Mentorship Submission Instructions Page
Submission Instructions for the 2026 Novel Mentorship
The novel mentorship is open to all Premium SCBWI members (PAL, full, associate, and student) who live in Michigan and have not previously won a mentorship for illustration in any category. We call this the “Won and Done” rule, and it helps us ensure that everyone has an opportunity to benefit from a mentorship. (Exception: If you’ve won a picture book or novel text mentorship, you are still eligible to enter for illustration.)
Step 1: Determine Your Eligibility
- Log in to www.scbwi.org, then click on “My Home” in the upper right corner. When your profile appears, find the “My Profile” box and look for “Membership Expiration.” If your membership has expired, you can renew from the link next to your status. You must be a current premium member (not expired) to enter the mentorship. Proof of eligibility may be requested.
- If you have previously won a mentorship for illustration, then you are not eligible.
Step 2: Register for the mentorship
- Once the registration platform is live, a link will be provided here and in numerous mentorship announcements across our social media platforms.
- The submission fee is $55 (nonrefundable).
- One entry per person.
- After you register, you have 24 hours to email your illustrations and questionnaire answers (see “Questionnaire” below) to the mentorship coordinator. Failure to send the submission materials by the deadline or to follow submission instructions will invalidate your registration without a refund.
Step 3: Submit your materials
- You will have until 11:59pm EST on January 11th to complete the Google Form that will be made available to you upon registration. Failure to send the submission materials by the deadline or to follow submission instructions will invalidate your registration without a refund.
Combine all manuscript pages into a single PDF or Word Doc file (limit 10 pages). Attach the document to the Google Form:
- Limit the file size of your PDF to no more than 25MB.
- Please DO NOT put your name or any other identifying information in your file name.
- Please DO NOT put your name or any other identifying information in your manuscript. To ensure an unbiased selection process, the manuscripts will be identified by title only, not the author’s name.
- In the header of the attached document, include the title of your manuscript.
- Leave the footer blank.
For more information, please visit our FAQ page here.
Questionnaire
In order to help the judges and the mentor evaluate your work, please answer the following questionnaire and include it with your submission materials. This should be page 4 of your PDF. If your answers run onto another page, that is okay. Please include the questions, not just the answers. Use 12-point Times New Roman font with single spacing and no special formatting (bold, italic, underline, etc.).
Questionnaire Questions:
- Tell us about your illustrations. For example, how were they created? If they are traditional, what media did you use? Are these separate illustrations or all part of a single narrative? Include anything you think will help the judges and mentor. (200-word limit)
- What do you hope to gain from the mentorship? (200-word limit)
- What are you looking for in a mentor? (200-word limit)
Once You Submit:
- Feel free to announce the mentorship on social media.
- DO NOT mention on social media that you entered the competition.
Mentorship Selection Process
Our super-secret, superstar judges review submission materials and make brief comments about what works well and how the art could be strengthened. They use a rubric to score each submission, resulting in a numerical score. The top three scorers are sent to the mentor, who makes the final selection. After the mentorship winner and runners-up have been announced, applicants receive the judges’ comments but not the scores.
Judges evaluate submissions based on the following criteria:
- Creativity: Does the subject/content show originality of style, execution, or concept?
- Storytelling: Do the images effectively communicate a story and/or create visual interest?
- Technical Proficiency: Does the artist have a good sense of composition, color selection, and technique?
- Overall impression. What is the judges’ overall impression of the images? Are they of high quality? Is the style suitable for picture books?
Note: For anyone scanning or photographing traditional art, please present it professionally (e.g., free of reflections, quality lighting, cropped effectively, etc.).
For more information, please visit our FAQ page here.