Some Very Good Reasons for Booking on the 2014 Writers' Retreat

First reason: Pyjama Party

Tatum Flynn had a truly splendid time at last years writers' retreat. If you are still ummimg and aaahhing about going, can Tatum persuade you?



Once upon a time, I sat down and wrote a children’s book called Brimstone for Breakfast, about Lucifer’s youngest son who was hopeless at being evil. And then I stared at my computer and wondered what on earth I was supposed to do next. So I researched agents, and read blogs, and befriended writers on Twitter, and along the way I ran across an organisation called SCBWI, the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. An organisation who just so happened to be running a weekend retreat only an hour away from me.

So I packed up my hopes and set off for the land of wine and cake and words. 

‘That might be good,’ I said to the cat, who was blithely plotting the death of a pigeon outside the window. ‘I’d be able to talk to real live kidlit writers and take workshops with published authors and even get to meet a bonafide acquiring editor who *pause to read fine print* yep, who would actually critique my first chapter for me. Plus that hotel looks really pretty and I’d kill for a weekend in the country away from screeching seagulls and thrumming traffic.’ The cat mewed encouragingly. Or possibly homicidally, I can never really tell.

Award-winning authors taught us about bringing setting alive and keeping motivated to write as we scribbled frantic notes

So I packed up my hopes and set off for the land of wine and cake and words. And my hopes weren’t disappointed: for the first time in my life, I met other children’s writers in the flesh, and stayed up late discussing agents and book deals and middle-grade voice and just how many glasses of wine it was possible to drink and still get up for the workshop the following morning.

...we made friends and picked each others’ brains and even had a pyjama party where we read extracts from our work, some of which had us in fits of giggles...

Award-winning authors taught us about bringing setting alive and keeping motivated to write as we scribbled frantic notes, and the real live editor explained all about the inner workings of publishing as curious writers bombarded her with questions. And in between, we made friends and picked each others’ brains and even had a pyjama party where we read extracts from our work, some of which had us in fits of giggles. So by the time my meeting with the editor came round on the Sunday, I was just hoping she wouldn’t hate my story and rain on my parade, because I was having so much fun. What I got was better than I could have possibly hoped: she loved my chapter. It had made her laugh. She thought it was fresh and original and could I please send her the whole thing straight away?

‘We are enthusiastic about your manuscript,’

Well, if you insist, I said, skipping all the way home with a grin the size of Texas on my face. Then, a few months later, an email pinged up on my phone. ‘We are enthusiastic about your manuscript,’ it said. ‘We would like to invite you to our offices to meet our editorial team.’ So I went, and they were lovely. And offered me cake which I was too nervous to eat. And said they might even be interested in a sequel. And told me my book would now go onto acquisitions. In return, I basically just tried not to faint. The cat, naturally, remained unimpressed.

Multi-award-winning YA author Teri Terry will be running the retreat again this year, and to be serious for a second – although you can probably guess my feelings on the matter – I can’t recommend it enough.

I still didn’t even have an agent at this point, so I dashed out to the shop and got myself one. And shortly afterwards we had an offer – a two-book-deal, to my utter amazement – with the terrific Orchard Books, and all because I’d thought it might be nice to have a writerly weekend in the country.

Multi-award-winning YA author Teri Terry will be running the retreat again this year, and to be serious for a second – although you can probably guess my feelings on the matter – I can’t recommend it enough. No, not everyone’s going to get a book deal out of it. I was extraordinarily lucky. But the friends and connections you’ll make and the things you’ll learn – all wrapped up in a gorgeous bundle of wine and food and beautiful countryside – are more than enough reward on their own.

For more pictures of pyjamas and writerly fun go to Tania's report from May last year. 

For this year's retreat with special guests Carnegie shortlisted author Elizabeth Wein and Bookseller 2013 'rising star' agent Bryony Woods BOOK HERE.

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@Tatum_Flynn

Tatum Flynn is the author of Brimstone for Breakfast, out Summer 2015 from Orchard Books/ Hachette UK, and a sequel which she’s supposed to be writing right this minute.

Numbers & Pictures!

Our birthday is here…almost!











