Fall Workshops 2025: Fairfax, VA

Whether you're a published author or just starting your writing journey, it’s important to connect with your audience. In this hands-on workshop, you’ll learn how to use Canva, a free, easy online-tool where you can create eye-catching graphics for social media, newsletters, event promos, activity guides and more—no design experience required. After a general introduction to the site, you’ll have the opportunity to create the graphic(s) of your choice and will leave with the tools to explore more on your own. Bring your laptops and let’s design!

After drafting and fine-tuning your picture book manuscript on your own, how might you further revise and polish before submitting to an agent or publisher?  In an increasingly competitive market, how might you help your mss to stand out?  A widely published author and an acclaimed illustrator will take attendees through some basic revisionary techniques before exploring pacing, page turns, storyboarding, and visually dramatic storytelling.  During this hands-on workshop, writers will be editing their own manuscripts and enhancing their skills as picture book creators.  You’ll learn how to make a dummy that will help you revise more strategically and strengthen your mss.  Bring your questions and three double-spaced copies of a picture-book manuscript that you’ve revised several times on your own.

A narrator who describes the world through a unique lens, whose point of view is fresh, whose voice is consistent and true, is the way to a reader's heart. But how can we writers be sure that the POV of our narrator is serving our story well? How might switching up our story’s POV improve our story (and our writing chops)? In this workshop, we will briefly discuss types of POV—first person, second person, and third person (limited and omniscient). We will share examples of each. And most importantly, we’ll engage in fun writing exercises that will help us unleash the power of POV. Please bring the first 250 words of your WIP, a sharpened imagination, and a willingness to have some fun! A handout for easy reference will be provided.

As someone who’s had three literary agents and two professionally published books, Alana gives advice and shares personal anecdotes on how to stay relevant, focused, marketable, and most importantly optimistic, while searching for an agent. This is a positive and affirming presentation that offers practical tips on finding an agent who's just the right fit and avoiding common pitfalls while muddling through the query trenches. This session is ideal for agented and unagented authors and author/illustrators, who are published or unpublished.

Tracey Kyle taught Spanish and French at the secondary level for 30 years, and is the author of 7 rhyming picture books. She studied in Madrid, Spain while at Skidmore College, and in 2004 was the recipient of a grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities, allowing her to return to Madrid to study art at the Prado. Currently she lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and two cats. When she’s not working on a new story, she loves to read, practice yoga and work as the Social Media chair for the Mid-Atlantic region.

Mary Quattlebaum is the author of 30 picture books, early readers, books of poetry and nonfiction, chapter books, and novels (Pirate vs. Pirate, Hero Dogs, the Jo MacDonald Nature series) and of stories and poems in anthologies, literary journals, and children’s magazines. Awards include Delacorte Prize for First MG Novel, Parenting Reading Magic Award, SIBA Best Picture Book, NAPPA Gold Award, Bank Street Best Book, and many ALA and children's choice state lists. She teaches in the MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults at the Vermont College of Fine Arts; works as a freelance writer, editor, and writing coach; and presents frequently at schools and conferences.

Joan Waites Is an award-winning author-illustrator of numerous titles illustrated for the children’s trade and educational markets. She is the author-illustrator of five picture and board books, with three forthcoming titles releasing in 2025 and 2026. A former adjunct faculty member of the Corcoran Museum School of Art and Design’s aspiring artists programs, Joan continues to teach art enrichment for children and adults. She formerly served as the Mid-Atlantic SCBWI Illustrator Coordinator, is a member of the Children’s Book Guild of Washington D.C., and volunteers with An Open Book Foundation (https://anopenbookfound.org/).

Alana Tyson is the author of the picture books "Devin's Gift," and the Jane Addams Peace Award finalist "My Red, White, and Blue." As a native New Yorker (born and raised in Brooklyn), she's an admitted pizza snob and lover of hip-hop & unsung heroes. Alana received her Master's degree in Journalism from University of MD, and Bachelor's from Brooklyn College. When she's not writing she's coaxing story ideas from her 3rd grader or singing karaoke. Alana was a PB Rising Stars 2024 mentor. She lives in Alexandria, VA with her husband and two sons, and now writes full-time after retiring with 22 years in the federal government.

Dionna, a Mid-Atlantic SCBWI member since 2005, is a children's book author with a MFA )a mighty fine attitude) in rewriting, who has yet to graduate from IIT (the Institute of Imaginative Thinking). As a work-for-hire author, Dionna has published 21 books with Lerner, Capstone, Scholastic Press, and Little, Brown. Written for the educational market, these projects include chapter books, early-readers, nonfiction books, a board book, and a graphic novel. Dionna's debut middle-grade, MAMA'S CHICKEN & DUMPLINGS, was published by Margaret Ferguson Books (an imprint of Holiday House) on August 6, 2024. It has been named a 2024 Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection, a 2025 Children’s Book Council Librarians’ Favorite, a 2024 Black Caucus American Library Association Best of the Best Book for 5th-8th grade kids, and can be found in the 2025 edition of Bank Street Best Children's Books of the Year.