Bringing Community to a Conference

There's something special about a conference, isn't there?

The speakers, the intensives, the portfolio critiques! Not to mention all those sessions, the one-on-one consults with agents, the Pitch Party! All designed to help you improve your craft, to bring your career into focus.

And then there's the community of a conference, the friends and professionals who understand the struggles of the creative life and are there for you with generous support, the gift of inspiration, and sometimes even a bit of courage.

When Southern Breeze started working to make wik'20 an online conference, we knew we could bring the craft and career focus; we were a bit more challenged with bringing the community.

But Zoom is an amazing platform! We were able to find a way to bring Informal Critiques (and you can still sign up for 'em--they're free!) and the Mentorship Review for illustrators (also free but only a day left for signup!) so that you can get that interactive support that's so much a part of community-building.

Oh, but the inspiration. You can't beat the book launchers for inspiration! When I think back to my earliest conferences, I sometimes remember a keynote speaker but I always remember a book launcher or two. Whether it's the passion they bring as they tell their journey to publication or the grit and determination they share, it's so inspiring! We had to have the book launchers, and we had to have the launchers from wik'20 who'd worked so hard preparing their three minutes of inspiration. But getting 15 people together at one time for a live book launch?

That's extra-challenging. But it was Zoom to the rescue again! Thanks to PAL Coordinator, Heather Montgomery, the launchers were recorded. And rather than having their presentation at a certain time and available only for a week, we've given them a prime spot on the Southern Breeze website HERE.

Throughout the next six weeks or so, for as long as wik'20 2.0 lasts, we'll keep the Book launchers presentation there for you, and all the information about their books, too. All you have to do is copy and paste the Zoom link to the recording into your browser to bring their smiling faces up on your screen. Or you can click directly on the links here:

https://zoom.us/rec/share/wNJcKIvZzmZOcrPMtRrfcKp6McPDT6a80CUc8_sLnx1qahxF6lRkH6mO4uX-C5Ip 

https://zoom.us/rec/share/4dZ6d57900FJSKvU7UTbY4QfRIr3aaa823Id-6ZYy00NoHKJv-5b3OgMaTypBD0t


'Cause we all need a little inspiration now and then, right?

Stay safe, stay inside, and join us for wik'20 2.0. Register HERE!

But What About the Books?

When we had to cancel our wik'20 conference in Birmingham, there was disappointment all around. But there was so much to do to get all of our speakers ready with the online format that we didn't have a lot of time to think about all the extra events that go along with a conference. Events like the Book Signing and Portfolio Show, which was also unfortunately cancelled.





But then I heard our Membership Coordinator, Paula Puckett, talking about the books she'd ordered from the conference. What a great idea, I thought. So I asked her to share her book-buying info:




There are SO many favorite things about attending an SCBWI Southern Breeze conference, and seeing books by some of our SB authors/speakers is right up there at the TOP of my list! I love, love, LOVE the chance to catch up with a few long-time friends, make NEW friends, buy their books, and have them sign my very own copy.

Things changed up just a bit for this year, and the Conference Team has been busy putting together our conference in an online format. Now is the time to sign up, if you haven't already done so. But what about the books? you might be asking. How can you get the books? 

Little Professor Book Center in Homewood, AL is Birmingham's Oldest Independent Bookstore. They are also the wonderful folks who were going to be at the conference, selling us all of those books.

And here is what they are saying:

"We would be happy to handle book sales for the people interested in books from the conference. In fact we have already handled a few orders. Please give anyone interested in purchasing books our contact information."

Orders can be sent to any of the following:

Email - lphomewood@gmail.com

Phone - (205) 870-7461 T

Text message - (205) 526-3332

"We also have begun offering a local delivery service. Free for addresses within 10 miles of the store and $5.00 for the rest of the Birmingham area."