On Tuesday 25th March 2014, wordsandpics.org celebrates in excess of

420 posts

128 contributors
2677 comments

230,000 pageviews

Well Done Us!


This week's top birthday picks are the wonderful contributors whose banners, designed by Bridget Strevens Marzo, have made our blogzine so beautiful…

The Featured Illustrators!

Last week I hope you didn't miss:
The Beguiling Griffins of Ken Lymer
The Distractional Blog Break of Nick Cross
The Daring of Andrew Weale
The Poptastic Pop Ups of Trish Phillips
The *Yippeetasmagoria for Abbie Todd's Deal, yay!

Next week being our birthday week proper we have:
Some very good reasons from Tatum Flynn why you should book for the SCBWI Writers' Retreat
A truly celebratory Tuesday with Nick Cross
How Sheila Averbuch celebrated World Book Day in one Scottish school
Two FAB event reports
and a New Featured Illustrator, our first for year 2!

Stop Press: Tomorrow Chitra will announce the winner of the January Slush Pile Challenge - remember that brilliant prize an afternoon at OUP for editorial feedback and brainstorming? A lucky person has won that!

Wishing everyone in Bologna much success this week, but I hope you're having fun wherever you are are!

Jan Carr

I know, it's exclamation mark city this week.

*And made up words hamlet.

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Jan Carr is the editor of Words & Pictures. Her fiction is all over the place, she blogs occasionally and loves to write in magenta. You can contact her at editor@britishscbwi.org.

Everyone is talking about 'Unspeakable'!

This week the Celebrations Team is delighted to announce that UNSPEAKABLE, the outstanding YA debut by Abbie Todd, is set for publication by ATOM next Spring.







Abbie Todd grew up in a small village near Newmarket, Suffolk and now lives in a village near Newbury, Berkshire. She has a degree in English Literature with Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia, and currently works as an editor at a leading educational publisher in Oxford. While working as a part-time bookseller during her studies, Abbie re-discovered a love of children’s and young adult books and in 2010 she was a winner of SCBWI’s very own Undiscovered Voices competition.

We found out what Abbie had to say about her publishing deal.

“I'm absolutely thrilled to see my dream becoming a reality. There's no way I would be here without SCBWI, so massive thanks to Sara Grant and Sara O'Connor and all the Undiscovered Voices gang for helping to make this happen. When I won Undiscovered Voices in 2010 and signed with my agent, Jodie Hodges, the dystopian novel I'd written was a little too early for the dystopia phase. My second book - also a dystopia - was too late! I'd wanted to write a gay YA love story for a long time, as I think it's a shame to not see more of them from UK writers. I'm delighted that mine and Jodie's hard work, dedication and perseverance has paid off.”

Unspeakable is the story of 15-year-old Megan, who hasn't uttered a word since the death of her best friend, Hana. But everything changes when she falls for Jasmine, who has the potential to unlock Megan's voice and reveal the truth about Hana's death.

Kate Agar, Commissioning Editor of ATOM says:

“When I started to read Unspeakable I was gripped; by the time I had finished I was certain I'd found a fantastic new voice for UK YA. The writing draws you in immediately and difficult topics are handled with ease. Unspeakable is a thriller, certainly, but it's the assured handling of first love and complicated friendships in this debut that will stay with readers long after they've turned the last page. I'm so delighted that Abbie has chosen to make her home with Atom.”  

Please join us in a big round of applause as we celebrate with Abbie! We can’t wait to read ‘Unspeakable’, which is due to be published in March 2015, for ourselves.

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Clare Welsh joined SCBWI in Feburary 2013 after her marriage to her lovely husband James was under threat from constant chunterings, questions and reading aloud over the football. She is thoroughly enjoying all that SCBWI has to offer, including helping Tania celebrating SCBWI successes as part of the Words & Pictures editorial team, and is pleased that her marriage is still firmly intact.

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Picture Book Basics: Pop-Ups

Last month, pop-up book virtuoso Trish Phillips showed some of the processes involved in designing her distinctive three dimensional books for children. Now, especially for our Picture Book Basics series, she turns to the nuts and bolts on how you can plan and build pop-up books of your own. Ready with scissors and glue? Over to Trish!




