Space City Scribes

Hi Everyone! We are going to start spotlighting something on the SCBWI website once a month. Thanks to the New Zealand chapter for the idea! This month we are highlighting the  SCBWI podcast . There are currently seven seasons you can access from the SCBWI website. Click on “Publications” then “Podcasts” to see descriptions for each episode as well as links to play them on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Amazon Podcasts. Or use this link to go straight to the page. The SCBWI Podcasts are hosted by archivist Theo Baker. He interviews publishing professionals as well as award-winning writers, illustrators and translators who discuss the ins and outs of the children’s book industry. Find out about the craft and creative process behind young adult novels, picture books, middle-grade fiction, graphic novels and non-fiction. New episodes are released every Thursday during each season.  While learning about others’ work, it may even spark an idea to use in your own work.  Happy crea...

By Margaret Lea Lynne Kelly, from our own Houston SCBWI regional team, has turned her lifelong love of animals into three published books.  In 2006, while working as a special education teacher reading with her students, Lynne became interested in writing. To hone her craft she joined the SCBWI, found a writing group, attended conferences and seminars, and read books such as Stephen King’s ON WRITING, Anne Lamott’s BIRD BY BIRD and multiple books by Lisa Cron. To write, Lynne begins with something, usually a fact about an animal, that sparks her interest, then she figures out the characters who will live in the story and the plot to go with them.  Her first manuscript started as a picture book, but the leader of her writing group suggested it would work better as a novel. She agreed and it became her first book, CHAINED. It took three years to write and edit, but she found an agent quickly. It sold in 2010 and came out in 2012. Her next book, SONG FOR A WHALE, which now has al...

  By Margaret Lea                Author Katie Keridan spent the first part of her professional life as a pediatric neuropsychologist, working with teens and young adults battling cancer. While rewarding, this wasn’t her true passion, so she eventually followed her heart, despite her fears, and transitioned into full-time fiction writing.                While Katie has enjoyed writing scientific papers, noting that academic writing also has a story arc with beginning, middle, end and specific takeaways for the readers, she loves that fiction writing enables her to be much more creative with form and language.                She finds creating worlds and characters especially fun, and would enjoy hanging out in real life with her two protagonists, Kyra and Sebastian, if that was possible. As a neurodivergent individual, she strives to create character...