PORTFOLIO SHOWCASE
Portfolio Showcase & Awards
The Portfolio Showcase runs all day Saturday. Illustrators setup their portfolios first thing in the morning and retrieve them at the end of Saturday. To be included in the Portfolio Showcase, you must sign up for it when you register for the conference. There is a $10 fee. When you sign up, you are automatically entered into the judging for the Showcase Awards. If you do NOT want to be included in the judging, please email [email protected] to let us know. Maximum size for standard portfolio: up to 15″ width (unopened) and height. For liability reasons, no electronic portfolios, such as iPads, will be allowed as part of the showcase. If you only bring an electronic portfolio, it will not be displayed and your reservation fee will not be refunded. If you go over the size constraints, it will not be displayed and your reservation fee will not be refunded. MORE GUIDLEINES HERE >>
Awards:
Portfolio Showcase participants are eligible to win:
- Portfolio Showcase Grand Prize Winner - gets a $100 check, and to illustrate a banner for the chapter’s website (if you would like)
- 2 Portfolio Showcase Honor Winners - each get a $50 gift card to the art store of your choice
- Emerging Voice Mentorship - mentorship with a PAL chapter illustrator for the year
Judging is done by our faculty Art Directors and Illustrators. They will review the portfolios in person at some point in the day privately. Winners will be announced during closing announcements at the end of conference day Saturday.
Emerging Voice Illustrator Mentorship
The Austin SCBWI chapter is proud to offer the Emerging Voice Illustrator Mentorship. The winner will receive a year's mentorship with a local published illustrator to help bring their work to the next level. Illustrators attending in-person and entering the Portfolio Showcase at the Conference are eligible to apply. The mentor will choose an illustrator based on the portfolios in the Showcase.
This year’s illustrator mentor is Kat Fajardo.
Kat Fajardo (she/they) is a Honduran Colombian award-winning cartoonist and illustrator from the lively and magical place of Loisaida, New York City.
She's the creator of Miss Quinces, which was a National Indie Bestseller, received a Pura Belpre Honor for illustration, two starred reviews, and was selected as a summer reading pick by Entertainment Weekly, Publishers Weekly, The Horn Book, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. It was also added to the The Spirit of Texas (SPOT) Reading Program by the Texas Library Association. It was the first Graphix title to be simultaneously published in English and Spanish (as Srta. Quinces).
Kat is a graduate of the School of Visual Arts, and their work has been recognized by online publications such as Remezcla, El Hispanic News, School Library Journal, Huffington Post Latino Voices, and more. Kat loves to create playful and colorful work about self-acceptance and Latine culture.
When they aren’t making comics, you might find them collecting bugs, scrapbooking, listening to spooky podcasts, or chasing after their sock-stealing pup, Roni. She is definitely not two dogs in a trench coat. Kat lives in Austin, Texas.