My previous article was a basic insight into my own process in producing pop-up books for Caterpillar Books, where I was lucky to have a lot of help and advice from their paper engineer at the time, Martin Taylor. 

In part 2 it’s your turn. Maybe you have an idea for a story and want to present it to a publisher as a pop-up or novelty, or it is a fun, personal project. Either way here are some hints and tips to help you get started.  

What’s the idea?
  
You have an idea for a story, but before you go any further there are a couple of points to bear in mind if it is aimed at a publisher. Firstly, keep it short. Due to high production costs, a pop-up usually will have less spreads than a picture book at around six or seven double page spreads rather than twelve. Or sometimes it will be a picture book with one pop-up page at the end. Of course for your own project you can have as many as you like. 

Secondly, not only are there fewer spreads for the story but on each spread there is less space for text as the pop-up will take up more room than a conventional illustration. 

So divide up your short story into your spreads, thinking about the pace, rhythm and page turn. Why not take a look at the writing features on Words & Pictures which might help?  

Thumbnails 

Now you have condensed your story into your spreads let’s have some thumbnails. Where will your text be? Where will your pop-up be? Allow space for everything, create a nice balance and don’t try to cram too much in.  

What’s the Pop? 

What do you want your pop to do? What is the purpose of it? Are the pop-ups to show movement or to create a 3-d scene? Are they for drama, for laughs or to scare? Get ideas from the great books that are around in the bookshops and libraries. You will soon see the different things they do and get a picture of what type of mechanism would suit your book. 

Initially sketch some ideas that you might like to happen and this will help you decide if it can be done. Shown here are early ideas for The Fish Who Cried Shark. Several of the ideas made it to the final book although not all worked or were appropriate. 

Another example below is from Clever Little Crocodile. The initial sketches below ended up quite different in the final version. 

Basics

  
A few basic tips which may or may not be obvious: 

• A pop-up needs to be fixed to a pull tab or a folded page, or an additional layer on a page to activate it. 
• When making your first dummy keep it small; say A5 folded to A6 (if you take a regular A4 and fold it in half twice it gives a good size and double thickness adds strength). 
• Keep the pop-up piece very rough – literally just an approximate copy of the shape. It may take a few goes to get it right so don’t waste time getting into artwork detail at this stage. It is more about shapes, movement and balance on the page. 
• Make the pop-up and test it fits! Crazy tip but many a time you will have a brilliant pop and think it is glued exactly where you want it until you close the page and find it sticks out. 
• Use masking tape which is easily removable to temporarily stick pieces on to allow for constant adjustments. 
• When you are happy with your page spread you can then make it larger and with thick cartridge or thin card, still keeping it white. Now you can go into more detail, but keep it fairly sketchy. This is after all just a 3-d dummy. 
• Use all the facilities you have available as you would with illustrating i.e. Photoshop, scanners and printers so that you can reproduce as many copies as you need. This will also enable you to add text into your dummy if you are going to do that. 

Try some of these for size 

Here are a few ideas, see what you can do with them and adapt them to your story. 

Above is a layer on which you can draw or use as a base to stick on a figure or shape. Imagine the layer is just a small hinge on which to attach something. Made up of two parallel horizontal cuts joined by three vertical folds. 

Whatever distance you make the left vertical fold from the spine fold down the middle of the page should be equal to the distance of the second to the third vertical fold. 

The arrows on this rectangular cut out are only there to show the direction in which the pop-up will move as the page is opened, you don’t need to add them. Cut more and more shapes, experiment, as on this image. 

Another very useful base is triangular, which is simply made by cutting one horizontal line across the central vertical spine and two diagonal folds joining at the top. Turn the whole thing upside down and you will have a different effect. These can be improved on by sticking the triangle or rectangle onto the page rather than cutting out of the page.  

Angles and Moves

  
The bigger the angle, the more movement will be created and this applies to angles on the pop-up piece as well as the angle it is placed on the page. Change the cut, change the angle, make it off centre, add two together. 

This timeless book by Kees Moerbeek is a favourite of mine using the above methods for the faces and by splitting the page creates hilarious combinations of creatures. 

