Breakout Sessions

Writing the Verse Novel

Claudia Mills

This craft workshop for all levels focuses on the exciting and increasingly popular literary form of the MG/YA verse novel. Some questions we will try to answer, referencing acclaimed texts such as Kwame Alexander’s The Crossover and Elizabeth Acevedo’s The Poet X, are: Which kinds of stories are best suited to be told in verse rather than prose? What challenges does the verse format create? What rewards for both writer and reader does it make possible? How does the use of verse both simplify and complicate the advancement of plot? How can it deepen and enrich character development?

A Balancing Act: Weaving Together External and Internal Plot Structures

Jennifer Chambliss Bertman

External plot is what happens in a story, and internal plot is the emotional arc of the main character(s). Too much external can make the characters feel like chess pieces being moved around a board. Too much internal and the reader might feel like nothing’s really happening in the story. Balancing both is the key to creating a satisfying narrative. In this workshop, we’ll break down how to do that effectively.

Time to Play: Revision as Creative Openness

Melissa Manlove

Revision is more than just a step in the polishing process—it is a playful place to imagine what else our stories could be, what else they could do. It is a place for them to grow, and for us to grow with them. Bring a couple WIPs to this breakout to play with, and change your mind about how you approach revision.

First Looks

Sasha Illingworth

Editors, art directors, and agents are all busy people who review many images in a minimum of time. What do they see when they look at your portfolio or postcard? Join us as art director Sasha Illingworth shares her first impression of attendee work. Attendees who hope to participate in First Looks will be invited to submit three illustrations. The Illustrator Coordinator will combine your three images into a single slide. All slides will be randomized, then viewed anonymously, in order, as time allows. Sasha will take a brief moment to look at the slide, then provide her immediate thoughts. A timer is used so we may view as many slides as possible. You are welcome to attend this session without submitting images, but if you do submit, you must attend.

Querying Process

Ann Rose

Dread no more and tame the query beast during the Quelling Your Query Conundrums session with Ann Rose from The Tobias Literary Agency. She will highlight the do’s and don’ts of querying so your submission will rise above the rest. Ann will workshop willing participant’s queries to optimize the chance of an offer of representation. If your query could use a spit shine, submit your query through the form you will receive after registration. Names will be withheld and all queries will remain anonymous.

How to Edit and Revise Your Picture Book

Alvina Ling

This session will discuss the editing and revision process at a publishing house, and will give tips on how to edit your picture book text yourself.

The Making of a Graphic Novel

LeUyen Pham

From thumbnails and script to final sketches and color, there’s much more that goes behind the making of a graphic novel than most people realize. If you’ve ever wanted to understand the power of the medium of graphic novels, from controlling the visual narrative to how to illicit emotions to getting the timing and page turn just right, this session touches on all these topics and more.

Lost Boys: A Guide to Writing for Boys

Tom Phillips

Middle-grade fiction shapes young minds, offering writers the chance to model healthier masculinity. This workshop explores how to craft engaging, humorous, and adventurous stories that boys love while challenging outdated notions of masculinity. Writers will learn to create well-rounded male protagonists, weave in positive themes organically, and avoid stereotypes. Through discussion, writing examples, and case studies, participants will develop tools to write books that entertain while fostering emotional intelligence and empathy in young readers. By shaping better stories, we shape better men. Join us in redefining what it means to write for the next generation of boys.

Think Like a Poet: Revision Strategies for Every Writer

Megan E. Freeman

What are the literary devices of poetry and how can writers across genres employ the gifts that poetry has to offer? In this workshop, attendees will sample from the buffet of delicacies poetry offers the famished writer, and will provide participants with concrete and accessible tools for revising their own work. Everyone will leave with a plethora of resources, including a revision checklist, craft exercises, and an annotated bibliography for further reading. 

The Essentials of a Book Launch

Melissa Taylor

What do you need to do for a book launch? What strategies are effective and make the most sense for your time and creativity? Melissa Taylor has spent over 16 years in the book industry studying what kidlit creators do for their launches, and recently has started doing publicity for Imagination Soup Consulting clients. She will share how to maximize your efforts, a timeline of pre, during, and post launch strategies that work, outside of the box ideas, and tips for batching your marketing efforts so you can stay in your creative flow.

