The Evolution of the Shop Talk

Networks Day, Monthly Meet-Ups, Shop Talks: At Last, the Origins of LAST

By Charlie Barshaw

Shop Talks, for most of us, are a comforting perk of membership in the Michigan chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. But did you know that they weren’t always ‘Shop Talks’ and at one time happened only one day a year?

It all started with some busywork. How to let the new guy (me) on the Ad(ministrative) Com(mittee) do something without jeopardizing the whole SCBWI-MI organization? Well, let him loose on Networks Day.

It's Leslie's fault

Way back in 2012, Networks Day was a one-day event that had been going on for years. In 2011, it was a “critique meet,” but in years past had been a “schmooze-type event with a theme,” according to then-R(egional)A(dvisor) Leslie Helakoski.

I ended up calling it “My Area’s Got Talent,” based on a popular TV contest. The emails I sent to the Michkids list serv got increasingly creative.

For example:

My Muse and I were arguing, as we were wont to do in the middle of winter.

"Nothing," I said. "You've given me nothing since the Christmas gift thank you notes, and even those were written by some hack."

"Oh, I should give, give, give and get nothing in return?" said my Muse. " Why don't you take me out? I've got Seasonal Affective Disorder. I'm SAD!"

"Yeah, well it'd be easier to go somewhere if I didn't have to drag all these extra clothes on, shovel the walk and scrape off the car windows. Winter in Michigan sucks as soon as the holidays are over."

"Waah, waah, waah," said my Muse, a little unsympathetically.

"Okay, look. How about we go to a bookstore. You like bookstores."

"Lame," said my Muse. "All you'll do is read and drink coffee. Invite your writer and illustrator friends. I know for a fact that their Muses are fed up, too. We Muses need some loving."

"Done," I said, relieved it was so simple. "February 16, 17, 23 or 24. Maybe all the above. I'm sure lots of creative people will show up: my area's got talent!"

Don't antagonize your Muse. Volunteer to hold a meeting in your area.

In the end there were ten regional meetings, held in Lansing, Marquette, Pinckney, Royal Oak, Three Rivers, Troy, Ann Arbor, Muskegon, Traverse City, and South Haven.

It happened here

In January 2013, Michelle Bradford dragged a reluctant me along to start the Mid-Michigan Meet-Up. She envisioned a regular monthly two-hour regional event

She scheduled the first meeting of MMMU at the Michigan History Museum on Saturday, January 26 where Ruth McNally Barshaw and Elizabeth McBride presented to about 30 area writers.

By September of that year, Michelle, who had powered all the meetings through July, suddenly dropped off the radar. Ann Finkelstein stepped in, and for the next 7 years or so, kept the meet-up meeting-up. They officially became Shop Talks in November of 2015 , because by then, the phrase "meet-up" had some less savory connotations.

Soon, it was decided there was no need for a Networks Day, as the regional meet-ups had filled that space. By 2014, the SE Mitten-Meet up was meeting in Farmington Hills. In  2015, Betsy McKee-Williams had started the Ann Arbor chapter, and Dave Stricklen had set up in West Coast territory.

A recent Shop Talk presentation

Today there are Shop Talks in Ann Arbor, SE Michigan, Lansing, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, and Traverse City. They are organized by dedicated volunteers, provided at no cost to members and not-yet members.

Each month, coordinators create a whole range of experiences for creatives around the state. They offer social interaction meet-and-greets, full-blown presentations by knowledgeable speakers, topic discussions, writing exercises, critique meets, even nature walks. We’ve even been able to fold in a bookstore meet with a book talk given by a much-published picture book author.

Shop Talks meet in museums and coffee shops, libraries and private residences, in parks and gardens and classrooms,

Brianne Farley and the Up North Shop Talk

at an illustrator's studio, on Zoom, and in-person. They meet on weekday evenings, weekend mornings or afternoons. They can be small and intimate gatherings, or large, raucous events.

From my own experience, I’ve had a member check in from Qatar and from California on Zoom, or drive in from Detroit, Grand Blanc, Lake Orion, and Jackson for our face-to-face gatherings.

And the people you meet! I’ve met an active judge and a retired one, professors and scientists, farmers and police chiefs, editors, authors and illustrators. From teens to parents to grandparents.

Isabel and KAST

In fact, I’ve created a series of Writer Spotlights featuring people I met at LAST :Robin Pizzo, Michelle Traven, Amanda Esch-Cormier, Kathleen E. Clark, Laura Luptowski Seeley, Vicky Lorecen, and even Isabel Estrada O’Hagin, now the coordinator of the Kalamazoo Shop Talks. Check out their interviews and find out who hung with Big Red Clifford, who traveled to Ireland, who sang on stage in Nashville, who read Gone With the Wind in one day, and who owns a sesquicentennial farm.

Why should you participate in a Shop Talk? With the variety of meeting formats, topics and places, there’s surely something that interests you. So, growing out of a one-day-a-year Networks Day, the SCBWI-MI Meet-Up/Shop Talk groups were some of the earliest of their kind in the United States.

For more information on Shop Talks in your area, check the monthly calendar of events, or contact Shop Talk Liaison Tom Keller at heytomkeller@gmail.com.

           

Charlie and Ruth

Charlie Barshaw interviews interesting SCBWI-Michiganders for The Mitten. He and his wife, author/illustrator Ruth McNally Barshaw travel throughout the state and beyond for school and library visits. He has two YAs and two MGs in various forms of completion . He likes referring to himself in third person.