It’s a Nailbiter: Mastering Tension in Your Writing with Meg Medina
Description: How can we create a novel that is a page-turner? Participants in this session will unpack simple strategies for getting readers invested in their story and reading long after their parents tell them to turn off the light. We’ll learn how to use characters, plot structure, and atmosphere to raise the stakes and hook readers from beginning to end.
Audience: Beginners to Intermediate writers of novels
Acing the First Impression: How to Make Your Query Letter Shine with Kat Brzozowski
Description: We all know how important query letters are. They're your book’s first chance to make a strong impression on agents and editors who are meeting your book. But how do you set your book up for success in a query letter, and what should you make sure to include (and leave out) so that your target audience will want to open your manuscript? Senior Editor Kat Brzozowski will teach you how to craft a top-notch query letter, focusing on elements like comparison titles, your bio, and your book’s description, giving an insider’s insight into what agents and editors really look for when they read a query letter. Come prepared to write, share, discuss, and learn!
Skill Level: Beginner/intermediate
This workshop is best for participants… who have completed a project and are ready to start querying agents, but aren’t quite sure if their query letter is strong enough to wow the reader.
Prerequisites and Advanced Preparation: This is best for writers who have a completed project that they are ready to start querying! Please bring a query letter in progress. If you haven’t started one yet, please bring the raw ingredients - your bio, your comparison titles, and the book’s short description. If you don’t have these, please bring something to write with and a positive attitude! :)
The Comedic Picture Book Duo: How to Develop a Funny Pair of Characters and Their Symbiotic Relationship, with Sergio Ruzzier
Description: The comedic duo is a staple of many kinds of entertainment, including vaudeville, radio shows, silent movies, early talkies, and so on. Not surprisingly, funny couples also populate the children’s book universe, finding ideal accommodation in picture books and early readers. James Marshall’s "George and Martha" and Arnold Lobel’s "Frog and Toad" are perhaps the most luminous examples of the genre. This workshop will help you find a way to create your own original twosome and their small or big adventures.
Skill level: Advanced.
This workshop is best for: illustrators who already have a sense for their style but might be struggling to focus on character development and design.
Prerequisites and Advanced Preparation: You should read (I mean re-read, of course) all the "George and Martha" and all the "Frog and Toad" books. And you should watch a bunch of Laurel & Hardy and Buster Keaton & Fatty Arbuckle comedies. Feel free to bring to class two or three samples of your illustration work (which should not include comedic duos).
Materials to bring: Pencils, pens, pen & ink, or whatever you are comfortable using when sketching and designing characters. In general, I would avoid too many colors and wet media, mainly due to time constraint.
Storytelling on Instagram: Building Connections and Cultivating a Following Using Comics with Lala Watkins
Description: In this session, we will dive into the profound impact of vulnerability within visual storytelling using comics. We’ll explore how this element can significantly enhance relationships with your audience and serve as a powerful foundation for cultivating a dedicated following. Through simple techniques, we will learn how to tell a short relatable story for Instagram in two different ways. Participants will uncover how the authenticity of sharing your unique journey, challenges, and insights through a few squiggly lines can foster deeper connections and transform passive viewers into an engaged community. By the end, you’ll learn that storytelling on Instagram through comics using your own style and voice will be more impactful than the quality or technical skill of your work.
Skill Level: Beginner to Intermediate
This workshop is best for: Illustrators looking for new ways to engage with their audiences or try something new.
Prerequisites and Advanced Preparation: Prepare a drawing of yourself as a character if you’d like to draw yourself for your comic. Also bring a list of a few ideas for a drawing prompt you can draw for a short comic based on experiences in your life or in general. Some ideas to get you started can be owning a cat vs a dog, finding out you’re allergic to something, not being a fan of matcha, etc. You can bring your sketchbook or iPad.
Tell Children the Truth: Writing Nonfiction Picture Books Through a Social Justice Lens with Traci Todd
Description: The telling of the American myth starts young--when children learn about American holidays, when they see the faces of the presidents, when they learn about money. Just looking at money tells a story! The counter-mythology must also start young. Especially now, when people in power are trying to erase and rewrite historical truth. But how do we tell young children the challenging truth about American history? How do we balance that truth with hope and joy? This workshop offers tools for nonfiction writers to do just that, by centering the work of Black women like Ida B. Wells, bell hooks, and Nikki Giovanni. This is not a step-by-step guide, but an invitation to expand your thinking. We'll discuss the differences between fact and truth, learn how to become a more practiced and critical researcher, discuss decentering whiteness, and start becoming fearless in our writing.
Skill level: Intermediate to advanced
This workshop is beneficial for: All writers, especially those interested in writing nonfiction picture books. However, we will not cover the narrative structure of picture books or how to create a dummy, etc.
Prerequisites and Advanced Preparation: Please bring an open mind and something to write with. And for fun, read “Mood Indigo”/ "Ellington Was Not a Street" by Ntozake Shange.
The Fifth Element of Nonfiction with Martha Brockenbrough
Description: Many of us still have the taste of the nonfiction we read as children in our mouths. The tang of facts with a touch of sawdust. Perhaps a sprinkling of mold. We’re in a golden age of nonfiction now, which is great for young readers and makes the challenge for authors that much steeper. It’s not enough to have facts. It’s not enough to have a narrative. Nope. Being nourishing also isn’t sufficient. Neither is the importance of the subject. So, if those four things aren’t enough, what does make the difference? That’s exactly what you will learn from this seminar—how to find a lens to make your nonfiction idea uniquely powerful. And here’s a spoiler. You already have that fifth element. You just need to learn how to use it.
Skill Level: Intermediate to Advanced
This workshop is best for participants: Who have drafted nonfiction works, from PBs through YA, but aren’t quite breaking through or who want to make a bigger narrative splash.
Prerequisites and Advanced Preparation: Participants should have a picture book draft or two they’d like to revise. Also, please think about books you loved when you were a child, either fiction or nonfiction. Make a list of the 5- to 10 most enthralling books you’ve read as an adult. Come ready to think about those books and your works in progress.
Using Book Packaging Strategies to Develop Your Next Project and Beyond with Claudia Gabel
Description: Book packaging has been around since the days of Nancy Drew, yet little is known about the strategic ways IP (Intellectual Property) companies develop hundreds of titles per year. In this session, their secrets are revealed so you can learn how to craft commercially viable book concepts faster than you can write them. We’ll talk in detail about the approaches packagers take in conceiving and constructing their pitches. We’ll discuss what kind of market influences and trends play a role in their work, what their day-to-day operations look like, and how you can use that knowledge to your advantage. Whether you’re someone with a notebook full of ideas that don’t quite make it out of the brainstorming phase, or a writer who has trouble finding that initial creative spark, we will also go over concrete steps you can take to break out of patterns that keep you stuck. We’ll learn a tried-and-true system that will help you flesh out an idea and make sure it has enough legs to sustain an entire novel. Participants will receive insider information on collaborating with packagers, what that process is like, the types of deals that are typically offered, and much more.
Skill Level: Beginner to Intermediate.
This workshop is best for: Those who write picture book, middle grade, and YA fiction. Both published and aspiring authors will get a lot out of this session.
Prerequisites and Advanced Preparation: Bring any ideas that are currently in development, regardless of what stage they are in, as well as a shortlist of books you have read (especially in your genre) over the last 1-2 years.
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