scbwi fall retreat conference & ya'll fest 2023!!
oooh boy, was it a november to remember!
my first stop? the scbwi* carolinas fall conference & retreat. followed the very next weekend by ya’ll fest in charleston, sc! road trip happy and bookishly inspired with the autographs to match, here’s a little bit about my trips…!
*scbwi = society of children’s book writers and illustrators
had i expected to NaNoWriMo* my way through my next middle grade novel this november? totally. did i work on it at all? uh, i’ve got two days left this month and i’m gonna go ahead and spoil it for ya: uh, no. i didn’t. and here’s why!
*NaNoWriMo = National Novel Writing Month in which authors around the world challenge each other to get that first ugly draft (50k words) written. while i’d hoped to make substantial progress on the book i’ve been researching and worked on at the wordsmith workshop retreat last month, and did pitch it to agents and editors at the scbwi conference (more below), it was for sure waylaid by some other projects…
my first november bookish road trip took me (via malaprop’s bookstore in asheville, of course, i did have a signed copy of isabel ibañez’s WHAT THE RIVER KNOWS to pick up, after all!) to beautiful lake norman, nc. just north of charlotte, it was a rawther picturesque setting!
and lovely enough in fall that i didn’t mind having to wake up crazy early to catch the fog over the lake… (may have also been lured by the need to get some coffee from the lobby.)
did the retreat center give me all sorts of navy lodge vibes from my childhood growing up in a military family? yeah. the cinderblock walls and wooden doors and industrial carpeting were nothing short of “homey” to this navy brat. it was white-glove-inspeection clean, and thankfully i had my own room to retreat to when the mingling got too much.
(not that book people aren’t MY people, but you know introverts: we need some recharging time every so often. also grateful for chai pani leftovers for the meals that were a bit too reminiscent of my camp days as i’m still as picky of an eater as i was when i was 8…) ;)
last year, the 2022 scbwi carolinas conference was at a hotel in charlotte. and while it was GREAT, it was a LOT larger. more people and, uh, way too many sessions to pick from!
what i loved about this year’s conference was that you picked ONE track: and the faculty rotated (so i got to meet them all!)
as new-author-friend and scbwi volunteer coordinator becky labeled me a unicorn (hi, becky! i love you forever for that!) since i illustrate, write middle grade books, and write picture books, well, it was indeed difficult to choose between the illustration track, the creative writing track, and the career track.
i settled on the career track and added on the friday morning intensive in illustration with art director jen keenan. so i got to hear from everybody— at least once! and jen and tracy shaw (art director at little brown for young readers) even shared their presentation slides afterwards, so i could learn from sessions i wasn’t in, too.
book people are nice.
here are the sessions i attended:
introduciton to children’s illustration intensive with jen keenan
tools in your toolkit: insights & strategies useful to a career in kidlit with tracy shaw
journey of an illustration [creative] career with jen keenan
who you gonna call? navigating the agent & editor relationship with ann rose & alison weiss
the business of writing with karla valenti
school visits with karla valenti
let’s get down to business with alison weiss
the possibly life*changing weekend also included:
a 1:1 career consultation with a literary agent
faculty fair (they rotated small groups for q&a!)
lab hours with agents (i.e. i got to talk to another one 1:1 about 3 different books i’m working on!)
portfolio showcase (did the word “gaga” come up when the faculty saw my portfolio? maybe.) ;)
pitch party (agents and editors raised their paddles when a pitch was read; if they liked the story idea, it was an open invitation to submit to them after the event! i got 5 paddle raises over 2 different books!)
and of course, 3 meals a day (plus a marshmallow s’mores bonfire i skipped because i’m a tired bean when the sun goes down) in a camp-style cafeteria for more author-illustrator-agent-book people mixing, mingling, meeting, and friendship blooming opportunities!
there was also writing time on the porch overlooking the lake. happy sigh!
^me, revising the manuscript i’d printed back in may… boy, do you see things after you “put it in a drawer” for 6+ months. now i love this draft EVEN more. we’ll see if the book people feel the same way once they get back from the holidays…!
(yes, my writing group and i reward ourselves for 25-minute focus bursts with stickers. it totally works.)
so upon my return home, not only do i have 42 pages of handwritten notes from the sessions i attended to review and continue learning from, 3 bonus slide presentations, new author & illustrator friends across genres, but invitations to submit to agents and editors and art directors!
so i came home and re-revised my middle grade theatre book… which took the rest of the month.
and now… we do the same thing you do after an audition… we wait! :D
(and, ya know, work on the next thing!)
if you’d like to hear me gush MORE about the amazingness of the conference in a little less vague termes, you can check out my videos in the crayon box (my author/illustrator patreon support community). i gave a tour of my portfolio before the event, and talked more about the connections i made and art i’m making next based on personalized art director feedback in my picture book deep-dive video here! :D
did i seek n’ find all the typewriters in the bookstore? uh, yeah. this artist gal has reasons! ;)
home for four days (of revising) and my literary professor friend haley and i were on the road: to charleston for ya’ll fest!*
hosted by blue bicyle books, ya’ll fest has been running for 25 years or so— unfortunately on the v. same weekend as greenville’s open studios—but we can always alternate years. :)
*the “ya” in “ya’ll” standing for YA, young adult literature, although yes, it is of course also a play on the southern*ism “y’all”
^haley and i in front of blue bicycle books. did ordering coffee one right after the other get fun? yes. thankfully haley drinks cold brew and mine’s usually a giant cappuccino, but it’s always fun to play name games with baristas.
because of haley’s teaching schedule, we weren’t able to make it down to friday afternoon’s bonus events, but after strategizing over the schedule in the hotel room friday night, we went into saturday with A PLAN.
