SCBWI-MI Fall Conference Wrap-up: Christy Ottaviano, Candace Fleming, and Eric Rohmann

The conference on Mackinac Island last month featured a stellar line-up of speakers. Yesterday, Charlie Barshaw gave us an overview from his perspective as conference co-chair. We continue today with a sampling of a few of the sessions. Thanks to Lisa Healy, Catherine Bieberich, and Diana Magnuson for sharing their experiences.


CHRISTY OTTAVIANO by Lisa Healy

I was a shadow. Well, not really. I didn't cast a gray pool on the carpeting behind Christy Ottaviano but I did assist the editor of Christy Ottaviano Books at the fall conference. Imagine what it must be like to have your own imprint! Until then, I’ll commit her submission guidelines to memory and prepare to submit, grabbing the reins of my work as the title of her Saturday session so aptly suggested.

Christy Ottaviano

Ottaviano is looking for a well-written manuscript with a strong voice. “I look at things faster when they have a familiar hook,” she said. “Are you telling me your book is To Kill a Mockingbird meets Charlie & the Chocolate Factory?”

Janet Tashjian, author of My Life as a Book, worked with Ottaviano to produce the series that was a reflection of Tashjian’s son who struggled with attention and reading issues. He used to illustrate his vocabulary words as a visual learning tool, and channeled his talents into the My Life as a Book series. Ottaviano was drawn to the author’s fictional translation of a real world issue.

Elise Broach, another client of Ottaviano’s, is the creator of Masterpiece, a modern day version of The Littles, one of the editor’s childhood favorites. “This book, coming out as a movie in 2016, introduces James, a loner who befriends a beetle,” said Ottaviano, a fan of the arts. “His mother is a socialite and never has time for him. The boy and the beetle get involved in an art heist at the museum.”

This session was further reinforcement that learning more about the person you plan to submit to is a good idea before you send off your manuscript. Does the agent or editor have special interests that are evident in the type of books on his or her list? At the end of the day, I walked away excited to read a wealth of new titles.

Lisa Healy is a writer who has worn many hats, including those of news reporter, newspaper columnist, author, and vineyard owner.  She enjoys Michigan lake life with her husband and daughter, and takes every opportunity to visit her two college sons in Grand Rapids or spoil them with home cooking on their breaks.  She is currently volunteering on the SCBWI-MI advisory committee.  Her writing has been published in numerous local and regional newspapers, A Century of Voices, BLUE Magazine, and MANITOU, and she's photographed both local and national celebrities, including Alan Mulally and Betty White, for TIME Magazine's TIME for Kids. 

CANDACE FLEMING by Catherine Bieberich

Candace Fleming

Candace Fleming was not only brilliant and informative, she was easily one of the most charming presenters I’ve ever had the pleasure of shadowing. Although she knew how to kick back and have fun, she was very serious about history. She made it very clear that, whether writing fiction or nonfiction, accuracy is the most important element. Too often, authors will sacrifice accuracy for the sake of story. Candace stressed that any text dealing with history should be well researched and documented. As authors, we are the caretakers of our nation’s stories, as well as our nation’s children. Both fiction and nonfiction consist of telling a good tale, but there is no reason to fill our tales with fallacies. After all, truth is more often than not stranger than fiction.

Catherine Bieberich lives in Battle Creek, Michigan with her husband, Kent, and her mutt dog, Chloe. She teaches sixth, seventh and eighth grade at a local charter school during the fall and uses her summers to work on Middle Grade and Young Adult fiction novels.

Cathy also coordinated the SCBWI-MI Mentorship competition, and the winners and finalists were announced at the fall conference:

Thanks to everyone who entered the 2014-15 Novel Mentorship competition. It was very exciting to have our mentor, Edie Hemingway, on Mackinac Island with us. She traveled from Frederick, Maryland to enjoy the fudge and our wonderful company. She was glad to meet everyone, especially the contestants who were in attendance.

This year's winners were:

1st place (and a mentorship with Edie Hemingway): Wendy Sherrill "Playing Dead"

2nd place: Ann Finkelstein "The Wind Djin"

3nd place: Magdalena Roddy "Certain Exceptions"

ERIC ROHMANN by Diana Magnuson

Message: STORY is all that matters. Create your illustrations to form a sequence that makes sense all together. Finished art shows how your brain works during the creating process.

Eric Rohman

Eric’s steps to achieve STORY:

1.  He stands, using his whole body to work up big, very, very rough sketches on his ‘least precious materials’ creating up to forty 18” by 24” ‘thumbnails’.

2.  A SKETCHBOOK of drawings, notes, references and color sketches is produced for each book. These first two steps take 95% of his time. “95% of everything we do on a project is ‘crap’.”

3.  Next, a STORYBOARD is created.

4.  Lastly: a BOOK DUMMY to show the ‘page turns’ (to get the reader to want to turn each page).

 Diana Magnuson: 97 books, MFA, now working on her own books and very involved in environment art and writing. She was much relieved to hear about the 95% and the process.

