New England SCBWI
Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators

In December 2008, Hasbro Children’s Hospital and Imago Foundation for the Arts are presenting an exhibit called “WORDS + PICTURES: Rhode Island Celebrates Childrens’ Books” at Hasbro Children’s Hospital and Rhode Island Hospital.

Participating writers and artists include: Mary Jane Begin, Christoper Denise, Anika Denise, Marlo Garnsworthy, Jill LaMere, Ellen Blomgren, and Mara Berkley.

The Children’s Book Caucus of PEN New England has just announced the entry guidelines for its annual Susan P. Bloom Discovery Award.

Entrants must be residents of New England who have not been published in book form and are not under contract with a book publisher. (See the guidelines for more detail on what “unpublished” means.) Each person can submit only one entry, whether in picture books, novels, poetry, or nonfiction.

All submissions must be postmarked by Monday, February 2, 2009.

The Nevada region of SCBWI has been offering a mentor program for the past couple years, matching pre-published or lightly-published members with more established children’s book creators. The program is open to “mentees” from other regions, including ours, who are willing and able to travel to Nevada for in-person meetings with their mentors.

December 1, 2008 is the postmark deadline for applications, and the 2009 mentors are: Esther Hershenhorn, Yuyi Morales, Laurent Linn, Ellen Hopkins, Lynda Sandoval, Terri Farley, and Susan Hart Lindquist.

Details are available on the Nevada SCBWI website, www.nevadascbwi.org

From Steve Mooser and Lin Oliver in the SCBWI head office…

Sue Alexander, the SCBWI’s first member, who from the day she joined envisioned the possibilities of the organization and then for nearly forty years worked tirelessy, unselfishly, and courageously to insure that the vision became a reality, died suddenly last Thursday. For many years she chaired the Board of Advisors, administered the Golden Kite Award, and oversaw the Executive Office’s day to day operations. And she did all this while raising a family and authoring numerous books from schoolroom favorites like Small Plays for You and A Friend to classics such as Nadia the Willful.

The Sue Alexander Award, given each year to the most promising manuscript critiqued at the summer conference, honors her generosity in mentoring and promoting the work of aspiring authors. She is irreplaceable, but her legacy will long endure.

We would like to put together a book of tributes and remembrances from those of you who knew Sue, or were touched by her work. The book, when completed, will be presented to her family, her hsband, Joel and her three children, Stacy, Marc, and Glenn. To add your thoughts, you may respond to this Discussion Board thread.

With sadness,

Steve and Lin

SCBWI members Laura Purdie Salas and Lisa Bullard will teach a three-week online class in June that focuses on how to research publishers and put together a submissions package. The class will offer individualized feedback on cover letters, identifying special markets, writing a proposal, and other steps. Salas’s website offers more information.

SCBWI New England’s April0 2008 conference has reached capacity for the Saturday session, and we cannot accept any more registrations for that day or any walk-in registrations. So many people have already signed up that our main sessions on Saturday will fill the hotel meeting space to the level allowed by fire regulations. We will have to turn away walk-ins if they show up. We apologize that we cannot accommodate everyone.

There is still space in the Sunday session. We’re also planning “Encore” sessions to reprise some of the most popular workshops this fall. We’ll announce the dates and locations of those sessions on this website.

If you have already registered for the conference, or wish to register for Sunday only, please start here to review information about the speakers, workshops, critiques, and other program information.

SCBWI New England congratulates member Sarah Marwil Lamstein for sharing a Sydney Taylor Honor with illustrator Neil Waldman for their picture book Letter on the Wind: A Chanukah Tale, published by Boyd Mills Press.

The Sydney Taylor Book Awards recognizing the best in Jewish children’s literature are given each year by the Association of Jewish Libraries.

Each year, the PEN New England Children’s Book Caucus honors emerging writers and writer-illustrators with its Susan P. Bloom Children’s Book Discovery Award. Winners will present their work to the public at the PEN New England Children’s Book Discovery Evening in April 2008, and winning manuscripts will be read by editors from Candlewick; Houghton Mifflin; Farrar, Straus and Giroux; or Little, Brown.

