Category Archives: SCBWI

Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators

Author Visit Survey

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Dear Readers –14 Nimitz ElemSunnyvale-Assembly

Are you a published author and a member of SCBWI? I have a challenge for you.
My goal is to get 1,000 teachers and librarians who have hosted author visits in the past to respond to a very brief Author Visit Survey at http://tinyurl.com/kzjnutv

How can you help? Send a short personal message along with this link to at least 10 (ten) of your past author visit hosts. http://tinyurl.com/kzjnutv

Why am I doing this survey? Because many teachers and librarians who want to host author visits have met with resistance to hosting one in their schools. As a result, I’ve been working on a study to provide statistics and stories to assist them in making a case for bringing authors and illustrators to their schools.

The study, which was piloted successfully in 2013, will gather data on what effects an author visit has on students’ attitudes toward reading writing and revision.  Right now, I’m “taking the temperature” of anyone who has hosted an author visit at their school or library through this 5-minutes-or-less survey. http://tinyurl.com/kzjnutv

What’s in it for you? No one has ever done an empirical, quantitative study on author visits. Not only will you be helping contribute to this groundbreaking study that will benefit young readers, but this will give you an opportunity to connect again with your past hosts.

Need help framing your letter to hosts? Click here: Sample appeal to past school visit hosts

As of today, I have 177 responses to the survey. Will you help me push it up to the top?

Warmest best wishes,

ALEXIS

Telling Stories About Yourself

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Coyote Storyteller by RIchard Shields

Coyote Storyteller by Richard Shields

Humans are wired for stories. So if you really want audiences to connect with you, weave stories about yourself into your presentations.

Have you ever read Reader’s Digest? I used to flip to the columns “Life in These United States,” “Humor in Uniform” and “Laughter the Best Medicine.” I loved these 100-150-word jolts of stories. I looked forward to their punch lines.

Aesop had it right: short bursts of stories with beginnings, middles and ends. Stories from which listeners could derive meaning and identify with. Fables showing characters’ vulnerabilities and strengths.

Recently, I attended the SCBWI Summer Conference. After awhile, sessions began to blend together. There was so much rich helpful information! So many quotable quotes spilling from keynoters’ lips! But one of the most memorable keynote presentations for me was by Matt de la Peña. Why? He anchored his talk with stories – – about his family, himself, his vulnerabilities. He shared a story which led up to his leaning against a post, waiting for his first big crush to emerge from the fast food place across from his high school, expecting her to run up to him to thank him for the heartfelt poem he had penned for her, but was crushed when, instead, she went another way to avoid him. I pictured each moment of that scene. And he brought the story up to the present day. A story with a beginning, middle and end.

Whether you are speaking to an adult audience or to kids, remember to weave in a story or two about yourself – ones that listeners can connect with. Dig for funny or poignant nuggets from . . .

 

  • Growing up years
  • Disappointments / heartbreaks
  • Celebrations (disastrous or otherwise)
  • Unexpected kindnesses from others
  • Family vacations (or lack thereof)
  • School (conflicts or triumphs)

    If you’re not sure how to structure your personal stories, take a look at the compilation, Reader’s Digest Life in These United States: True Stories and Humorous Glimpses from America’s Most Popular Magazine, or stories in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series created by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen. 

    But most of all, tell stories from your heart. You’ll connect with listeners as surely as you have connected with readers through your books.

Slap Happy Name Tags

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This is the best name tag placement. Others can read it easily when you shake hands.

This is the best name tag placement. Others can read it easily when you shake hands.

You’re probably scratching your head saying, “Really? A whole post on where to slap a name tag? Has she lost her mind?” But while getting ready for the upcoming SCBWI Summer conference this week, I thought about one of my pet peeves – hard-to-read name tags.  The stick-on kind and the hanging kind.

Admit it. You know what I’m talking about. Someone bounds up to say hi.  You know her face but can’t call up her name. You are embarrassed to search her chest for the tag that can help you. It’s there, but out of eye range, over her heart in the fold of her sweater partially covered by her scarf. Or it’s hanging from a lanyard somewhere just north of her belly-button. And when you do find it, you discover that it has flipped over, showing a nice display of all the business cards that your friend (What IS her name???) has collected from other friends. (How long can I wait for someone to come close and call this nameless friend by her true name so that I’m not a total fool for asking?)

Now I have a couple of choices: I can pretend to straighten the name tag, sneak a peek while I’m at it and compliment her on her unique collection of business cards. Or I can restick her adhesive rectangle and take a gander as I do. But wouldn’t it be much, much better if all authors and illustrators were dedicated to being more Name Tag Aware and fix them themselves?

So, if you want to be known, (and isn’t it worth it to be known when you find yourself unexpectedly in a circle of editors and agents?) here are a couple of tips:

For the lanyard type name badges: Tie the rope up a bit higher so that your tag is within eye range. Anchor it so that it doesn’t spin.

For the stick-on type name tags: place the tag on your RIGHT side. This way, others can read your name with an unobtrusive glance as you shake hands. (Most people slap it over their heart on the left. But then others have to do eyeball dances to read them when tags are — way. over. there.

If you’re reading this before you come to the conference – or even while you are there – just humor me and make it easy for me to read who you are!

 Here’s a bonus tip from author Joan Bransfield Graham.

 

“I have a drawer full of nametags from various events, and I recycle them as needed. I use the one pictured on the left if I'm not given a nametag and need one. The one on the right is from an SCBWI conference. I print small pictures of my book covers and add them with a loop of tape on the back; then I can take them off and put them wherever I want. Including that visual helps people connect a face with a book.”