Kees Moebeek Beware of the Pog! (Child's Play, 1988)

Need Some More Help? 

When I was learning there were a lot of helpful books around but these two were invaluable: 

Paper Engineering for pop-up books and cards by Mark Hiner with 10 working models to make up yourself. 

Pop-up! A manual of Paper Mechanisms by Duncan Birmingham with over 100 mechanisms to make, this should keep you going for a while. 

Here are a couple of my own books which have easy to follow step by step projects to make:  

The Practical step by step guide to making pop-ups & novelty cards by Trish Phillips & Ann Montanaro 

How to make Pop-up cards by Trish Phillips 

Also, be inspired by David A. Carter the master of pop-ups, Jan Pienkowski’s many pop-ups, and Marion Bataille. Some others to follow are Martin Taylor, Paul Stickland, John O’Leary, David Hawcock and Ray Marshall to name but a few.

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Long time SCBWI member Trish Phillips is an author, illustrator and paper engineer, her website is www.trishphillipsbooks.com
Twitter: trish_again Blog biglittletale

March Dare

Andrew Weale

We welcome picture book writer Andrew Weale to Words & Pictures with some excellent advice. Over to Andrew...

I’m a March baby, by star sign a fish. This traditionally means that I am creative, and my head is usually to be found somewhere in a cloud. However, I’m not all fluffy. I have a daring, determined streak too.



 At the beginning of my career, I enrolled on a children’s writing course at the City Lit in London. One of the first things I was told by a tutor was to stay away from rhyme and not to write a counting book. This is where my creative and daring sides met, got married and quickly had an offspring.

One morning (a little while later), dressed in shabby pyjamas and holding a chipped mug full of coffee, I was standing in my living room when a verbal picture popped into my head: one newt in a suit. It had a lovely Dr Seuss ring to it, so I sat down on the crumbling divan and thought of more possibilities. In five minutes I had a list including cockatoos in high-heeled shoes and bats in black top hats. After another five minutes, I had the idea of binding the animals together with numbers. After a day I had my first commercial picture book, One Newt in a Suit: a counting book in rhyme.

Horror! I had broken not one but two ‘rules’. However, my message here is: follow your creativity (wherever it might take you), and be daring (don’t be deterred by so called perceptions about the publishing market). In short, write what your heart tells you to write. If you write from the heart, a publisher is far more likely to sit up and take notice than if you write to order for ‘the market’.

Creativity and daring also came into play when I wrote my second picture book for Hodder, Dinosaur Doo. Yes, it’s a book about dinosaurs and poo. The idea this time came from a conversation with Sue Buswell, in which she told me how Aliens Love Underpants had come into being: a couple of editors simply thinking of things that children love and putting them together.

On the train home that evening I did the same thing and came up with dinosaurs and poo. After a manic google (picture books+dinosaurs+poo), I couldn’t believe that nobody had thought of putting them together before. I had the first draft written, in verse, on the one and a half hour journey from London Victoria to Seaford, Sussex. Again, I was breaking a ‘rule’. You know, the one about parents not caring much for books about the dreaded ‘p’ word. Luckily, I didn’t care much either, because I was having such fun with my scatological dinosaur friends, and my editor at Hodder had a lot of fun too when she read that first draft.

So, I’m a March baby: creative and daring. I write what comes from my heart, and I try not to worry about ‘the rules’. The rulebook is there to be ripped up, and that’s what creative people are on this Earth to do!

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Andrew Weale is every mother's nightmare. As well as being a writer of children's books, he is an actor and singer. He lectures on picture books at Winchester University and coaches corporate clients in presentation skills, so his mother does manage to catch some sleep at night.

Born in Brighton and educated at Eastbourne College, he won a Classics Scholarship to Trinity College, Oxford. Having rubbed shoulders with the likes of Boris Johnson and Niall Ferguson, he decided to change direction completely and learn how to act at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. After far too many years of education he set up a theatre company that went on to win a Fringe First Award at the 1991 Edinburgh Festival. At the Award Ceremony he got to make a speech and kiss Emma Thompson.