Entrants must be residents of New England who have not been published in any genre (with the exception of magazines or self-publishing), and neither the submitted work nor another work by the author can be under contract to a book publisher. The Caucus judges are able to accept only one entry per person, in one of the following four categories: picture books, novels, poetry, and nonfiction.

The postmark deadline for submissions is Friday, February 1, 2008. For all the rules on submitting work for the Discovery Award, please visit PEN New England’s webpage.

The Foxboro, MA elementary schools are sponsoring a fundraiser. They are requesting author and illustrators to donate their signed books to be given away in a literacy basket. The event is November 16, 2007. If you would like to donate one of your signed books, please send your book to: Laura Brillant-Giangocarle, 2 Lauren Lane, Foxboro, MA. 02035 Contact #: 617-201-3498

SCBWI New England congratulates Massachusetts member and volunteer Melissa Stewart for winning the SCBWI/Anna Cross Giblin Nonfiction Research Grant, funded by author James Cross Giblin. She is working on a book on body science titled It’s Spit-Acular!: The Secrets of Saliva.

SCBWI New England also congratulates Massachusetts member Susan Meyer for receiving a Letter of Merit in this year’s Work-in-Progress Grants process.

Here is more information about grants and awards available to SCBWI members.

The Foundation for Children’s Books has announced its series of “Conversations with…” noted people from the field of children’s literature for 2007-08.

The Massachusetts Center for the Book has announced its 2007 Massachusetts Book Awards, and SCBWI New England congratulates two members for having their titles designated Honor Books in the category of Children’s Literature:

Sara Pennypacker, for Clementine

Elizabeth Winthrop, for Counting on Grace

TheSCBWI Memory Fund was established in 2005 to remember two SCBWI members, illustrator Anne Barrow and writer Ruth Landers Glass. At our 2006 conference,scholarships in their names were awarded to an illustrator and a writer for our 2007 conference.
This year, SCBWI NE would like to award two scholarship grants for our 2008 Annual Conference, April 12, 2008. To apply for the Ruth Landers Glass Scholarship writers should submit, by e-mail, one picture book manuscript, three poems, or ten pages of a novel or nonfiction work to: Jan Kozlowski, Scholarship Chairperson, at this email address: necritiquegroups@gmail.com
To apply for the Anne Barrow Scholarhip, illustrators should submit up to twelve samples of art 8.5x11, electronically by email, on CD, or by sending clean color copies (NO originals please!) to Margo Lemieux, Scholarhip Chairperson, Box 583, Mansfield, MA 02048 or scbwira_ma@yahoo.com Write Anne Barrow Scholarship on the envelope. No artwork will be returned. Paper copies and mailed CDs must be postmarked by April 25, 2007. Electronic copies of manuscripts and artwork must be received by April 25, 2007

Welcome to the new NESCBWI website, redesigned with updated technology and rushed into service to replace our old ailing web platform. While most of the site works as it ought to, some areas have yet to be completed—most notably the CONNECTIONS speakers directory, which will be added back as soon as possible.

Thanks to everyone who provided input and suggestions on how the New England SCBWI website could be improved, and especially to those who pointed out parts of the new site that needed further tweaks and fixes.

SCBWI New England congratulates member (and past RA) Jane Yolen on receiving the Roots of Writing Award from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Female Writers.

This is the first year the award has been granted. The SF-FFW announced this award in 2005 to honor seven influential female science fiction and fantasy authors: Betty Ballantine, Madeleine L’Engle, Anne McCaffrey, Ursula K. Le Guin, Kate Wilhelm, Joanna Russ, and Andre Norton.

SCBWI New England congratulates members from the region who have won Magazine Merit Plaques for material they published in children’s magazines last year. In fact, three of the four 2005 plaque winners come from our region:

• Patricia Bridgman for her story “Ghoulies and Ghosties” in Cricket


• Susan Meyer for her poem “Summer is Ending” in Cricket


• Brian Lies for his cover art for Spider