SCBWI-MI website

For more information on upcoming conferences including webinars, go to the SCBWI-MI website. And if you've been dreaming about attending one of the SCBWI international conferences, see yesterday's post for information about Shutta's Scholarship to the 2015 winter conference in New York.







Come back next Friday to learn about an indie bookstore gem in suburban Detroit. Hope you're having a great weekend!
Kristin Lenz

Behind the Scenes at the SCBWI-MI Mackinac Island Conference, and a New York scholarship!

Behind the Scenes at the Mackinac Island Conference
by Charlie Barshaw

I thought I’d check my notes, but aside from the excellent Friday afternoon intensive with Candy Fleming, I’ve got nothing but crumpled receipts, scraps of paper whose messages have bled together, and a whirlwind of memories. As one of the co-chairs, I got a taste--no, make that a a four course meal--of the conference organizer’s busy life.

But it wasn't all missing projectors and phantom cheese trays. The perks involved working with a dedicated bunch of intelligent and resourceful people, meeting some first-class human beings who also happen to be talented editors, agents, authors and illustrators, and being privy to the kind of interactions few outside the circle have seen.

Here're a few scenes from behind the curtain of the Fall 2014 SCBWI-MI conference:

Anita Pazner has a fantastic cabin near Boyne City. Cabin hardly does it justice. A few of us made the trip a day early on Wednesday, so that we'd have an easy drive to Mackinac City on Thursday morning. As bedtime approached, editor Arthur Levine messaged the group and asked if it would be possible for him to arrive at the island a day earlier than scheduled. 

Droopy eyelids popped open, and the four people with smart phones began filling the night with texts, tweets and messages. I stood with my dumb phone and watched in awe.

Rides were pieced together, an extra night for the hotel room reserved, and Arthur arrived at Mackinac on Thursday.

One of the topics at dinner with Arthur on Thursday night happened to be the dual spellings of Mackinac and Mackinaw. (The consensus opinion being that the former was the French spelling, the latter the British.)

On the way back to the hotel, Arthur regaled the group with his fine tenor rendition of “Wonder of Wonders, Miracle of Miracles” from The Fiddler on the Roof and a selection from Pippin.

And one more Arthur story: Friday morning, Arthur rented a bike and toured the island. A group of us had been in town, where Anita and I posed in old-fashioned garb, and on the way back we met agent Jodell Sadler at the dock. 

Arthur rode by one of the streets, and stopped to chat. He wondered why the bike rental place didn’t have helmets. Was their reasoning that, since there were no cars, the risk of bike crashes was negligible? Luckily, he said, his head fit into a child’s helmet.

Arthur Levine with Heidi Sheffield, the lucky winner of a free manuscript critique from the silent auction.

Laszlo Slomovits, one half of the Ann Arbor music duo Gemini, attended the conference, and actually brought along one of his stringed instruments. On Saturday evening, as the book signing wound down in the the hotel lobby, Candy Fleming, Eric Rohmann, Laurie Keller, and Ed Spicer joined him around one of the fireplaces. He reportedly put the words of Oh No (Candy and Eric’s jointly produced picture book) to music and sang it for them.

There’s more, much more, but you’ll have to purchase my memoirs.

Charlie Barshaw just finished the most challenging and rewarding weekend of his literary life when he co-chaired the SCBWI-MI Fall 2014 Mackinac Island Conference. Now he's wading through revisions on his MG squirrel invasion adventure. The zombie versions of other not-quite-dead manuscripts beckon him from the vault.

Come back tomorrow for a recap of conference sessions by Candace Fleming, Eric Rohman, and editor Christy Ottaviano. 

Have you dreamed of attending the SCBWI international conference in New York? If you are a member of SCBWI-MI, don't forget about the wonderful scholarship opportunity from Shutta Crum:

Shutta’s Scholarship Solution to the Winter Doldrums is Here Again!

If you are interested in attending the 2015 SCBWI Winter Conference in New York City, but feel you can’t afford it—think again! With member Shutta Crum’s help you might find yourself at the Grand Hyatt in NY on a blustery winter weekend.

Shutta is renewing her offer to pay the full early-bird registration fee for a Michigan SCBWI member to attend. ($415.00) The qualifying rules are listed on the application form which will be posted on the SCBWI-MI website and at Shutta’s site. (Deadline to apply for the scholarship is by midnight, Dec. 10, 2014.)

The conference is Feb. 6 - 8, 2014. Early bird registration is through December 15, 2014. See the national SCBWI website for conference details as they unfold. You never know what magical thing might happen to you there!

Any questions, feel free to contact Shutta Crum, or coRA Leslie Helakoski at: leslie AT helakoskibooks DOT com.

Past winners have included: Amy Nielander, Kelly Barson, Vicky Lorencen, and Elizabeth McBride. Of last year’s conference Beth said, “I met such wonderful people and heard great presentations, thought and re-thought my efforts and intentions, and shared hopes and dreams with new friends and old.”

Good luck and Happy Halloween!
Kristin Lenz