Andrew's company was the first to tour Romania after the revolution, having been invited personally by Ion Caramitru, head of Bucharest's Bulandra Theatre. The company also toured in New York and Hong Kong.

Andrew has worked as a freelance actor and singer since 1997, when he played Jean Valjean in Les Miserables. Other highlights include working with Sir Alec Guinness and Janet Suzman. He has had roles in Kevin Spacey's film Beyond the Sea and Peter Sellars' production of The Rake's Progress at Paris' Chatelet Theatre. Recently he played the lead in the Theatre Royal Bath's Dangerous Obsession opposite Liza Goddard.

Andrew has always been involved with books. He worked with Kathleen Tynan and Allegra Huston on The Kenneth Tynan Ketters and Nick Hern on The Honourable Beast (the posthumous autobiography of English theatre director John Dexter). In 2010 Hodder published Andrew's first children's picture book One Newt in a Suit. Since then he has written four more for Andersen Press, Random House and Hodder. He has spoken at many festivals, including the Imagine Festival on London's South Bank, and the Oxford and Hay festivals.

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Ten-Minute Blog Break - 18th March

Believe it or not, the Blog Break will be a year old next week. Sometimes (usually Monday lunchtime with an empty blog post in front of me) that year seems to have lasted an age, and other times it seems to have passed in a heartbeat. Either way, it's been quite a ride!

I encourage a leisurely approach to reading the Blog Break, complete with hot drink and optional biscuits. But it seems that Paula Rawsthorne wants us to get moving. Over at The Edge, Paula's asking if we're Fit to Write, because we have a profession that requires such a lot of bum-on-seat-time to achieve success. Paula has tips on how to squeeze exercise into your writing schedule and examples of what other authors do to stay fit.

There may have been a lot less cases of flu than expected this winter, but it does seem that there's a rather infectious blog chain doing the rounds instead. Candy Gourlay, Sally Poyton and Michelle Newell have all succumbed this week, discussing their latest works-in-progress and the processes they're using to write them. Find out why Candy keeps going down rabbit holes, how Sally risks lead poisoning for her art and why Michelle describes her writing process as "slow and erratic."

They (whoever "they" are) say write what you know, and Bridget Strevens Marzo is doing just that. I loved the idea that her own childhood experience of being culturally adrift in a French school has lead to Bridget's Book of English, a picture book of first English words for French children.

Heaven help us, but Mark Jones is at it again. This week, he's provided a "helpful" list of book ideas he's recently had rejected. Worse even than the thought of a pop-up picture book about psychotic kittens, is the fact that this post is the fifth in a thoroughly demented series. It's probably worth making sure you have The Samaritans on speed-dial before you tackle entries one, two, three and four.

Nick.

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Nick Cross is a children's writer, blogger and all-round techno-ninja. In 2010 he was a winner of Undiscovered Voices with his zombie comedy Back from the Dead.

Nick is currently writing short fiction for Stew Magazine, issue 2 of which is out now!

Creature Feature the First: The Griffin

Ken Lymer

In our first instalment of a new Words & Pictures feature on creatures of myths and legend, we focus upon the griffin.

The griffin is a fabulous creature of myth with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion. It has been drawn upon in stories and tales by writers and artists since ancient times and remains a source of inspiration for today’s generation of talents.



Over the centuries there have been many different spellings for the word ‘griffin’ and the most familiar variations include gryphon, gryphin, gryffon, griffon, griffen, etc. The ancient Greeks originally called them gryps, but they were also known as gryphoi from which our modern word ultimately derives.

The earliest images of the griffin appeared in the ancient Middle East at least over 4000 years ago and their iconic forms decorated many types of objects recovered from archaeological sites in Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean during the 2nd millennium BC. There was considerable artistic variation in the griffin form as, for example, Sumerian images depicted a fierce monster with four birds' legs, while Minoan ones from Crete featured a gentle creature reclining on lions' legs with a falcon’s head plumed in long feathers.

Aristeas relates an account of his voyage to the far north where he encountered one-eyed men called Arimaspians, who stole the gold guarded by griffins.