And what a stellar line up of books from WIK speakers they have available for us! Just take a look at this list: 

Answering the Cry for Freedom by Gretchen Woelfle and R. Gregory Christie (illustrator)
Bugs Don’t Hug: Six-Legged Parents and their Kids by Heather Montgomery and Stephen Stone (illustrator)
Counting Birds by Heidi E.Y. Stemple and Clover Robin (illustrator)
Cowhide-and-Seek by Sheri Dillard and Jess Pauwels (illustrator)
Dictionary for a Better World by Irene Latham, Charles Waters, and Mehrdokht Amini (illustrator) Eek You Reek!: Poems about Animals that Stink, Stank, Stunk by Jane Yolen, Heidi E.Y. Stemple, and Eugenia Nobati (illustrator)
Emily Writes by Jane Yolen and Christine Davenier (illustrator)
The Falling Between Us by Ash Parsons
FireTruck vs. Dragon by Chris Barton and Shanda McCloskey (illustrator)
Fly With Me by Jane Yolen, Heidi E.Y. Stemple, Adam Stemple, and Jason Stemple
Freedom in Congo Square by Carole Boston Weatherford and R. Gregory Christie (illustrator)
Girls Like Us by Randi Pink
Grandma’s Purse by Vanessa Brantley-Newton
The House on Dirty-Third Street by Jo S. Kittinger and Thomas Gonzalez (illustrator)
Into White by Randi Pink
Just Like Me by Vanessa Brantley-Newton
A Kite for Moon by Jane Yolen, Heidi E.Y. Stemple, and Matt Phelan (illustrator)
Love, Agnes: Postcards from an Octopus by Irene Latham and Thea Baker (illustrator)
Mama’s Work Shoes by Caron Levis and Vanessa Brantley-Newton (illustrator)
Maple by Lori Nichols
Mapping the Bones by Jane Yolen 
Meet Miss Fancy by Irene Latham and John Holyfield (illustrator)
Miriam at the River by Jane Yolen and Khoa Le (illustrator) 
Mousetropolis by R. Gregory Christie
Octopus Escapes! by Nathaniel Lachenmeyer and Frank W. Dormer (illustrator) 
Oliver: The Second-Largest Living Thing on Earth by Josh Crute and John Taesoo Kim (illustrator) Owl Moon by Jane Yolen and John Schoenherr (illustrator)
Rosa’s Bus: The Ride to Civil Rights by Jo S. Kittinger and Steven Walker (illustrator)
The Shifter by Janice Hardy
The Singing Rock & Other Brand-New Fairy Tales by Nathaniel Lachenmeyer and Simini Blocker (illustrator)
Something Rotten: A Fresh Look at Roadkill by Heather Montgomery and Kevin O’Malley (illustrator)
T-Bone the Drone by Shanda McCloskey
Two By Two by Lisa Lowe Stauffer and Angelika Scudamore (illustrator)
Until I Break by Kara M. Bietz
You Nest Here with Me by Jane Yolen, Heidi E.Y. Stemple, and Melissa Sweet (illustrator)

Thank You, Thank You, Thank Yous all around. To Little Professor and their Team for bringing us BOOKS! To all of the Volunteers and Conference Team for working to bring us a conference in (yes) another format. Thank Yous to our Faculty and Speakers, for what you have done and are yet to do.

 All my best,
 Paula Puckett
SB Membership Coordinator

If You Give Children's Writers and Illustrators An Online Conference...

They're going to want to come!

Our first wik'20 2.0 sessions start today and our Zoom rooms are filling up! So we thought you might want a bit more information about how our online conference will work:

First, you must be registered for the event and/or session you wish to attend, even if it's free. You can register for an event up till 10:00 AM Eastern (9:00 AM Central) the day of the session/event. And if you've already registered and want to add to your registration, you can do that, too, as long as it's before the deadline of the session/event. Email Southern-Breeze@scbwi.org.

On or the day before the event, you will receive an email from one of our Regional Team members. We'll be your moderators during the online conference. This email will provide you with the Zoom link and password you'll need to attend the session. If there are any instructions from a speaker, we'll give you that information, too. We'll also throw in a couple of tips to help you get the most from your session.

If you cannot attend the event at the live date/time, don't worry! After the session, you'll receive another email from your moderator that will include the link to the recording. You will have seven days from the time of the live event to watch this recording. And you can watch it once or watch it ten times or not watch it at all. But once the seven days are up, so is the recording. Plus, if your session was presented by one of our acquiring faculty, you'll receive the "After the Conference" information so that you can submit.

