tremendous force of community. I am grateful.
Continue reading04 Wednesday Aug 2021
Posted in Toot Your Horn!
Tags
biography, middle grade, picture book, published, publishing, SCBWI community, SCBWI members, young adult

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 hi-fives welcome in the comments!
30 Wednesday Jun 2021
Posted in Writers Days
By Jorjeana Marie
The SCBWI-L.A.Virtual Writers Day this year, on June 12-13, was incredibly special indeed. Perhaps because I had waited over a year for it. It was my first opportunity to present with one of the most welcoming and genuine organizations I have ever had the honor to be a part of. I thought after my session: “Definitely worth rescheduling, despite unusual circumstances and constraining parameters. Magical moments showed up for us. In droves.”
Thank you to Nutschell Windsor, Sally Jones Rogan, and all the volunteers and team members for paving the way for a day of productivity and group inspiration and creating such a positive, uplifting place to gather. Events like this and the opportunities therein make the loneliness that creeps up sometimes (okay, maybe a lot, recently) in writing easier to move through. Even though this was different from events in the past, there was again, those magical moments to be gained.
Continue reading16 Wednesday Jun 2021
Posted in Community Corner, Great News!, Toot Your Horn!
Have a topic you’d like to share with your fellow kidlit community? Want to share your process and inspire other writers or illustrators? Or maybe you have a list of incredible authors you’d like to interview but no idea where you can publish it? Let Kite Tales be your outlet for creative community and discussion!
Continue reading02 Wednesday Jun 2021
Posted in Great News!

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!