In between Breakout Sessions 2 and 3, there will be a special session with keynote speakers (and friends) Sophie Blackall and LeUyen Pham in conversation. It will be available to all attendees, and you will not want to miss it!

Generating and Developing Ideas

Jim Averbeck

There is an exercise my critique group does every year. This talk shows the exercise and how we’ve developed picture books from it. My critique group has sold well over 20 books that originated with this method.

Juicy Bits of History

NC Fisher

This breakout session is intended for beginner/intermediate writers of historical fiction (SFF elements okay). We will dive deep into the following topics: transportation, food, how information travels, and power/privilege. We will discuss how these topics enrich our stories and influence the plot. We will identify these elements in mentor texts and in our WIPs as well. A writing exercise (or two) accompanies this session during which we’ll be writing a short scene from the POV of our MC on one of the topics above. This session highly recommends participant advance-prep reading of historical fiction of choice.

The Humor in Horror

Stan Yan

Graphic novelist, Stan Yan is a fan of horror…and its biggest critic. He created his debut graphic novel, THE MANY MISFORTUNES OF EUGENIA WANG as a challenge to himself to write and illustrate a comic that actually scared himself. And, he’ll be the first to tell you that you can’t just scare, scare, scare. Any good scary story has to build and have a rhythm that is interspersed with other emotions, like his favorite: humor. Stan will show you what works for creating this humor/horror rhythm for him.

Feeling is Your Storytelling Superpower

Saki Tanaka and Annie Herzig

Author-Illustrators Saki Tanaka and Annie Herzig are passionate creators who infuse big emotions and heart into their picture books. They believe that emotion, sensory experience, and art are all interconnected, each fueling the others. In this immersive workshop, we’ll explore concepts, playing with prompts designed to awaken and engage our innate "feeling" skills. Together we'll tap emotions using our senses, memories, and imagination to excavate images and ideas that become seeds for your next book. Let's embrace our unique storytelling abilities as deep feelers and harness our heightened sensitivity to create books that touch hearts and, maybe even, shift worlds.

Speaker Profile 101

Fleur Bradley

Ever wonder how to expand your income streams by building a speaker profile? Join author and speaker Fleur Bradley as she shares her speaking experience, how to brainstorm and develop speaking topics, and where to find opportunities to speak (including school visits). Attendees leave with ideas to put into action and a speaker profile blueprint. 

If What You’re Doing Isn’t Working, Try Something Else!

Claudia Mills

We thrive on stories of books rejected dozens of times that finally achieve publication and critical acclaim, stories which encourage to “keep on keeping on.” But repeated disappointments might prompt us to consider an alternative approach. If your writing career feels stalled, it may be time – gasp! – to try something DIFFERENT. This provocative, inspirational workshop for all levels will explore various avenues for trying “something else”: writing in different forms and genres, for different audiences, with different collaborators, even in different places. Prepare to leave ready and eager to leap into the adventure of trying something wonderfully and restoratively NEW. 

How to Write for the Illustrator

Jim Averbeck

This is a PB focussed talk about strategies for picture book writers to use to guide the illustrator while leaving room for the illustrator to tell their story as well.

If Dream Agents Are Real, So Must Be Unicorns

Ann Rose and Stan Yan

How do agents and clients meet and become professional soulmates? Agent, Ann Rose from The Tobias Literary Agency and her first illustrator and graphic novelist client, RMC Co-RA, Stan Yan will talk about the circuitous journeys they took to finding each other, subbing and selling their first project, querying and subbing advice, and then take Q&A.

How to Write a Mystery for Kids

Fleur Bradley

Want to write a chapter book, middle-grade or YA mystery, but you’re not sure how to make the format work? This workshop covers concept (or: how to pick the crime), introducing the suspects, and how to plant clues so they're not too obvious. We'll go over examples of great chapter book, MG, and YA mysteries and what makes them shine, how to create depth with theme and character arcs, and how to create an outline. Attendees leave with a rough outline, with time for Q&A.