purchased months in advance, the opening keynote (held at the charleston music hall) was a conversation between queen leigh bardugo and zoraida córdova.
while my iphone zoom could only do so much, this event did kind of end up being the highlight of the weekend. quippy and engaging, it was author life, redcarpet & on-set netflix life, toxic writer habits, first crushes, on reading reviews, kiss/marry/kill your characters… and yeah. what ben barnes smells like up close. teehee.
the most difficult thing about ya’ll fest is that you kind of either have to:
a) attend the panels to see/hear from authors (famous, new-to-me, debuts, and definitely diverse! yay!)
or
b) wait in line for hours to have your favorite authors sign your books
so some people come and stand out in the rain for hours in line with wagons full (literally) of books to have signed and maybe see a few big deal authors that day.
or, like me, the educational-learn-everything nerd that i am, run from panel to panel, still also kinda disappointed not to get the four books i brought with me signed.
(yes, the blue bicycle bookstore has a tent set up next to the store with pre-signed books, but not all had been signed yet; and it’s impossible to catch people after their panels because their handlers have them whisked off to their next appearance.)
sooooo many events happen concurrently (i’d guess at least 8 every hour) it’s a wee bit frustrating, but maybe that means there’s something for everybody and i just need to calm down??
anyhow, the panels i made it to:
opening keynote: no mourners, no funerals with leigh bardugo in conversation with zoraida córdova (ticketed)
kids rock, writers write, a middle grade panel with brendan reichs, nidhi chanani, kitty curran, stuart gibbs, and mark oshiro
hope is a thing with feathers: writing lights in a dark world with ally condie, candice iloh, matt mendez, hannah v. sawyerr, and laura nowlin
once upon a time: fairytales are eternal with jen calonita, j. elle, melissa albert, melissa de la cruz, mari mancusi, and alexandra monir
^famous author-instagram-friend soman chainani (about me meeting him in 2021 here) hosting the smackdown event. yes, it began with a 15 minute, 7-costume-change choreographed dance number… then delved into games with authors. including “is this line from a YA novel or a taylor swift song” (above), book-stacking tower challenges, and more happy author nonsense!
the three events i attended but didn’t take notes for:
middle grade family feud! with stuart gibbs, soman chainani, shanna miles, raphael simon, lisi harrison, mari mancusi, and jen calonita
spotlight panel with holly black, cassandra clare, tracy deonn, chloe gong, and rebecca ross (ticketed)
ya’ll fest smackdown hosted by soman chainani (ticketed)
please DO be proud of me for “skipping” the 2 o’clock event i wanted to go to (“so you think you can narrate?” presented by penguin random house audio publishing) to stop for “lunch.” (above, my cookie and cappuccino at kudu coffee!)
sadly, i didn’t get any of my books from home signed while i was there. i got to say “hi” to a handful of authors i know IRL (or well via instagram!), and discovered NEW-to-me authors who i loved hearing from so much that i purchased their books from blue bicycle (yay independent bookstores!)
i passed even MORE authors on the sidewalk or walked past their signing tables on the way to another event: charleston becomes hollywood-for-booknerds for the weekend and it’s always a bit thrilling to pass a book-celebrity on the streets of charleston…
it was a FULL day of info and bookish glee in a rainy charleston, and oh how i wish i’d had time to let people know i was there so we could have hung out, too.
but lots of notes and lots of learning and i was SO grateful to have been able to share it with haley, too. :) yay books!
yay for it being MY turn on a panel or few hopefully sometime in the near-ish future. (haley has already called dibs on being my handler and i’d trust no one else with the task!) ;D
so view of my month in between the scbwi conference and ya’ll fest:
at my writing desk in my studio revising that middle grade manuscript to sent to agents, art directors, and editors who asked to see it!
my stack of books from ya’ll fest (4 are signed, even if i didn’t get to meet the authors personally!), three of which i’ve already read and “reviewed” on my monday morning weekly reading book reviews on my instagram (@halthegal_storyart); and the picture book on the bottom will be december’s “picture book deep*dive” in the crayon box!
at my drafting table, painting a new illustration in one of the two styles an art director at the scbwi conference said was “ready” for publishing—so getting more pieces like that into my portfolio!
before haley and i left town, sunday morning we ventured back downtown historic charleston to buxton books. i LOVE seeing what independent bookstores carry— we each came home with a book by a japanese author! hers, a “speculative memoir,” and i with a surreal japanese fiction title THE TATAMI TIME MACHINE BLUES. i’ll keep you posted in an upcoming #weeklyreadingbookreview! :D
so alllllll of that to say:
thank you to my crayon box members for collecting art during our annual art sale! and thank you to the metropolitan arts council for helping fund these TWO AMAZING opportunities.
i’m back in greenville with stories to polish, stories to write, LOTS of new art to make, LOTS of new book friends and contacts, and all the more confidence that i’ve found my people. and that i and my stories belong.
so i’m gonna keep writing and painting and roadtripping. because someday, i just might get to answer YOUR question from the aisle mic at ya’ll fest. or be behind that signing table excited to meet you, too. or in the back of blue bicycle books signing a stack of happy, colourful books for your shelves back home.
so with thanks and glittering ink on her fingers,
xo,
*hallie :D
^ three ways you can support me (financially or otherwise) include joining my patreon community (the crayon box) for exclusive art posts and monthly happy mail in your mailbox; follow me on instagram for art and #weeklyreadingbookreview videos; and you can shop all of my favorite books by genre/age category on my bookshop.org page and support independent bookstores across the country while you’re at it! :D