“I have a drawer full of nametags from various events, and I recycle them as needed. I use the one pictured on the left if I’m not given a nametag and need one. The one on the right is from an SCBWI conference. I print small pictures of my book covers and add them with a loop of tape on the back; then I can take them off and put them wherever I want. Including that visual helps people connect a face with a book.”

 

How I Got Back Into the School Visit Game

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Guest Post by Joanne Rocklin

  “While I’d been gone . . . kids had been born who’d actually never seen an old-fashioned slide projector! I was riddled with anxiety.”

 Cover_Orangestreet_Joanne_RocklinI hadn’t published for a few years, but if you love writing and it’s one of the few things you do well, eventually you go back to it. The good news is, I did sell three novels. The bad news is, I had to completely revamp my school presentations to include my new work.

While I’d been gone, school visits, it seemed to me, had morphed into productions involving a great deal of new technical wizardry. Kids had been born who’d actually never seen an old-fashioned slide projector! I was riddled with anxiety. So I spent one happy afternoon reading old posts on the SchoolVisitExperts.com site (an activity I highly recommend) and I began to feel much more confident.  Certain posts and topics were especially important to me:

Tips on Crowd Control

For some reason I’d forgotten that I’d spent a large part of my life as a school teacher, clinical psychologist and parent. Reading old posts, I was reminded that kids themselves haven’t changed. Crowd control is just a matter of knowing the right tricks –humor, a well-placed pause, signals, and some clever, pointed questions to chatty kids help a lot.

Ideas for Great Beginnings

I went straight to the “Great Beginnings” post in the archives–it’s terrific. It was a reminder to Mitzie_Zoe_Puppets_Oaklandme that openings set the mood and the stage. The beginning of the presentation should be engaging, and most importantly, show that you yourself are glad to be there. Some authors begin with a song, some with humor, some with visuals, or costumes, some with intriguing questions. What this post made me realize was that I already had a great beginning – why was I throwing the baby out with the bath water? Or in this case, the silly cat puppet who had problems with his own writer’s block, a puppet that kids have always loved, no matter what their ages.

Lessons on “Shaping the Presentation”

Cover_ZOOK_HC_Joanne_RocklinHere was the post written just for me, and all other authors who are invited to visit schools but need to be reminded why. Why do we do school visits?  Because we are authors! We have lots to say about our books, about our day, about our desks, our pets, our childhoods and about those secrets we’re really excited to share. And here’s the phrase I needed to read: “. . .if you’re not a wizard at PowerPoint”…(Yes! Yes! That’s me!) and then the article goes on to enumerate all the other ways to make my presentation exciting without fancy-schmancy technology: use props, interact with the kids, think of the presentation itself as a story with a great beginning, an interesting middle, and a definite ending. I could do that!

Then a funny thing happened on the way to my school visits. I outlined everything I wanted to do and say. I streamlined my old school presentation and shaped it all like a story. I yak about how my pets have helped improved my writing, interspersed with student participation and the use of props and my trusty cat puppet. 

Relieved of the burden of “having” to use the new technology, I decided to trot over to the Apple store to learn how to fool around with the new Keynote software. Just, well, just because. Just because it didn’t matter as much anymore. And, just for fun. And it was! I fell in love. I am now an official Geek, the proud possessor of a presentation with a certain amount of bells and whistles and music and, yes, piped-in cat yowls.  I may have overdone it, but as I said, it was fun.  And hopefully, if I’m having fun, so will the kids.

Thanks, Alexis!

Disclaimer: Let me assure you that Alexis O’Neill did not pay me to say wonderful things about this site. I did offer to mail her a brisket pot roast but she refused; that’s how much integrity she has.  Or maybe she’s a vegetarian…

Joanne_Rocklin_aug_2010-330JOANNE ROCKLIN is the author of middle grade novels and early readers. Her novel The Five Lives Of Our Cat Zook won the 2013 SCBWI Golden Kite for Fiction, and her novel, One Day and One Amazing Morning on Orange Street won numerous awards including the FOCAL Award from the Los Angeles Public Library and the California Library Association Beatty Award. Joanne has a doctorate in psychology and is a former elementary school teacher. For several years she taught a popular class in writing children’s books at UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. She gives presentations to schools, libraries, bookstores and other organizations. http://www.joannerocklin.com/

 

SCBWI Metro NY Talk – Getting Gigs, Delivering the Goods

MetroNY-SCBWI

With my winter coat on my back, boots on my feet and scarf wrapped tightly around my neck, this California gal is in New York for the SCBWI Winter Conference.  But the fun continues afterwards.  I’ll be visiting two schools on Long Island, then heading back to speak at The Professional Series sponsored by Metro NY SCBWI on February 1, 2011 where I’ll be giving authors, illustrators and industry professionals the lowdown about  “Getting Gigs and Delivering the Goods.” 

Location: The Anthroposophical Society, New York Branch,
138 West 15th Street (between 6th Avenue & 7th Avenue).

Time: 7:30pm-9:30pm. Doors open at 7:15pm

Setting Fees, Getting Gigs and Delivering the Goods

If you’re at the summer SCBWI Conference at the Century Plaza Hotel in Century City, CA on Sunday, August 1, come on over to my workshop from 10:45 – 11:45 a.m. (room TBA). Our topic is School Visits; Setting Fees, Getting Gigs and Delivering the Goods.  I’ll be sharing lots of resources and looking forward to lively discussion among P.A.L. colleagues.