SCBWI - Los Angeles

I attended the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators in LA last weekend. Being an old cynic, I was pleasantly surprised. A lot of writing cons I’ve been to seem to want to sell you stuff: websites, consulting, self-publishing kits, and so on.

Not here. This was really focused on writing, finding an agent, getting published. No BS marketing. The list of speakers included dozens of published and award-winning authors, including Kat Yeh, who was eloquent in describing her shyness and struggles to “get out there” when she was just beginning her career.

It was, for me, a chance to continue my search for an agent for Losing Normal. There were a dozen or more agents there, and they all announced that they’d be happy to read queries from SCBWI attendees, even though some were not currently open (No, I will not tell you the secret code to query. You have to have been there).

There were dozens of breakout sessions/workshops on aspects of writing and getting published, all focused (mostly) on the children’s/YA market: useful info for beginners, pros and illustrators. The schedule is still available at http://bit.ly/2nwJHyF , so I won’t repeat it here.

Los Angeles last weekend was a gigantic sweat lodge, so I mostly stayed indoors at the LA Marriott location.

I met some nice people, fellow writers, had some good food and was glad I went.

A definite perk of the conference for single guys is that attendees were about 90% – 95% female. Are there no men who write kids’ books?