Council for Wisconsin Writers

Supporting Wisconsin writers from 1964 to 2022

Andrea Skyberg

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Sheboygan Children's Book Fest This Weekend

The fantastic (and free) Sheboygan Children’s Book Festival is this weekend, October 9-11, in Sheboygan at these three beautiful venues: John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Mead Public Library, and Bookworm Gardens. The festival  features programming for children, teens, and adults with 16 authors and illustrators presenting at those three venues. A number of Wisconsin SCBWI members will be speaking, including Miranda Paul, Ann Angel, Andrea Skyberg, Stacy Tornio, Ken Keffer and JoAnn Early Macken.

Here’s the link to full details: http://sheboyganchildrensbookfestival.org/

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PB, MG Writers Hope to have Humorous Meeting

For Wisconsinites who write for children, the Southeast region of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators-Wisconsin Chapter is meeting in Wauwatosa on March 11. Here is area coordinator Andrea Skyberg’s announcement:

Please join us for a SE area meet-up on March 11th at the Wauwatosa Library. We have two fantastic writers–JoAnn Early Macken and Jeff Schill, who are both Vermont College of Fine Arts grads, leading us in discussions about creating quirky characters and writing with humor.  From 10-12pm we will focus on picture books, and from 1-3pm we will focus on MG/YA. We’ll probably gather somewhere nearby for lunch in between the two sessions. The agenda is below. Bring with paper and a  pencil, and make sure you check out the show & tell portion of the meet-up so you can bring along some books to share. This meet-up is free and open to the public, so feel free to bring a friend. See you soon!
Please rsvp to skyberg@gmail.com if you’re able to attend.

March 11th, 2015:SCBWI Meet-up

Wauwatosa Library 7635 West North Ave. Wauwatosa, WI 53213

PB Meet-up 

March 11th, 10am-12pm

Topic: Character Driven Stories & Creating Quirky Characters

Lead: JoAnn Early Macken

Agenda:

•     Show & Tell: Picture Books that feature successful characters

•     A short discussion on creating character driven stories

•     Character Creation Exercise

SHOW & TELL: Participants please bring with one or two picture books that you find have great characters. We’ll share these with each other to build our reading list, as well as have some samples of text to explore.

JoAnn Early Macken is the author of Write a Poem Step by Step and five picture books, including Baby Says “Moo!” (soon to be a board book), Waiting Out the Storm, and Flip, Float, Fly: Seeds on the Move. She has also written numerous poems and more than 130 nonfiction books for young readers. JoAnn earned her M.F.A. in Writing for Children and Young Adults at Vermont College of Fine Arts. She has taught writing at four Wisconsin colleges, she contributes to the Teaching Authors blog, and she speaks about poetry and writing to students, teachers, and adult writers at schools, libraries, and conferences. Visit her web site at www.joannmacken.com.

MG/YA Meet-up
March 11th, 1-3pm

Topic: A Serious Look at Humor

Lead: Jeff Schill

Agenda:

•Show & Tell: MG/YA that feature humor

•A short discussion on the history of humor

•Creating Humor Activity

•Unexpected Twist Activity

SHOW & TELL: Participants please bring with one or two books (MG or YA) that you find funny or that use humor in a clever way. We’ll share these with each other to build our reading list, as well as have some samples of text to explore.

Jeff Schill is a self-proclaimed “kid at heart.” He eats peanut butter sandwiches for lunch, spins in circles in his swivel chair at work, and would hang a poster of Taylor Swift on his bedroom wall if his wife would allow it. He spends the majority of his day writing stories, dreaming of characters, and eating jelly beans. He is a recent graduate of Vermont College of Fine Arts’ Writing for Children and Young Adults MFA program.

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Children's Authors Appearing at WSRA

Wisconsin children’s authors Ann Angel, Bridget Birdsall, Stephanie Lowden, JoAnn Early Macken, Julie H. Mata, Miranda Paul, Gayle Rosengren, Pat Schmatz, Andrea Skyberg, Jamie Swenson, Sandy Brehl, and Janet Halfmann will be at the Wisconsin State Reading Association conference  this Thursday and Friday (Feb. 5 and 6) at the Wisconsin Center in Milwaukee, and signing their books at the Anderson’s Bookshop Naperville and SCBWI-Wisconsinin area of the Exhibits area. 

