2019 Mentor Bethany Barton Has Selected Her Mentee!

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Bethany Barton, illustrator, mentor, mentoring, mentorship, picture books, SCBWI community, SCBWI members

By Bethany Barton, author/illustrator

Have you ever gotten a restaurant menu where everything looks so delicious, it’s nearly impossible to decide? That’s what it felt like going through the applications for SCBWI’s 2019 Mentorship contest! Too much good stuff!

First of all, I want to thank everyone who applied. It’s not always easy to share our artwork with the world, and so many of you were willing. I feel privileged to have gotten my eyes on what you create. I was blown away by the talent on display in every one of this year’s mentorship applicants. The passion for the craft of visual storytelling for children could be seen (and often felt!) in every image that popped into my inbox and I was oh-so-inspired to see the gifts you have to offer young readers. Please keep drawing, please keep painting, please keep telling stories with your images. You must. We didn’t work together this time, but I look forward to seeing your books on shelves, hearing about your successes, and high-fiving you at SCBWI events.

And now, without further ado, I’d love to introduce the world to my mentee:

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Seven Things I Learned After Publishing My First Book

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Helena Ku Rhee, picture books, published, publishing, SCBWI members

by Helena Ku Rhee, Author

Helena with her muse Sherwin

EDITOR’S NOTE: Helena Ku Rhee grew up in Los Angeles, but has also lived in various parts of the U.S., Asia and Europe. Currently, Helena works at a movie studio by day and as a writer by night and weekends. Her debut picture book, The Turtle Ship (Lee and Low), is available now! Today, she shares seven things she learned after publishing her book and you’re going to want to learn them, too!

I’ve always loved learning about a writer’s journey — especially about the path of a debut author, with his or her very first book out in the world. Now that almost a year has gone by since the release of my debut picture book, I wanted to share seven learnings to help writers who are journeying towards their own exhilarating debut.

1. Your dream will keep expanding and evolving.

During what I refer to as the “Rejection Years,” I used to think I’d be so happy to get just one book published.

Author Michelle Markel on the Changing Nonfiction Picture Book Industry and Your Place In It

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biography, Michelle Markel, nonfiction, picture book, picture books

MICHELLE MARKEL is a successful writer and a local SCBWI member! She’s the author of Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtwaist Makers’ Strike of 1909, which won the Bank Street Flora Stieglitz Straus Award and the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award for Younger Children, and was also chosen as an NCTE Orbis Picture Honor Book. Her recent titles are Balderdash!: John Newbery and the Boisterous Birth of Children’s Books and Out of This World: The Surreal Art of Leonora Carrington.

CHRISTINE VAN ZANDT: Welcome to Kite Tales! Your career has included a number of popular narrative nonfiction books as well as some fiction. How is the industry changing?

MICHELLE MARKEL: The field of narrative nonfiction has busted open. There are now books about little known historical events, unsung heroes, and underrepresented groups (women and people of color). Editors are interested in expressive language, innovative artwork, and uncommon formats. They’re looking for creative “hooks” to grab young readers. If you love telling stories, and love nonfiction, this is your moment.

CVZ: What’s your writing process for your biographies?

Author/Illustrator Frans Vischer on Drawing to Communicate

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Halloween, Illustration, illustration prompt, picture books

By Frans Vischer

My first day at school in America was a doozy. My family immigrated from Holland when I was eleven years old. I was shy, and didn’t speak English, and I needed to use the restroom. The entire class got involved, guessing what I tried to tell the teacher. Out of desperation, I made a drawing of a kid on the toilet, which to my dismay, the teacher shared with the class, before taking me to the restroom.

#KTWriteOn with Agent Clelia Gore: Unsung Animal Heroes

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Bistra Masseva, Brian Russo, Cheryl Lawton Malone, Clelia Gore, Jackie French, Jessica Kensky, Jessica Olien, Jessica Sima, Leah Gilbert, Patrick Downes, picture books, submissions

As you settle into fall, celebrate the new season with a new manuscript. Clelia Gore, agent with Martin Literary Management and former Writers & Illustrators Day faculty, offers a challenge to the animal lover (and researcher) in you. 

Author/Illustrator Cassandra Federman on the Mentors and Digital Illustrations that Led to Her Debut Picture Book

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Cassandra Federman, digital illustration, illustrating, mentors, mentorship, picture books, This is a Sea Cow

Author/Illustrator Cassandra Federman was born and raised in Massachusetts where she spent her childhood reading comic books, playing action figures, drawing super heroes, and participating in all things nerdy. She graduated magna cum laude from Brandeis University and moved to Los Angeles, where she became a hand model. When she isn’t pretending to be famous people’s hands, she’s creating art and literature for children. She is the SCBWI Los Angeles 2017 Mentorship Contest Winner, Writing With The Stars 2017 Mentorship Contest Winner, SCBWI Central California ArtWorks 2016 Promotional Card Contest Runner-up, and her first book, This is a Sea Cow (Albert Whitman), is coming fall, 2019.

SARAH PARKER-LEE: A lot seems to have gone your way in 2017, leading up to your successes this year with a book deal. Congrats! Before you won all the awards, what were you doing that got you there?