Get to know Zoom, the online platform we'll be using for the conference. We've already had our training session but you'll find plenty of Zoom training videos on the Zoom website HERE. And if you still need help, then send us an email. Our RT is available to answer questions or walk you through Zoom so you can access your sessions.


An online conference is not quite the same as being there in person, but we'll try to be there for our attendees as much as possible. Online communication is a new adventure for many of us, including our faculty, but...

If you give an online conference for the very first time, there are going to be glitches. Send us an email if you have a problem and keep an eye on your inboxes as we send your information. Stay safe, stay inside, and someday soon, may we all meet for cookies and milk and a Southern Breeze hug or two!

Illustrator's Day 2.0!

We have been diligently planning our online offering of Illustrator’s Day and wik’20 2.0, Southern Breeze’s inaugural online conference! We won’t be able to be together in person, but with today’s technology we are able to share, connect and thrive online.

AN OVERVIEW 

The next six weeks will include offerings from the faculty and PAL speakers who were to present at our in-person conference in Birmingham. Illustrator’s Day will still include some of the same key features we always look forward to: Art Director, Illustrator and Agent presentations, the Mentorship Review and the Quick Fire Portfolio Review. We hope you will attend any and all of these at our online pricing. If you had your heart set on a critique with Saho Fujii you are in luck! She has opened her schedule for one-on-one portfolio critiques. Here’s how you can join us online for Illustrator’s Day 2.0.

Illustrator’s Sessions 

There are many great sessions you can join in a la carte throughout the next 6 weeks. Please don’t feel limited to just illustrator’s sessions. But if you are an illustrator and that is your focus, I’ve put the sessions and dates that may be of interest to you below:


But first, how do I register for the sessions? Click on the registration page HERE!

The Illustration Mentorship Review and Cover Art Session
 March 28th, 9 am - 11am

Saho Fujii, Art Director for Little Brown Books for Young Readers (https://www.lbyr.com/) met with the participants of the mentorship program to develop Book Covers based on classic fables. The Mentees have done a fabulous job at bringing the work from concept, sketch and final art. Saho will provide an online review of the final art LIVE on March 28th at 10am! This session will be valuable to anyone who is interested in children’s book illustration. The live feedback will let you see the process and the final art through the eyes of an art director. We suggest participating in the Cover Art session on March 28th at 9 am to receive the full benefit.

Here’s what you will learn:

● Understand the process of developing a concept based on text
● Sketch development process
● Book cover layout
● Usage of Text in the Art
● Usage of color in final design
● Communication with art directors
● Rendering and delivering final art

Informal Group Portfolio Critiques 
April 3rd, 7pm (Submit by April 2nd) - open to first 10 to sign up

The Informal Group Portfolio Critiques are a free option to be reviewed by your peers. You will need to submit a pdf with a maximum of 10 single page images of your strongest illustrations for review. The Zoom will be moderated by an SCBWI volunteer, but you will receive valuable feedback from the group.

Want to submit for the Informal Portfolio Critique? 

Informal Portfolio Critique Participants

Please send 1 pdf with up to 10 images (one image per page) for your portfolio review for the onscreen peer review to southern-breeze-ic@scbwi.org with the subject line: 2020 Informal Portfolio Critique.


Quick Fire Portfolio Review 

April 6th, 7pm (Submit by April 2nd) - open to first 10 to sign up

The Quick Fire Portfolio review is a fabulous opportunity to have you work viewed by the conference faculty at an affordable price. You will need to submit a pdf with a maximum of 10 single page images of your strongest illustrations for review. The faculty members will spend time with your submitted pdf and provide quick feedback (typically 2-minutes) on the work.

Here’s what you will learn:

● What is working and not working in your portfolio presentation
● Real-time feedback from industry professionals
● Participants and viewers will learn what catches the eye of an agent and art director - present your strongest work and catch their attention fast!

Want to submit for the Quick Fire Portfolio Review? 

