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Andrea Custer, Debbie Friedman, Julia Edwards, SCBWI events, SCBWI members, Sue Alexander, Sue Alexander Grant
By Marcelle Greene, SCBWI-L.A. Contest Coordinator
Our anonymous judges were unanimous in their opinion that awarding this year’s Sue Alexander Grant was one tough decision. But after three rounds of whittling more than one hundred entries, there emerged this clear winner:
I do my best thinking in my underwear. Mamma always understood that about me.
“We Rockfort women are at our best when we’re wearing the least,” she’d say. But Lord in Heaven, I don’t think she had in mind that I’d be wearing a man’s jockey shorts, standard Army issue, second-hand no less. And I’ll say it plain, as much time as men have spent getting into my drawers, I can’t quite get right with walking around in theirs.
Here’s what Sally Jones Rogan, SCBWI-LA co-regional advisor, said when presenting the award: 
Having a published mentor who helps you improve your work could be the greatest gift you receive on your path to publication. Through its Mentor Program, SCBWI-L.A. has offered this gift to three members in the past two years, and is now running a contest for a 2017 illustration mentorship. (
Winning the 2015 mentorship changed illustrator Matthew Rivera’s goals. “Writing my own stories to illustrate wasn’t something I considered before the mentorship,” Rivera says. But mentor 
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Long-time SCBWI member 
Ever wonder what happens to the manuscripts that win first place in SCBWI-L.A.’s writing contests? We did. As the contest for 
