Bring Your Career into Sharper Focus with wik2020: GIFTS FOR WRITERS AND ILLUSTRATORS!

We asked Claudia Pearson, Co-RA of Southern Breeze, to give us a few ideas about bringing your career into sharper focus with wik2020 and she had the perfect gift idea for writers and illustrators!

 Kwanza, Christmas, Hanukkah - the season of giving is here! The holidays are a wonderful time to honor and give back to friends, recognizing the many ways they support you. But what to give your writer and illustrator friends, the ones who have provided feedback, the ones who held your hand as you waited for a response to a submission, waited for an art director or editor to notice your work?

If you ask Google or Amazon or Writer’s Digest or simply search the web for “gifts for writers and illustrators,” you’ll get recommendations like messenger bags and laptop desks, artsy tee shirts, coffee mugs, yummy chocolates, tea, and coffee, useful tools like pens and brushes, sketchbooks, binders, pencil rolls, and productivity promoters like calendars, how-to books, and software, but…

Why not give the gift of inspiration and community that comes from spending time with other writers and illustrators? Isn’t that what your friends give you throughout the year? In an occupation that can be isolating, where we typically work alone, the opportunity to get together with other creatives may be the best gift you can give your writer and illustrator friends.

Gift coupons are available for our upcoming wik20 in March. All you have to do is email Southern-Breeze@scbwi.org and we will invoice you for the amount you want to give and set up a gift coupon code you can print out or email to your friend. We can even do this anonymously if you like!

Planning to come to the conference yourself? There are a limited number of “And-One” spaces available. These are intended to increase our region’s diversity, so if you have a writer or illustrator friend from an underrepresented community who is not an SCBWI member and has never attended an SCBWI conference, after you register, send us:

1. Their name
2. Their email address, and
3. A statement about their interest in writing or illustrating for young readers, and why you think they should be included as your “And-One” for our conference.

But don’t delay! Registration is now open, and some sessions are limited by space. Those who register early will get the early bird discount and first choice on all the opportunities available.


         REGISTER FOR WIK2020 HERE! EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT TILL JANUARY 1, 2020. 

Claudia Pearson retired from her legal practice at the turn of the century to pursue her Master's Degree in Children's Literature at Hollins University. A decades long active member of SCBWI, she has served as a Regional Advisor/co-Regional Advisor for the Southern Breeze Region for almost ten years. She collects antique books and art, and is fascinated with illustration, although she is not an illustrator. Registration guru, website tech hacker, writer of silly picture books and serious middle grade novels, she persists in her dream of writing something that is publishable in the trade market.





Art Image by wik2020 brochure illustrator David SanAngelo.