Website Spotlight: SCBWI Official Blog

The SCBWI Official Blog is available under the ‘publications’ drop-down menu on the SCBWI website.

New posts are added twice a week and you’ll find “industry news, interviews, and in-depth posts addressing everything from book promotion, to school visits, timely issues and more.” The blog archive goes back to 2010 and has something useful for all SCBWI members. It’s well worth a look!

By Margaret Lea

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Kelly Bennett is coming to town!

By Margaret Lea Kelly Bennett credits an elementary school teacher for praising her writing and sticking it on the board. This gave her confidence to write more. And surprisingly, it was Kelly’s unhappy first marriage that also spurred her writing. In 1985, while trying to make this marriage work, she decided to do something solely for herself. She wanted to take a volleyball class at the university near her, but they didn’t offer that. So instead, she took a class on writing and marketing children’s stories. There she fell in love with writing for children. She also met another woman, Ronnie Davidson, who became a writing partner for twenty years. They published their first book together in 1987 and five more over the years. Kelly has now published around 25 books, both by herself and with others. She credits writing friends for keeping her accountable. For example, she and one friend would set a...

Sheila Fernley from Storm Literary Agency

By Margaret Lea Sheila Fernley joined Storm Literary Agency in March 2024 as an Associate Literary Agent, and is an agented picture book author herself, as well as a former editor and special education teacher. If you are reading this before November 2024, and would like to hear her speak, register for our free Zoom meeting . Here are her answers to some of querying authors’ most common questions. 1) Do you prefer a query salutation to be Dear Ms. Fernley, Dear Sheila Fernley, or Dear Sheila? I prefer query letter salutations to be personal – Dear Sheila, or even Hi Sheila. 2) How far do you read of each genre (PB/MG/YA) before you usually know it’s a pass? Do you represent all three categories? I represent authors who write PB, MG, and YA subgenres, requesting a full manuscript for picture books and the first three chapters of a MG or YA. I also represent author/illustrators. I can usually tell by the end of the first page if the project wil...

Deeba Zargarpur

By Margaret Lea If you had met Deeba Zargarpur ten years ago, she would have been working in the medical field. Now, she’s a senior editor at a Big Five publishing house, finding herself in surreal conversations with the likes of Christopher Paolini (Eragon) or Malala Yousafzai (I Am Malala). What caused this dramatic shift? After growing up in Virginia, Deeba earned her psychology degree from Drexel University and began applying her knowledge to that field. But her passion for books—long kindled through avid reading, fan fiction writing, and even finishing a novel—eventually pushed her to pursue a career in publishing. Her family's protests of, “Are you crazy?” calmed when she got an editorial assistant job with a company they’d heard of—Disney Publishing Worldwide. She then spent several years working for a book packager, generating ideas for their projects. In March 2020, Simon & Schuster hired her, where she works as an editor for their Books for Young Readers imprint and...

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