College Station author Kathi Appelt will be one of the faculty at a writing conference to be held November 12 at the Courtyard Marriott in College Station. On November 12, award-winning author Kathi Appelt will present “What Makes Your Characters Tick?” at the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Brazos Valley conference from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at A&M United Methodist Church, 417 University Dr. in College Station.
Two editors from New York houses, Martha Mihalick of Greenwillow Books and Claudia Gabel of Katherine Tegan Books, are also on the faculty for Connections & Craft 2011, along with author-illustrator Brian Floca and authors Doris Fisher and Molly Blaisdell.
The fees are $135 for SCBWI members and $155 for non-members. A downloadable registration form is available at http://tinyurl.com/scbwi-bv. For more information contact Regional Advisor Liz Mertz at lizBmertz@gmail.com.
Books sales at the conference will include titles by the faculty, their recommendations, and works by SCBWI members attending the conference. A limited number of rooms have been reserved for the conference at the Courtyard Marriott, 3939 S.H. 6 South, College Station, TX 77845, phone 979-695-8111.
College Station resident Appelt is the author of more than 30 books for children and young adults. Her picture book, Miss Lady Bird’s Wildflowers: How a First Lady Changed America (HarperCollins, 2005) was given the “Growing Good Kids Award for Excellence in Children’s Literature.” Reviewers have described her first novel, The Underneath , a haunting story of love and survival in the pine forests of East Texas, as a classic. It was named a National Book Award Finalist, a Newbery Honor Book, and most recently awarded the PEN USA Literature for Children Award. Her newest book is Keeper, published by Atheneum, 2010.
As an editor at Greenwillow Books, Mihalick acquires books for children and teens of all ages, from picture books to young adult novels. Her presentation will be “The Key Ingredients of Picture Books.” In her ten years at Greenwillow, she has worked with many acclaimed authors and artists, including Kevin Henkes, Lynne Rae Perkins, Peter Sís, Megan Whalen Turner, Chris Crutcher, and Naomi Shihab Nye.
As a senior editor at Katherine Tegen Books, Gabel is acquiring and developing middle grade and young adult fiction in a variety of genres. She will speak on “Actions Speak as Loud as Words: Why Crafting Plot Is Essential in Building Your Novel.” Gabel’s best-known titles are the New York Times bestselling series Summer Boys by Hailey Abbott and the 2011 Stonewall Award-winning novel Almost Perfect by Brian Katcher. She is also the author of the YA mash-up novel Romeo & Juliet & Vampires (HarperTeen) and the YA series In or Out (Scholastic/Point).
A native of Temple, Texas, Floca will discuss the work of an illustrator in “What You Want to Know.” He is the author and illustrator of Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11, a Robert F. Sibert Honor Book, a New York Times Best Illustrated Book of the Year, and a Society of Illustrators silver medal winner. His other books include Lightship, a Sibert Honor Book and Booklist's "Top of the List" picture book for 2007, and The Racecar Alphabet, an ALA Notable Children's Book and a Kirkus Reviews Editor's Choice.
Floca has illustrated several books by Newbery Award-winning author Avi, including Poppy, winner of the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, and the other books in the Poppy Stories series. He also illustrated The Hinky-Pink by Megan McDonald, and, most recently, Ballet for Martha: Making Appalachian Spring by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan, a Sibert Honor Book and winner of the NCTE Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children.
Fisher’s magazine writing includes fiction, nonfiction, poetry, word puzzles and mazes. Her presentation will be “Magazine Motivation.” She has had more than 100 items published in various children’s magazines including Babybug, Highlights for Children, Fun for Kidz, Hopscotch, Boys Quest and Story Friends. A resident of Kingwood, Texas, her published picture books are Happy Birthday to Whooo? a book of baby animal birth announcements and a three book series of “math with laugh” that includes One Odd Day, My Even Day and My Half Day. She also has a six book elementary age series, Grammar All Stars: The Parts of Speech.
College Station resident Blaisdell will conduct a hands-on workshop, “Create a Synopsis to Showcase Your Story,” to help authors write a synopsis that reveals character motivation, specific setting, the rising action of a plot, the emotional landscape of a story, and the unique voice that sets a piece apart. Blaisdell is the author 30 books for kids, notably Rembrandt and the Boy Who Drew Dogs (Barron’s, 2008) and most recently The Truth About Unicorns (Picture Window Books, 2010). She has also written hundreds of articles for many children’s publications and a few adult ones.
