Serious about improving your craft? SCBWI's regional events provide opportunities for professional growth and help you connect with a supportive, creative community.
An opportunity to share a chapter (up to 2,000 words) a picture book or illustrations with fellow SCBWI members for feedback in a friendly session. Submissions are sent in advance and divided between readers based on target age group: picture book, middle grade, tween and YA/Crossover. Please contact NW region for more details. Note that this is an in-person critique session at MMU (Manchester Metropolitan University). Contact northwest@britishscbwi.org to enquire about taking part in these critique group meetings.
The group is a real mixture – Some write in rhyme, some don’t. Some are author/illustrators. Everyone has different levels of experience, but it’s a friendly and helpful group. Members are from all over Scotland, so it will remain a zoom group, but with hopes of meeting up occasionally. Contact scotland@britishscbwi.org for further information.
Online critique group meeting for NE members. Submissions to be placed in the drop box folder a week before the meeting. If you need the link and/or instructions to the drop box please email northeast@britishscbwi.org. Thank you.
An opportunity to share a chapter (up to 2,000 words) a picture book or illustrations with fellow SCBWI members for feedback in a friendly online zoom session from 10:30am-12:30pm. Submissions are sent in advance and divided between readers based on target age group: picture book, middle grade, tween and YA/Crossover. Please contact NW region for more details. Critiques happen once a month. Zoom details will be shared with those submitting/reading via email.
The next SCBWI London Brunch is on Friday 6th October, 11.30am to 2.30pm, in the British Library 1st Floor Cafe. A SCBWI brunch is a great place to meet other SCBWI writers and illustrators. You can catch up on all the kidlit chitchat, and it’s a great place to meet a potential critique partner too. Non-members are welcome, as well as SCBWI members. This month, we’re celebrating the recent publications of a couple of brunch regulars. Brunch host and long-time SCBWI Volunteer, Tania Tay is celebrating her lower MG book Spellcasters, written in collaboration with Storymix under the pen name Crystal Sung– illustrated by Wendy Tan, and published by Hachette. Spellcasters is a magical adventure for children aged 7 plus, about ancestral magic, the power of friendship and currypuffs. We’re also celebrating The Bedtime Boat, author Sital Gorasia Chapman’s fourth picturebook. Illustrated by Anastasia Suvorova and published by Farshore. It includes mindfulness techniques to help an over-excited Chandan who can’t get to sleep. As he travels on a voyage of imagination over the seas, the bedtime boat is always there to keep him grounded, eventually lulling him gently into a relaxed and peaceful sleep. Sital Gorasia Chapman left a career in banking and trained as a yoga teacher. She writes fiction, non-fiction and poetry for children. If you have a recently published book, you’re welcome to bring it along so we can celebrate with you. Or just come along to mingle. Look out for the SCBWI postcards and a bunch of chatty writers and illustrators – hope to see you there!
Tony Potter, Creative Director from iSeek Books has provided a wonderful live brief that has tight parameters in terms of layout, size and content, that will be balanced by your creative response to the brief. Due to issues around being able to book and take payments online, time has moved on and we won’t be able to deliver the AD brief the same as in the past. This means one response to the brief and also means the number of illustrators who can participate is no longer capped. The brief is still set as an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) until the publisher releases it. With this in mind, you will only receive the full brief description and formats when you have booked through a Google Drive link. Since we can’t book online at this time, we are asking for illustrators intending to jump in and give this brief a go to register with, illusseries@britishisles.org. The brief is for children aged 5 and up and is intended as a fun introduction to dinosaurs. Remember that corner of the bookshop that children often gravitate towards – the novelty books, pop-ups, and books with remarkable layouts or shapes? This is where this book would live. It consists of one pop-up (the template is supplied) and has four triple-page spreads that you can imagine as double-page spreads with a whole page that opens on the right-hand side. Also included is a flap that will have text behind the image. You can play with techniques and styles in your response and translate the spread with your own idea of the prehistoric landscape. You are to take your artwork produced within the provided parameters of the brief to the final. A request for files from Dropbox will be sent to all participating illustrators. The deadline is the 3 October no later than midnight. Feedback on the artwork will be given when we meet online on the 7 October at 13:00 when we’ll also learn more about iSeek Creatives. Tony Potter is the Creative Director of iSeek Books, which produces a wide variety of books, novelty and pop-ups, games and puzzles. Illustration Masterclasses offer two fully-funded places for illustrators underrepresented in children’s publishing (BAME, LGBTQ+, socio-economically marginalised and illustrators with a disability) for each event. Please send your application for one of these places telling us how you qualify for a fully funded place and how you feel it will help you in your career to: illusseries@britishscbwi.org and illuscoordinator@britishscbwi.org Please note: SCBWI has a policy of no refunds once your place has been booked. Please send an email with the subject head, SCBWI Illustration Masterclass AD Brief, to register your interest in this Illustration Masterclass to illusseries@britishisles.org. The link to the Google Drive folder with everything you need will be sent back to you. A payment of £35 will be collected before the online masterclass date.
Come and join us in-person at the SCBWI British Isles conference in Manchester! Children’s book creators at all levels will find unique opportunities to meet and network with industry professionals and fellow creatives at our vibrant in-person event. Our theme ‘In Search of Wonder’ invites you to recharge your imaginations, re-engage with your creativity, connect, and leave empowered with a new sense of optimism and community. Once again, we are offering six full scholarships, awarded to authors and illustrators in need and from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds. NOTE: this event is NOT free. You MUST book and pay for a ticket.