Volunteer Spotlight: Lisze Bechtold, SCBWI-LA Illustrator Coordinator, Illustrator Events

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Buster the Very Shy Dog, Edna’s Tale, Illustration, illustrators, Lisze Bechtold, Sally and the Purple Socks, SCBWI events, SCBWI members

Lisze Bechtold is an animator as well as an author & illustrator of picture books and early readers. Her published works include Edna’s Tale, Sally and the Purple Socks (a Children’s Choice and Imagination Library book), and the award-winning Buster the Very Shy Dog series. She has taught workshops, reviewed portfolios, and studied writing with such luminaries as Myra Cohn Livingston and Patricia Lee Gauch. A long-time member and volunteer for the SCBWI, she’s co-coordinated several SCBWI Illustrator Days, sits on the L.A. Regional Board, and has quite a few ideas and events in mind for our region’s illustrators and author/illustrators. “What ideas and events?” you ask? We wondered that too, along with a few other questions you didn’t even know you wanted to ask. Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered with this installment of “Volunteer Spotlight.”

SARAH PARKER-LEE: Just in case anyone out there has avoided approaching you at events or something because of this, before we go any further, how do you pronounce your name?

LISZE BECHTOLD: “Liz” or “Lizzie”, if you need to pronounce all the extra letters.

SPL: Phew! We haven’t been saying it incorrectly! (Introverts worst nightmare.) With that out of the way… You’ve been an SCBWI volunteer for a long time, off and on, why did you recently take up the mantle of Illustrator Coordinator?

LB: I had too much fun coordinating the illustrator contests at the 2016 Writer/Illustrator Day and realized as an author AND illustrator, I have specific insight into the different needs and interests of each. I love connecting people who should meet, as well as the detective part of helping other artists — pointing out their strengths and the direction they are already taking that perhaps they themselves may not have noticed.

SPL: As an experienced illustrator and author, what types of workshops, exercises, or tools have helped you?

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Paying it Forward: Going from Mentee to Mentor is Easier than You Think

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Elizabeth Van Steenwyk, mentor, mentoring, mentorships, Sherry Shahan, volunteering, writing exercise, writing tips

By Sherry Shahan

Elizabeth Van Steenwyk signs her new picture book Blacksmith’s Song. (Peachtree Pub.)

I was clueless about children’s books when I signed up for a writer’s workshop years ago with the prolific Elizabeth Van Steenwyk. Her credits: Seventy-five fiction and nonfiction titles. Impressive. But what struck me most was her generosity.

After reading my WIP, Elizabeth offered to send it to her editor at a school book-fair publisher. Willowisp Press became home for my first six middle-grade novels.

When our SCBWI region began discussing a mentorship program, I knew I wanted to be involved.

Helping Special Needs Kids and Breaking the “How to Get Published” Rules

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Jamie Kiffel-Alcheh, Mark Lumer, published, publishing, special needs

by Jamie Kiffel-Alcheh

Jamie Kiffel-Alcheh’s daughter

You may have heard these rules about getting published: Don’t pitch as a team with an illustrator. Don’t pitch directly to the publisher. And do not write in rhyme. I followed those rules until I didn’t. Here’s why breaking the rules was so good for me.

I started as a rule-follower. I joined SCBWI and formed a writers group. I read most of THE BOOK, SCBWI’s definitive guide to kid lit, agents, and publishers. I thoroughly researched agents and I penned cover letters.

Then I waited for responses.

Meet Your Audience and Help Kids Tell Their Own Stories

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kids, literacy, reading, reading to kids, SCBWI members, Susan J. Berger, volunteering, writing

By Susan J. Berger

LitMingle Minute: Westside Writers Say Goodbye to Lori Snyder, Hello to Rebecca Light

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SCBWI community, SCBWI events, SCBWI members

By Laurie Young

After two-plus years as our marvelous co-coordinator of the Westside Writers Mingle, Lori Snyder stepped down in December 2017. We are so grateful for her invaluable energy and spirit, and her contributions to our group. She leaves us with these parting words: “I’m happy to say that it was really fun to do and to work with you, and I’m excited to get to come as a participant again.”

When Lori and I were thinking about who could fill her very large shoes, we immediately thought of Rebecca Light. Her intelligence and enthusiasm, as well as an eagerness to volunteer, made a big impression on us from her first Mingle. Rebecca was a natural and obvious choice.

Dealing with Grief and Loss Through Writing

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depression, grief, loss, Michael Thal, writing tips

By Michael Thal

My hearing loss wasn’t gradual. I went to sleep one night with good hearing and awoke deafened. Six years later the virus returned making my “good” ear clinically deaf and leaving me with a severely dysfunctional left ear. Grief for my lost hearing hit hard.

According to David Kessler and Elizabeth Kubler Ross in their book, On Grief and Grieving, there are five stages of grief — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Channie Amato, LMFT, puts it in perspective, “The stages don’t occur in an orderly progression. Grief affects each individual differently.”

Normally a highly-motivated individual, I sank into depression. I was a teacher who couldn’t understand a word his sixth-grade students said, and as a father of two young daughters, I needed to set a positive example. Prior to my hearing loss I never raised my voice to my girls. Now I was screaming at them daily. Things needed to change, and fast.

Toot Your Horn!

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news, published, publishing, SCBWI community, SCBWI members

SCBWI members’ publishing news is something to celebrate! Check out whose book is coming to a platform near you or around the world:

 

 

Los Angeles Is…, by Elisa Parhad, illustrated by Alexander Vidal, Cameron Kids, ages 0-6, Board Book, ISBN: 978-1-944903-23-7, released 04/24/2018.

Great News!

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Industry News, publishing, SCBWI community, SCBWI members

SCBWI loves celebrating our members’ successes and noteworthy news, and there are many! Read on to find out who’s got something to shout about. Digital high-fives welcome in the comments!

 

 

“The Jackpot,” a memoir by Karen Gorback, has been published in Chicken Soup for the Soul – My Amazing Mom (March 2018).

Joan Bransfield Graham’s poetry is featured in two recent Lee Bennett Hopkins anthologies: “Teacher” in School People (Feb. 13, Wordsong) and “Great Indian Fruit Bat” in World Make Way (March 27, Abrams, a book in conjunction with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.)

Shireen Hakim blogged for NaNoWriMo (National November Writing Month), a motivational writing community site with 250k followers. She wrote her tips for getting traditionally published, based on her experience writing and publishing her children’s refugee story, Rabbi the Rabbiti.

Target Marketing: Writing for the Whole Family

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family, marketing, R.S. Mellete, target marketing, writing, writing tips

by R.S. Mellette

While the publishing world argues over what’s Middle Grade, what’s Young Adult, and what’s New Adult, I’m asking; whatever happened to “good for the whole family?”

Target marketing has been around long enough that most people think it’s the only way it’s ever been, but if you take a longer view of commercial art, you’ll see that excluding the majority of your potential audience is a brand new concept. Yes, I said “excluding.” If you write, or edit, or make acquisitions, or shelf for one specific age group, then you are limiting your audience. And by “brand new” I mean since the turn of the previous century.

Community Corner with Susan Lendroth: From the Sue Alexander Grant to Publication

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awards, published, publishing, SAG, SCBWI community, SCBWI events, SCBWI members, Susan Lendroth, Working Writer's Retreat

By Susan Lendroth

In 2010, I submitted the picture book Not So Loud, Natsumi! to the Sue Alexander Grant contest sponsored by SCBWI-LA. Little did I realize the winding road my story and I would take over the next eight years from contest entry to manuscript submission to eventual publication.