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

Cheerios® Launches Next Spoonfuls of Stories® Children’s Book Contest to Give Would-Be Authors the Chance for Cash Prizes and Publisher Review

Starting April 16, 2008 and going through July 15, 2008, Cheerios invites previously unpublished adult authors to submit their children’s book manuscripts in the second Cheerios® Spoonfuls of Stories® Children’s Book Contest. The book should be suitable for children who are 4 to 8 years old. Cheerios will provide cash prizes to up to three winners, and the top winner will have their book evaluated by Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing for a potential book deal. A book deal is not guaranteed. For a complete list of rules and to submit an entry online, go to www.SpoonfulsofStoriesContest.com.

Last year, Cheerios received close to 1,000 entries in the Children’s Book Contest, and Shellie Braeuner, an SCBWI member from Nashville, Tenn., was named the grand prize winner. In addition to her $5,000 prize from Cheerios, Braeuner received a book deal from Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing. Her winning story, The Great Dog Wash, is being published and will be printed and available in Cheerios boxes in the spring of 2009. The book also will be available in hardcover on bookshelves in the summer of 2009. Two first prize winners, Alison Anderson of Cumberland, Wisc., and Kate Heilman, an SCBWI member from Chicago, each received $1,000 from Cheerios.

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New Hampshire SCBWI member Lita Judge has been named a Gold Award winner in the 2007 National Parenting Publications Awards (NAPPA) for her book, One Thousand Tracings: Healing the Wounds of World War II. Full results will be announced Nov. 1, 2007, in 40 regional parenting magazines across the country and online at Parenthood.com.

Congratulations, Lita!!!

One Thousand Tracings is Lita’s first picture book as author and illustrator. Her newest book, D is for Dinosaur, has just been released this month. For more information go to LitaJudge.com.

The British publisher Egmont is making a little media splash with its new imprint 2Heads. The imprint's website describes its strategic advantage this way:

We consult children and parents throughout the creation, writing and illustration of the books to make sure our fiction series are the best they can be.

2HEADS is different from any other imprint that currently exists because we believe that children should play a key role in shaping the series fiction that they really want to read. So we involve the readers and their parents in lots of different ways throughout the development and writing of our stories to ensure that every 2HEADS series really hits the mark with children.

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Starting today, the Class of 2k8 will be open for business!

The Class of 2k8 is a group of first-time middle grade and young adult fiction authors with debut novels to be published in 2008. This class will mostly follow the model of the successful and original Class of 2k7, and is sanctioned by that group.

The Class of 2k8 will be involved in a cross-publisher marketing campaign geared to put their books on the radar screen of booksellers, librarians, teachers and readers.

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Cresent Dragonwagon will be leading a writers' workshop at the Rowe Conference Center, in Rowe MA on April 20-22, 2007. In this workshop, the participants will talk, write, move, read aloud and clarify whether we are writing for children or writing as adults looking back. The early picture book, the "mood book", the concept book, books with plots, humor, the "middle-aged" book and the YA book will be touched upon. The workshop is for children's writers, librarians, parents and grandparents of young children. For more information please contact Paige Cooper at 413-339-4954.

Attention authors and illustrators who do 25 or more school visits in a year! Alexis O'Neill reports:

From time-to-time, I need to contact authors and illustrators for input on the column I'm writing for the SCBWI Bulletin, THE TRUTH ABOUT SCHOOL VISITS. I'm compiling a list of authors and illustrators in each state / region / country who do 25 or more school visits a year.

If interested email me your name, email & website or blog address to Alexis at AlexisInCA@aol.com

Thanks!