And the 2018 SCBWI-L.A. Mentorship Contest Winners Are…

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Andrea J. Loney, Jennifer Fitzgerald, mentors, mentorship, Monica Mancillas, picture books, SCBWI community, Wade Bradford

By Karol Ruth Silverstein, SCBWI-L.A. Contest Coordinator

SCBWI-L.A. is thrilled to announce the winners of the 2018 Mentorship Contest. These two lucky writers will each enjoy a six-month mentorship with their respective PAL member mentors. To all those who applied but were not selected, please know that our mentors considered the competition very steep. Your applications definitely made it difficult for them to choose their mentees.

“I am so honored by and grateful for everyone who submitted to be my SCBWI mentee,” mentor Andrea J. Loney said. “Everyone put a tremendous amount of thought, passion, and heart into their applications and it showed. So I encourage everyone who submitted to keep going, keep writing, keep critiquing, keep sharing, keep networking, keep revising, and once again, keep writing. I’m looking forward to seeing your words in the world.

And now for our lucky winners:

SCBWI Central Coast Regional News, Second Quarter 2018

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book talk online, illustrators, Lynn Becker, Mary Ann Fraser, Mary Penney Hershey, mentorship, picture books, SCBWI events, workshops

By Ann Rousseau Smith, SCBWI CenCal News Liaison

A Changing of the Guard

By Mary Ann Fraser

Change seems to be one of the few reliable constants at play in the universe, and so it is with our region. I will soon be moving, and since regional advisors must live within the areas they serve, as of March 1, 2018 I officially stepped down from my post. Thankfully, the talented, hard-working, and did I mention best Assistant Regional Advisor a region could ask for, Rebecca Langston-George, stepped up to take my place. I have no doubt that she will do an outstanding job. I have thoroughly enjoyed serving our region for the past many years, first as Regional Kite Tales Editor, then as Illustrator Coordinator, and most recently as Regional Advisor. Before all of that, along with Lisze Bechtold, I also coordinated several local SCBWI Illustrator Retreats. As a result, I have had the joy of meeting and working with so many people I admire and the honor of calling many of them friends. I will miss you all, but please know that in my heart I will forever be a CenCal Gal!

Wishing you all endless inspiration and great success in all you do,

Mary Ann

SCBWI Cen-Cal 2018 Mentor Program

Our 2018 Mentee is…

Ask an Editor: Should My Picture Book Have Page Breaks?

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editing, pages, pagination, picture book, picture books, submissions

“Ask an Editor” is a forum wherein SCBWI members submit questions that are answered as part of our quarterly Kite Tales blog.

Dear Editor – I’m ready to submit my picture book to agents but there are no page breaks in my manuscript. Is that a problem?

—Unbroken, Los Angeles

Illustrator Kent Culotta on Animation vs. Illustration, Inspiration, and Leveling-Up Your Skills

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Busy Trucks on the Go, D is for Dump Truck, Dan The Taxi Man, Eric Ode, illustrating, illustrator tips, Kent Culotta, picture books, SCBWI members, The Twelve Days of Christmas in Kentucky, Too Many Tomatoes

Some of professional illustrator Kent Culotta’s most recent projects include illustrations for D is for Dump Truck, published by Sleeping Bear Press, and The Twelve Days of Christmas in Kentucky, published by Sterling Children’s Books. He’s also collaborated with author Eric Ode and publisher Kane Miller on three books, Dan, The Taxi Man, Busy Trucks on the Go, and the recently released Too Many Tomatoes. Kent lives in Southern California, but grew up in a small town in Michigan. When he was five, he covered an entire wall of his parents’ living room with his own gallery, each drawing taped lovingly in place. No blank piece of paper, used envelope, or post-it note have ever been safe from his pencil. And today Kent, a fellow SCBWI member, shares with us his experience along with some tips and tools for leveling-up your own skills.

SARAH PARKER-LEE: You’ve worked as an artist in newspapers and on film, including several years in the animation industry working on some pretty memorable Walt Disney movies. How, and why, did you make the transition to children’s book illustrator? Did SCBWI play a role?

KENT CULOTTA: Being a children’s book illustrator was always in the back of my mind when I was working at the big animation studios, and I took a couple of book illustration classes back then at Otis Parsons. I think that I first learned about SCBWI from one of those classes. At the time I was a bit discouraged because publishers then were less open to illustrators whose work showed an animation influence. That has changed a lot. The big transition I went through was when animation rather quickly went from hand-drawn to CG. I worked hard to update my skills and did pretty well, but I soon realized what I really missed was drawing by hand. I joined a group called Drawergeeks that my co-workers participated in. Each week a new subject was set and we all would do an illustration piece on that subject. It helped motivate me and also helped me get out of my own head a little and tackle subjects that I wouldn’t normally think of, a good skill when you’re illustrating other people’s stories. I ended up getting a pretty nice first illustration portfolio from those Drawergeeks illustrations. It was at that point I started regularly attending SCBWI schmoozes/mingles and conferences, which were great motivators as well.

SPL: As an illustrator, you’re tasked with interpreting someone else’s story while still being true to your artistic identity. Do you have any advice on how to maintain that balance for those just starting out or perhaps feeling a little lost?