Making Magic Real: How to Balance Chance and Action to Shape Your Creative Career (For Authors and Illustrators of picture books at all levels)

Saki Tanaka

Saki shares how she harnesses “magic” (chance, imagination, and intuition) to help shape her author-illustrator career. She touches on how it has helped clarify her purpose as a storyteller, discover her ideas and voice, take creative risks, and explore unexpected ways of getting books out into the world. The breakout includes live demos of practical methods that can help you:

• embrace unpredictability on the reg 
• use your "imagination" to better serve your beta reader
• strengthen your intuition to help you find new solutions and inspiration

Get ready to suspend disbelief and embrace MAGIC to take your storytelling in new directions!

FACT MEETS FEELING: Writing Compelling Nonfiction for a World That Needs It

Melissa Manlove

The nonfiction books that really jumpstart a career are more than lists of facts or events—they find fresh ways to intrigue and compel, they MOVE readers. In this breakout we'll examine how the craft skills we associate with fiction can kick your nonfiction to the next level, and, in an era increasingly influenced by misinformation, show kids the world as it is and as it can be.

Creating Stellar Scenes

Jennifer Chambliss Bertman

A well-crafted scene brings characters to life and moves the story forward. They make readers feel like they are right there, experiencing the story with the characters. In this workshop we’ll analyze a variety of scenes to see what makes them tick and discuss how we can apply what we learn to our own writing.

Hey, Shorty, What's Up?

NC Fisher

This breakout session is intended for beginner/intermediate writers interested in the short story format. We will discuss elements that good short stories contain and analyze these elements in one or two short stories for kids. We will also look at current markets for kidlit/YA short stories. This workshop highly recommends participant advance-prep reading of a short story for MG/YA readers.

Character Design

Sasha Illingworth

A key to a great portfolio is having characters that attract attention.

Grow an Email Newsletter That Builds Connections

Melissa Taylor

An email newsletter builds relationships with your audience, building trust and community while sharing valuable information. But how can you make your newsletter valuable to your audience? With over fifteen years of experience and 33,000 email subscribers at Imagination Soup and a new email list built from scratch at Imaginarium Author Solutions, Melissa Taylor will give you the strategies that work for beginners to grow and develop a newsletter including how to define your audience, understand your newsletter options, grow your newsletter’s subscribers, write in a conversational way, build relationships and community, and grow your author/illustrator brand.

Something for Everyone: Writing Hybrid Novels

Megan E. Freeman

Are you intrigued by the different kinds of hybrid novels finding their way into the marketplace? Have you considered playing with multiple formats to tell the story of your heart? This workshop will explore how hybrid novels captivate readers using forms that might just surprise you. You will leave with resources, writing prompts, and an annotated bibliography for further study.

Writing Responsible Representation

Alvina Ling

This talk will include some history and background about diversity and publishing, the WHY we need to publish responsible representation, WHAT responsible representation means to readers, and then the HOW to write responsible representation.

Decline By Nine: Writing for Reluctant Readers

Tom Phillips

As a dyslexic writer, I understand the challenges of being a reluctant reader firsthand. This workshop explores how to engage young readers by rethinking pacing, chapter size, and humor—keeping stories fast, funny, and memorable. We’ll discuss strategies to compete with screens and help kids become self-selecting readers. Through fresh approaches to writing, reading, and audience connection, authors will learn how to transform even the most hesitant readers into enthusiastic book lovers. Whether you’re crafting fiction or nonfiction, this session will challenge you to rethink your storytelling to reach and inspire a wider audience.

Composition for Dummies (What's this, a double meaning?)

Annie Herzig

While Annie Herzig was trained in composition in art school, she has always felt that designing the layout of a page as more of an intuitive process than simply following a set of dos and don’ts. In this interactive breakout, we will review the basic elements that come into play when laying out your spreads, but only to begin to understand WHY our eyes either smoothly skate across the page or stumble and trip us up. We will walk through some simple exercises to tune into our inner compositional guides and start creating more compelling and dynamic compositions.

Bookstore Boost: Amplifying Your Impact Through Indie Partnerships

Nicole Magistro

Join us for an empowering session designed for published authors eager to elevate their book sales and benefit their local community! Discover the unique business model of independent bookstores and learn how their financial goals can work in your favor. We’ll explore essential tools and strategies that help your book stand out in the bookstore, maximizing your sales locally and across the indie channel. With insights from industry expert and children’s book author Nicole Magistro, you’ll leave equipped with actionable techniques to strategically partner and forge lasting relationships with indie bookstores.