PAL Speaker Series

SCBWI NY: West/Central Upstate PAL Speaker Series 2026-2027

The PAL Speaker Series is a new initiative to offer growth experiences for our published authors, author/illustrators, or illustrators to help expand their careers.

Craft or Career Presentation Proposal Description

Enter a description of your submission in present tense. The description should be written so that the reviewers clearly understand the importance and purpose of the proposed submission. List the goals and objectives of your presentation. What do you want your audience to learn, and how are they going to achieve that? 

Will your presentation topic fall into the Craft category (all creative aspects of writing and/or illustrating a children’s and/or teen book) or the Career Building category (preparing your manuscript, picture book dummy, graphic novel, or portfolio for submission; writing for a particular genre or market, or portfolio development.

What will your presentation include? Examples: slides, Q&A, workshop format; audience participation (time allotted for this), materials list, or handouts.

Your presentation will be one hour with optional 15 minutes of Q&A added afterwards.

Intended Audience

Who is your audience? Are you focusing on authors, author/illustrators, illustrators, or is this presentation for everyone? Are you focusing on a specific genre (fiction, non-fiction, historical fiction, fantasy), or a specific focus (SEL - social and emotional learning, STEAM – science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) or a specific publishing category (picture book, chapter book, middle grade, YA).

Eligibility

You must be a current SCBWI PAL member residing in NY: West/Central Upstate region during the submission dates for a single person presentation. If you are submitting a panel presentation proposal at least one person must be a current SCBWI PAL member residing in NY: West/Central Upstate region during the submission dates. Panelists are limited to 3.

We will NOT accept proposals that discuss pathways to publication, querying or querying strategies (except preparing submissions for creating quality work) or marketing strategies (including school and library visits, book launches and book fairs) for the 2026-2027 year.

If your proposal is selected, you will receive an honorarium, social media marketing, and the opportunity to share your presentation to the SCBWI global community.

Submission Guidelines

Please follow the below instructions completely.

Each PAL member may submit only one PRESENTATION PROPOSAL to the SCBWI NY: West/Central Upstate Regional Advisor, Patty Wurster

Please submit your presentation proposal in an email with the subject line: PAL Speaker Series 26-27 with your proposal as a PDF attachment.

Your PAL Speaker Series proposal must include: (each in a separate paragraph, double spaced, 14 sans-serif fonts; Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Open Sans)

• Your name(s) 
• Contact PAL member email
• Date of Your Submission
• Presentation Title (5-8 words)
• Annotation: a brief presentation summary (max 25 words)
• Intended Audience
• Description (max 500 words)

Submissions open - May 22, 2026 through June 30, 2026.