Quick Fire Portfolio Review Participants

Please send 1 pdf with up to 10 images (one image per page) for your portfolio review for the onscreen faculty review to southern-breeze-ic@scbwi.org with the subject line: 2020 Quick Fire Portfolio Review

One-on-One Critiques with Saho Fujii
 April 18th (submit by April 15th)

Do you need more than a quick portfolio review? Do you need advice on your illustration career? Saho Fujii has opened a few more slots for her one-on-one critiques. Sign up and submit your portfolio for review.

One-on-One Critiques with Saho Fujii Consultations 
via Zoom on April 18th. 

Your consultation time will be emailed to you. Please create a single pdf with up to 10 images (one on each page) and email it to for review to southern-breeze-ic@scbwi.org using the subject line: WIK20 Portfolio Critique – Saho Fujii.

Online Conferencing through Zoom 

New to Zoom? Registration & Confirmation

All presentations and critiques will be conducted on the Zoom platform, an easy and accessible means of video communication. New to Zoom? Here’s how we can help:

● A link to Zoom training will be provided when you receive registration confirmation for any session.
● Zoom meeting reminders will be sent when you sign up
● Zoom Room access opens ten minutes before the session starts so you can ask your moderator questions. We’ll make sure you’re ready to Zoom!

Most of our sessions, though big on information, are small on price! We’ll even have a few “freebies” on Fridays—but you must register, even if you’re attending only the free events/sessions. That’s how you’ll get the email with the Zoom link.

Recorded Sessions are Available for 7 Days only!

Sessions will be presented live and in real-time! Each session will be recorded and available for viewing within a couple hours. They will only be accessible for 7 days from the live date. If you can’t make the live presentation, watch whenever you want (during the time period that it’s available).

Glitches could happen. Please be patient as we all navigate this new territory. If we need to reschedule an event, we will do so and notify you of the rescheduled date. If we need to cancel the session, you will receive a refund. (Be aware of the schedule...this does not apply if you don’t watch the session in the 7 day watch period)

Register Soon! 

Our Zoom account allows a limited number of attendees, so please don’t delay your registration. We are sorry we won’t be able to be with you in person, but we are grateful for the community of children’s book creators we have built over the years in SCBWI Southern Breeze. The in-person connections cannot be replaced, but for now, technology will keep us stitched together and moving forward as we create books for the next generation. So keep creating and join us for the sessions of your choice at Illustrator's Day and wik’20 2.0 online!

Wik'20 2.0 Opens!

 

*'20 2.0

As promised, we’re rolling out wik’20 2.0, Southern Breeze’s inaugural online conference! And though we can’t bring that special camaraderie that comes with the in-person togetherness of our writer and/or illustrator community, we can bring you almost all of the content of wik’20.

Throughout the next six weeks, our faculty and PAL speakers will be presenting many of the same sessions attendees would have experienced in Birmingham. So if you had your heart set on that agent talk about successful queries, or that digging-deep-into-craft session, you can still get ‘em. However, we’re not able to bring Jane Yolen and Heidi Stemple’s picture book intensive—yet.

Don’t worry, Jane and Heidi are fine; they’re just not available for the conference. We’re already making plans to bring their workshop in the fall, so keep checking back with Southern Breeze. For now, take a look at the registration page and what we can offer you HERE. 

We’re using Zoom, an easy and accessible means of video communication. We’ve used it already in our region for video meetings and critique conferencing. But if you haven’t tried Zoom yet, you have several options to get up to speed. We’ll have a link to Zoom training at our registration site and when you receive registration confirmation for any session, you’ll also get that reminder to practice with Zoom beforehand. And we’ll even give you access to your Zoom Room ten minutes before the session starts so you can ask your moderator questions. We’ll make sure you’re ready to Zoom!

Most of our sessions, though big on information, are small on price! We have sessions with the perks you love (Like submission opportunities for agents and/or editors!) and we even have a few “freebies” on Fridays—but you must register, even if you’re attending only the free events/sessions. That’s how you’ll get the email with the Zoom link.

