SCBWI Success Story: Robin Rosenthal

I went to my first New York SCBWI conference in 2010. I was 37 and working as an art director but was interested in illustrating children's books. I didn't know anyone and was super nervous, but the SCBWI community was so welcoming. Lots of people were starting out in the industry as well and I soon realized I didn't need to be embarrassed about being a beginner. 

I signed up to do the Portfolio Showcase and, guys, I'm not gonna lie, my first portfolio was… not great. I mean, it was “fine,” but it didn't have any of the ingredients that I now know are key to a successful children's book portfolio. I would learn later that weekend, in Laurent Linn’s Visual Storytelling talk, that my art needed to tell a story and emotionally connect with the reader just as much as the words did. 

I took lots of notes at that first conference. Jane Yolen introduced us to her “20 Rules of Writing” including my favorite: “BIC= Butt in Chair” which I still use as a mantra. Agent, Sheldon Fogelman, told us to “work with a critique group, and look for and be open to criticism,” and, very practically, “create financial stability otherwise you can’t function.”

I went to the New York conferences every year after that. I continued to fill up notebooks with advice from art directors, writers, illustrators, and agents on craft, storytelling, marketing, and business. The yearly conferences gave me a deadline to have my portfolio in shape with new pieces. When SCBWI started their Draw This! monthly prompts I used them as starting points for illustrations for my portfolio. 

In 2014, at the LA conference, I was one of the Portfolio Showcase Mentorship winners. I got a ton of honest, smart feedback about my work in a really short amount of time from my mentors. I was consistently told that I needed to work on telling stories with my pictures and making that emotional connection. I needed more moments. “Action, Reaction, Interaction.” 

At home, I continued to hone my portfolio and work on stories. I channeled the words of the talented, smart, generous art director and mentor, Cecilia Yung: “Illustration is about communication;” “The best illustrations have “beauty, brains and heart;” “Your portfolio is only as strong as your weakest piece. [As an art director,] I won’t make a bet when I am in doubt. Convince me you are a good bet.” I was overwhelmed by writing a story and she encouraged me to start with writing episodes first. 

My fellow mentees and I leaned on each other for advice and support and the mentees who came before us were generous with their time and advice. Through my SCBWI friendships and connections, I joined a critique group, and then another, both of whom I relied on for support and accountability. 

I was on the slow road to publication. I had a young child at home and was working during the day as an art director. I had to carve out time to work on new pieces from my portfolio when I could. I was at the point where I was good enough to know when things were wrong, but not good enough to necessarily be able to fix them. I worked and reworked a dummy that I had started in 2006 and increasingly hated it. I watched other illustrators come to their first conferences, get agents, and get book contracts, but I still knew I wasn't there yet.

I grappled with finding and accepting my illustration voice. I had originally wanted to make work like the illustrators I admired: important, poignant, arty, Caldecott-worthy. But in reality, my own strengths and instincts as an illustrator lay elsewhere. Following the advice of many SCBWI speakers, I focused on drawing what I loved. I started leaning into and celebrating my strengths and stopped trying to be someone I was not. I started to feel more confident and really love the work I was producing. At the 2013 New York conference, Shaun Tan had said, “You know when something is working when it starts talking back.” I started to feel that way about my work. 

In 2018 at the New York Winter Conference, I won the SCBWI Portfolio Showcase. I was thrilled! The winner gets the opportunity to illustrate the conference art for the next SCBWI conference. I was so excited about the idea of having my artwork in the hands of every single speaker and attendee at the L.A. Conference. 

I love drawing super confident animals with big bellies. I created a pattern of proud cats in swimsuits, goggles and floaties carrying tote bags of books. I saw them as little avatars for conference attendees, eager and excited to hit that conference and enjoy the L.A. sun. The conference art was a hit and I got questions from publishers about whether I had a story for these cats. Y’all, I did not. My drawing muscles were toned, but my writing muscles were still pretty flabby. 

That year, I signed with my agent, Erica Rand Silverman, who had first seen my work at the New York SCBWI Portfolio Showcase in 2017. I got to work on illustrating my first picture book and then several books over the next few years that are now published. The art directors and editors for those books had first seen my work at SCBWI Portfolio Showcases. I wrote and published my first book, SWEET BABE! as well. The cats stayed on my cork board waiting for their story. 

In 2022, on call with my critique group, I asked my friend, Matthew Burgess, for advice on writing stories. I held up the image of those SCBWI conference cats, still on my corkboard. He improvised a plot about a water-despising cat whose parents sign her up for swimming lessons. About a week later he texted that he had been thinking about those cats, one kitty in particular, and he had named her Serafina. 

Shortly after that, he sent a rough draft of what would become our latest picture book, SERAFINA MAKES WAVES. I loved it. We have the same agent so, while he worked on the story draft, I put together a cover comp and some more sketches of Serafina to present to publishers. Matthew was very open and respectful of my strong opinions about the character. I had been living with these cats for so long and definitely had ideas about who they were and therefore who Serafina would be. SERAFINA MAKES WAVES came out on March 31st, 2026 am I am working on art for the second Serafina book right now. 

I am so grateful to have had both the leadership and the members of the SCBWI community as a consistent source of connection, inspiration, and motivation throughout the past 16 years. I’ve also had so many opportunities to show my work to art directors, agents, and editors through SCBWI that would have been much harder to cultivate on my own. SCBWI gets a starred review from me.