SCBWI Carolinas celebrates 30 years together in 2022
To celebrate our 30th year, SCBWI Carolinas is launching the 30th Birthday Package, a 9-month program designed to walk you through the creative process in 2022. Together we will take 30 steps to bring our work to life over the course of the spring and summer and have it ready for critique and submission by conference time.
HOW IT WORKS
The process will include a virtual launch party, individual work, monthly check-ins, creative exercises specified for writers or illustrators, a slate of PAL-led webinars, and an Illustrator’s Intensive Day to help you start and build your WIP stage by stage. You will have the option to choose the WRITERS Package or the ILLUSTRATORS Package (or both, for those of you with caffeine in your veins!). Each package includes the same launch party and community check-ins, but has individual goals and creative exercises organized into monthly checklists.
You may also choose to purchase a Birthday Package and add on the faculty-led webinars from the other Package (i.e. purchase the WRITERS Package and add on the Illustrators Intensive Day, or purchase the ILLUSTRATORS Package and add on one or more of the Writers Webinars).
Finally, if you wish to forgo the Birthday Package, you may choose to purchase just the Illustrators Intensive Day and/or one or more Writers Webinars.
Our stellar faculty team is comprised of Carolinas PAL members, an executive editor, agent, and art director.
WHO CAN PARTICIPATE
Creators who already have an outline or first draft in process are ready to start. Creators beginning a new project are encouraged to use time over the holidays to prepare notes/outline/storyboard-thumbnails/pre-writing as needed. If you’re ready, let’s make 2022 a creative and productive year! NOTE: The Writers Package is designed to work for writers of any genre: PB, chapter books, novels, GN.
SCHEDULE OF VIRTUAL EVENTS
Launch Party – Jan 11th, 7:15 pm ET
Join us as we kick off our program by building energy together for the creative work to come. This session NOT recorded.
Writers Webinar #1 with PAL Halli Gomez – Jan 27th, 7:15 pm ET
Writing What You Know. Attendees will look at using an aspect of their lives to build a story full of depth, emotion, knowledge, and intimacy, all of which hooks readers.
Writers Webinar #2 with PAL Brian Anderson – Feb 24th, 7:15 pm ET
Wrangling Your Writing. If I can organize my writing habits, so can you. In this seminar I’ll share the techniques I use to streamline the novel writing process.
Writers Webinar #3 with PAL John Claude Bemis – Mar 24th, 7:15 pm ET
Creating Strong Characters. Learn how to make your characters unforgettable by strengthening your skills with dialogue, characterization, interiority, and agency.
Writers Webinar #4 with PAL Emily Colin – Apr 28th, 7:15 pm ET
“We Love it, But…”: Revision Tips and Tricks to Make Your Manuscript Shine. Congratulations! You’ve finished your manuscript. You’ve invested time, energy and perhaps money, gathered feedback from critique partners, and spent hours making your manuscript submission-ready—but something’s not quite right. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to see your manuscript with fresh eyes, get to the heart of what’s not working, and—best of all—figure out how to fix it.
Writers Webinar #5 with Executive Editor Karen Chaplin – May 19th, 7:15 pm ET
Falling in Love with a Manuscript: From Initial Spark to Publication. What does an editor look for in a manuscript? What is involved in the editorial process? What does it take to get a manuscript from “Initial Spark” to publication?
Illustrators Intensive Day – May 21st, 8:45 am – 4 pm ET
A full day of interactive sessions to help us explore the different phases of the make-sell-buy process (developing the skills of making art, gaining confidence in selling your art, learning what compels industry decision makers to buy your art). We will end the day with a Zoom social and the opportunity to build connections to last beyond this event.
- 9 am – 10:30 am ET – Session 1: Agent Chad Beckerman of the CAT Agency. Building Your Visual Voice.
- 11 am – 12:30 pm ET – Session 2: Art Director Brian LaRossa of Scholastic. An Illustrator’s Guide to Thinking Like an Art Director.
- 1:15 pm – 2:45 pm ET – Session 3: Illustrator Will Terry. Creating, Perfecting, and Self-Critique!
- 3 pm – 4 pm ET – Wrap Up Social. Stick around to chat about what we’ve learned and build connections to continue sharing our work and encouraging each other.