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Wisconsin Children's Writers Share Good News

Here is monthly good news reported by Wisconsin’s SCBWI members:

Miranda Paul sold her fourth picture book, 10 Little Ninjas, to Knopf Children’s at Random House. A Publisher’s Weekly item says, “Karen Greenberg and Melanie Cecka at Knopf have acquired Miranda Paul’s 10 Little Ninjas, a ‘sensei-tional’ picture book twist on a childhood rhyme, in which a group of not-so-sleepy ninja toddlers devise ways to sneak, creep, and tumble their way out of going to bed. It’s planned for spring 2016; Karen Grencik at Red Fox Literary brokered the deal for world rights.”

Miranda says she owes “a lot to one of my SCBWI critique partners for her willingness to help me as I worked through umpteen drafts, and to my SCBWI conference faculty critiquer for the encouragement to go ahead and submit it to my agent.”
Andrea Skyberg and her husband, Michael Greer, recently took home national awards for two of their books. The Eyes of India by Michael was awarded a Mom’s Choice Award for Juvenile Fiction, and CommuniTree by Andrea and the Milwaukee Parkside School for the Arts was honored with a Finalist Award from Next Generation Indie Books.
CommuniTree was created in collaboration with 686 students. A video at www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mozsjXmR77w describes how the book was made.
Georgia Beaverson the first book in a project she’s working on for Wisconsin Media Lab, a bio of Les Paul, is available for free download, along with free resources and a fun film. This series is meant for classroom use by Wisconsin teachers. Georgia is editing the books this year. Here’s the link. http://wimedialab.org/biographies/paul.html
Congratulations to Miranda, Andrea, Michael and Georgia!
See other news about Wisconsin writers at www.wiswriters.org.

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Celebrate with Wisconsin Writers for Children

Wisconsinites who write for children recently  announced their good news for September on the Society for Children Writers and Illustrators’ Wisconsin chapter listserv.

Madison writer and author of Janis Joplin’s biography Rise Up Singing Ann Angel has a new book out. Adopted Like Me, My Book of  Adopted Heroes, debuted on Sept. 28. Ann blogged about how this book came about on the Children’s Literature Network. Here’s the link to her post: http://www.childrensliteraturenetwork.org/magazine/just-launched/2013/09/adopted-like-me/

Sandy Brehl’s debut book, Odin’s Promise, will be published by Crickhollow imprint, Crispin, early in 2014. Odin’s Promise is a middle grade (ages 8-12) historical fiction set in Norway in WWII.  You can read more about it at http://www.sandybrehl.com/.
Illustrator Michael Kress-Russick’s mural of an anamorphic rendering of a giant beanstalk is now on display at the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Kohl gallery for kids.
Pat Schmatz, author of Mrs. Estronsky and the UFO, Circle the Truth, Mousetraps and Blue Fish, has an essay in the anthology, Break These Rules, by writers of middle-grade and young-adult fare. Proceeds from book sales are to be donated to the Children’s Defense Fund.
Andrea Skyberg’s book Squircle won a Moonbeam Spirit Award
Emily Kokie will be participating in an event as part of the Wisconsin Book Festival. On Saturday, October 19, 2013, at 11:00 a.m., she and Nick Podehl, the narrator of the audiobook of her YA novel  Personal Effects, will be discussing about how to present difficult topics to teens, the various aspects of authorship, and how different voices make a book more interesting with a side-by-side reading from Personal Effects.
More about and for Wisconsin writers is at www.wiswriters.org

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Press Teams Up With Schools to Create Books

Andrea Skyberg announces a program, “Creating Books in Collaboration,”  scheduled for Friday, Sept. 27,  at Boswell Books at 7 p.m. at Boswell Books in Milwaukee.  Here are the details:

The books of Andrea Skyberg and M.W. Greer, the husband-and-wife team behind Wooden Nickel Press, feature artwork created in collaboration with students from Wisconsin schools. In addition to Skyberg’s latest endeavor, CommuniTree, they will be presenting and launching Greer’s new mid-grade novel, The Eyes of India, and sharing stories of their collaborative processes. Schools, and other authors and artists, will discover ways to explore collaborations of their own. Artwork created for the book will be on display, including large-scale pieces such as Greer’s illustrative design five-foot elephant and Skyberg’s five foot-by-eight foot animal fabric murals.

Boswell Books is at:
2559 N. Downer Avenue
Milwaukee, WI 53211
Telephone: (414) 332-1181

More information about the program is at www.andreaskyberg.com or www.mwgreer.com.
More information about and for Wisconsin writers is at www.wiswriters.org.