About these sessions…we’ll be presenting live. That means when you join the session, the speaker will be presenting in real time. But we’ll be recording every session, and each event/session will be available for viewing for up to seven days from the live date. So if you can’t make your session when it goes live, a few hours after it ends, every registered attendee will receive the link to the recorded session. You can watch whenever you like, for as many times as you like, during the seven days following the original air date.

But just as you may have an emergency and be unable to watch the live program, speakers may have last minute glitches, too. We’ll make every effort to reschedule if that should happen, but if for some reason an event and/or session is cancelled, you’ll get a refund. (However, you won’t get a refund if you don’t watch your session in time, so please stay on top of the schedule!)

There are limits on the number of attendees we can accommodate with Zoom, and remember, members beyond Southern Breeze will have access to wik’20 2.0, too, so please don’t delay your registration! GO TO THE REGISTRATION PAGE HERE AND SIGN UP NOW!

We’re sorry we can’t be with you in person this year and we hope you’ll all stay safe and stay in! But while you’re staying in, we can give you an online conference that’s a little like a cafeteria line: pick what looks good and fill up on some of the best children’s writing and illustration content ever!

And next, here's Illustrator Coordinator, TeMika Grooms, who’ll be sharing more about what we’re offering for Illustrator’s Day 2.0!

WIK20 Cancelled

After the recent updates from the Center for Disease Control re: COVID-19 (Novel Coronavirus), SCBWI Southern Breeze has made the decision to cancel wik'20 this weekend in Birmingham.

Though we are making plans to bring many of our sessions to our attendees, here is the information you need now:

If your travel plans include hotel arrangements, please cancel immediately! We'll be sending information to all attendees with instructions re: cancelling at the Aloft. You cannot cancel online; you must call to cancel.

SCBWI  Southern Breeze will refund registration fees (including meals). However, if you have a manuscript critique or a consult, these are still in place and we'll be sending instructions for how these will work. Those fees will not be refunded.

Other plans are on-going and we're working as quickly as possible to figure everything out with our faculty and for our attendees in order to offer webinars of sessions. We know it's not exactly what we had planned but our first priority is to keep everyone safe in our region and beyond!

Stay tuned, you'll hear more from us soon!


Claudia, Sharon, TeMika, Cathy, and Lisa

Breezers in Your Neighborhood--MARCH!

All kinds of events going on all over the Southern Breeze region so take a look and come out and join us!


Sunday, March 8th

Both author Jennifer Swanson and illustrator TeMika Grooms will be at Little Shop of Stories in Decatur, Georgia as part of the Atlanta Science Festival. Come out for this free event and book-signing and find out if you have what it takes to be a human crash test dummy!

When: 2:00 to 3:00 PM

Where: Little Shop of Stories Bookstore
             133A East Court Square
             Decatur, GA





Monday, March 9

From LL Suzanne Purvis in the Florida Panhandle:

When: 10:30 AM

Where: Santa Rosa Mall Food Court
             Fort Walton Beach, FL

What: Bring a craft tip to share and up to 500 words for critique or positivity pass OR up to three illustration spreads for critique or positivity pass.


Friday, March 13- Saturday, March 14

Join us in the Birmingham area for Illustrators' Day, Writer's Intensives, and wik'20! It's all happening at the Homewood Public Library and the Aloft Hotel and there are still a few spots left. Get all the information and register HERE today!


Saturday, March 21

Author Randi Sonenshine has busy times ahead with the launch of her debut picture book, The Nest That Wren Built! She'll have fun bird crafts and an interactive presentation of her story at this free event, though there may be limited copies of the book available. (Books are available for pre-order and should arrive in time for signing.)



When: 10 AM

Where: Cartersville Library
             429 W. Main Street
             Cartersville, GA


Sunday, March 22

Join Randi for a Storytime!

When: 2:00 PM

Where:  Little Shop of Stories Bookstore
             133A East Court Square
             Decatur, GA

On April 4th, Randi will have another book-signing and storytime at Avid Bookshop in Athens, GA. Find more details in Breezers in Your Neighborhood in April. And if you have news, let us know! We'd love to join you at your next event!