12 Wednesday Nov 2025
Posted in Los Angeles, Tri-Regional News, Writers Retreat
Tags
Adam Blackman, Analía Cabello, craft, Events, Jennifer Rofé, SCBWI community, SCBWI members, working writers retreat, writing
by Judy Y Faulkner
It was Halloween. Many of us came in costume. We all bared our souls. We tendered—and tended—our words. Ate, played, and laughed together. This year’s SCBWI-Los Angeles Working Writers Retreat took place from October 31–November 2, and it was a sweet treat.
08 Wednesday Oct 2025
Tags
Adam Blackman, Berrie Torgan-Randall, Cardinal Rule Press, interview, Just Ducky, Lee Wind, Like That Eleanor, publishing, SCBWI community, working writers retreat, writing
by Judy Faulkner
Registration for this year’s SCBWI-LA Working Writers Retreat closes in four days, and the event is only a few weeks away. Retreat faculty member Adam Blackman is Acquisitions Editor for picture books at the Cardinal Rule Press and a freelance editorial consultant on books for all ages. In this interview, he gives Kite Tales a taste of what he brings to a retreat conversation and what he hopes attendees will bring with them and be able to take away. In conversation, Adam listens closely, smiles easily, and laughs often. He also notes, “You can put in brackets, ‘gestured with hands,’ because I speak with my hands so much. It’ll be an art note.” Hooray, an editor with no fear of art notes! This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. – JF
Continue reading16 Wednesday Oct 2024
Tags
agents, art directors, authors, awards, Carlene Griffith, contest winners, contests, Deborah Warren, editors, Fall Harvest, Gail Buschman, Grace Tancre, Haana Yoo, illustrators, Jaime Zollars, Jenny Lopez, Jesper Widén, Jim Averbeck, Jodi Rizzotto, Judy Torres, Lori Anaya, Marie Chan, Mary C. Moore, Melanie Figueroa, MG, Nancy Brashear, Paulina Hill, picture book, portfolios, publishing, Ricardo Aguilar, SCBWI events, SCBWI members, Su Moon, Toni Guy, Trish Heully, working writers retreat, Writers & Illustrators Day, YA
by Judy Y Faulkner, Ann Rousseau Smith
Whether connecting creative dots, harvesting winning marketing techniques, or bringing home new accolades to put into query letters, Tri-Regions members have been crafting a fall season to remember. And we’re only three weeks in! Here are some highlights so far:
Continue reading14 Wednesday Aug 2024
Posted in Contests & Grants, SAG, Writers' Retreat
Tags
contest winner, middle grade, SCBWI community, SCBWI members, Sherry Shahan, Sue Alexander Grant, working writers retreat
by Brenda Scott Royce, SCBWI-L.A. Contest Coordinator
We’re thrilled to announce this year’s winner of the Sue Alexander Grant, Sherry Shahan, whose middle-grade adventure got our judges’ hearts racing!
“My middle-grade work-in-progress, The Icy Wilds, was inspired by my many treks to Alaska as a photojournalist,” Sherry says. “In particular, visiting a small town where 95 percent of the residents live in a building that also houses a post office, church, general store, etc.”
Here’s what the judges had to say:
Continue reading10 Wednesday Apr 2024
Posted in Contests & Grants, Los Angeles, SAG, Tri-Regional News, Writers' Retreat
Tags
authors, contest, Julia Edwards, SCBWI events, SCBWI members, Sue Alexander Grant, working writers retreat
by Julia Edwards
The 2024 Sue Alexander Grant contest opens this week—April 13. The winner receives a guaranteed spot and free tuition to the Working Writers Retreat (to be held at the Holy Spirit Retreat Center in Encino, September 27–29, 2024). We asked last year’s Sue Alexander Grant recipient, Julia Edwards, to talk about her experience at the 2023 retreat.
“I am a writer.”
SCBWI-Los Angeles Co-Regional Advisor Nutschell Windsor encouraged the attendees gathered at the 2023 Working Writers Retreat to write down these four words. I penned the phrase quickly, not realizing at first how much I needed to write it. How much I needed to think it. After a several-year hiatus from the retreat due to COVID and an aversion to online anything, I was finally shoulder-to-shoulder with fellow writers. Colleagues. Friends.
Continue reading
Kite Tales 