Romy Natalia Goldberg and Rebecca Villareal share their journeys to signing with a literary agent.
Local author Rebecca Villarreal shares her journey to signing with a literary agent. No two "How I Got My Agent" stories are the same! Participants will get a feel for what querying picture book and young adult manuscripts and interviewing with literary agents is like today. Our guest speakers will answer audience questions, and participants will be encouraged to share their personal tips and tricks.
About Romy Natalia Goldberg
Natalia (as most local members know her) is the RA for SCBWI Brazos Valley and co-founder of Kidlit Latinx, a Facebook support group for aspiring Latinx children’s book authors and illustrators. She is represented by Stefanie Von Borstel of Full Circle Literary and her debut picture book, THE GOODNIGHT SHIFT will be published by Scholastic in fall 2025. Prior to books for kids she wrote two travel guidebooks to Paraguay, OTHER PLACES TRAVEL GUIDE TO PARAGUAY, published by Other Places Publishing in 2012, updated in 2017 and promoted Paraguayan culture through work with “Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown,” The Guardian and KCRW’s “Good Food.”
http://romynatalia.squarespace.com/
About Rebecca Villareal
Rebecca splits her time between writing young adult novels and running Books from Birth, an early literacy nonprofit she founded to help close the opportunity and achievement gaps for underserved kids in the Brazos Valley, where she lives with her husband and daughter in a home with more books than square feet. She is represented by Jane Chun of Transatlantic Agency. Her first novel, VICARIOUSLY, is a Black Mirror take on the future of lifestyle influencers that won SCBWI’s A. Orr Fantasy Grant and was shortlisted for the Speculative Literature Foundation’s Diversity Grants.
http://rebeccavbooks.com
Our meetings are free and open to the public. We encourage you to invite members of the Brazos Valley writing community to join us!
Our regional meetings feature guest speakers sharing writing and illustration tips as well as industry news and social time for members to meet and network. Meetings are preceded by a gentle critique (see below). Meetings are streamed via Zoom and available for replay. Login details and replay links are available on each meeting's event page.
Last Wednesday of each month (minus July, Nov & Dec)
11am - 11:30am Gentle manuscript critique
11:30am - 12:30pm Guest speaker/featured activity
12:30pm - on social time followed by lunch at a local restaurant (meal not covered by SCBWI)
Zoom and in person at Brazos Valley Arts Council, 4180 Hwy 6 South, College Station, TX 77845
If you’d like to share your work in progress with others and receive or provide feedback, please bring printed copies of up to 5 pages of a manuscript to share. Zoom participants will be allowed to screen share in order to receive feedback. Please see this handy guide on critique etiquette if this will be your first time participating in a critique: https://www.scbwi.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/2014_LA_Dos-and-Donts.pdf
Passionate about a specific kid-lit related topic? Want to practice your upcoming school visit presentation? We’re always looking for guest speakers for our monthly meetings. Our meetings are cozy and supportive - a great place to get your feet wet as a presenter and get to know your local children's literature creators. Feel free to pitch us! Guests can present in person or via Zoom and receive $50 compensation as well as lunch after our meeting. Presentations take place on the last Wednesday of the month from 11am-12pm and can be in the format of workshops, interviews, slideshows… you name it! Pitch us your ideas at brazosvalley-ra@scbwi.org