Here, in their own words, is good news posted by members of Wisconsin members of Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators:
Janet Halfmann
My good news for September is that A Rainbow of Birds by Guardian Angel Publishing has won a Preferred Choice Award from Creative Child Magazine. The award, judged by educators and parents, is given to books that foster creativity and education in children. The winners will be featured in the big Holiday Issue of Creative Child, to be distributed in November.
Also, my newly released book, Animal Teachers, has received a very positive review from Publishers Weekly, in addition to the one it already received from Kirkus Reviews!
Ingrid Kallick
I have September news for three of our illustrators. Tia Yao, Ned Gannon and I have illustrations in the September Cricket magazine and Ned also has illustrations in the September Cobblestone, another Carus publication.
Tia and Ned illustrated stories and I illustrated the table of contents and cover.
Hooray for Wisconsin!
Miranda Paul
I have a small bit of good news regarding the We Need Diverse Books campaign – recently we gained attention at the National Book Festival with support or shout-outs from notables such as Rita Williams Garcia, Cokie Roberts (yes THAT Cokie Roberts), and Gene Luen Yang. In addition to filing for nonprofit status, we’ve also gotten mentions or write-ups from various news outlets including NBC and NPR. We have several programs in the works including more discussion panels at major conferences, but more importantly we’ve been creating diverse book resources for librarians and booksellers plus getting our diverse author scholarships, mentorships, and other programs into the beginning stages.
The evening will go something like this:
We will start at 6:30 p.m. with a reading of IF YOU WERE A DOG by Jamie Swenson (that’s me) followed by an art demonstration by Chris Raschka (the illustrator).
Book signing/snacks/mingle
Q & A with Jamie and Chris — this will be your chance to ask Mr. Raschka your business/writing/illustration related questions.
Emily [E.M.] Kokie
My good news for this month is about two upcoming events outside Wisconsin.
I’ll be on the panel “Whose Reality Gets Written?” at the 2014 YALSA Young Adult Literature Symposium in Austin, Texas, November 14-16, 2014. While the Symposium is not focused on the craft and getting published themes common to writers’ conferences, it will be two full days of panels and paper presentations on young adult literature, and has a great line up of speaking authors. (I will be speaking with authors Svati Avasthi, Steve Brezenoff, and Blythe Woolston, librarian Elizabeth Burns, and editor Andrew Karre). I encourage anyone with the time, money and inclination to travel to consider attending one of YALSA’s lit symposiums. More info on the 2014 Symposium at:http://yalitsymposium12.ning.com/page/preliminaryprogram