One of the earliest recorded tales about griffins derives from the writings of the famous ancient Greek historian Herodotus, who lived around 5th century BC. Even more fascinating is the fact that Herodotus utilises the writing device of ‘a story within a story’ as he draws upon the folkloric imagery of a forgotten poem by Aristeas. Aristeas relates an account of his voyage to the far north where he encountered one-eyed men called Arimaspians, who stole the gold guarded by griffins. Aristeas is a mysterious, if not mythical figure, in ancient Greek literature and scholars of today still debate among themselves the nature of Aristeas’s poem: was it a work of fiction or truly based on a folktale collected by the author during his travels to the edge of the world?

...within a mountain range in India dwelled a race of four-footed birds that were large as wolves.

Around the same time, the Greek physician Ktesias (late 5th century BC) shifted the legend of the griffins from the north to the south. He claimed that within a mountain range in India dwelled a race of four-footed birds that were large as wolves. These griffins had the legs and claws of a lion but were covered in black feathers except on the breast where these were coloured red.

the griffin represented notions about foreign lands which could be considered the equivalent of ‘here be monsters’

These evocative accounts of guardian griffins were drawn upon time and time again by subsequent Greek and Roman writers. Moreover, the depiction of griffins and Arimaspians became a stock theme in Greek vessel designs known as grypomachy – the battle between griffins (gryps) and barbarian warriors. What fascinated both classical authors and artists is that these fabulous beasts and strange Arimaspians inhabited an exotic geographical setting located at the boundaries of the known ancient world. Thus, the griffin represented notions about foreign lands which could be considered the equivalent of ‘here be monsters’ dotting the edges of old European maps.

By medieval times in Europe, the griffin becomes an allegorical symbol representing the dualities and divisions between good and evil. As the guardian of treasure, the griffin may have stood for knowledge and wisdom, but it was a monster that could bring harm with its claws and, thus, represented injury and cruelty.

a griffin on a coat of arms signifies the bearer was a strong, pugnacious man. 

The griffin also became entangled within the symbolic art of medieval heraldry that recognised its qualities of being a regal and highly emblematic creature. Since the griffin combined the features of noble beasts, the eagle and the lion, it became an iconic figure featured in the coat of arms of many noble families and institutions. Moreover, in the late 14th century, John de Bado Aureo wrote in his famous Treatise on Heraldry (Tractatus de Armis) that a griffin on a coat of arms signifies the bearer was a strong, pugnacious man. This individual also possessed the character and qualities of the eagle and the lion. Moreover, artistically speaking, the griffin becomes a standardised emblem fixed in a fierce pose, while standing on its two hind legs with an elongated tail as it sticks out its tongue from an open beak.

Additionally, fantastic animals were constantly employed as eloquent metaphors in the plays of Shakespeare, and the griffin was no exception. In Act II, Scene I of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Demetrius tells the love stricken Helena that he will run away and abandon her in the forest. She long-windedly replies:

“The wildest hath not such a heart as you. Run when you will, the story shall be chang’d; Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase; The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind Makes speed to catch the tiger, – bootless speed, When cowardice pursues and valour flies.” 

 Moving forward a couple of centuries, a different griffin is presented by Lewis Caroll in Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland. In one scene the Queen of Hearts impolitely introduces Alice to a griffin sleeping in the sun. In a humorous reference to its dualistic nature Caroll writes,

“ “What fun!” said the Gryphon, half to itself, half to Alice”.

John Tenniel also created delightful illustrations of the witty griffin and Alice for the original publication in 1865.

Meanwhile, the Brothers Grimm offer a traditional fairytale called The Griffin where the young Hans strives to win the hand of a king’s daughter by attempting to fulfil numerous impossible tasks. The ultimate errand that he must perform, however, is fetching for the king the tail feather of a griffin!

Griffins are still drawn upon in the literary works of the 20th century up to the present day. They appear in the fantasy worlds of C. S. Lewis, Andre Norton and Diana Wynne Jones, while Neil Gaiman has a courageous griffin guarding the gates to the realm of dreams in his Sandman graphic novels. And don’t forget Maurice Sendak in his renowned picture book, Where the Wild Things Are, depicts a rather large, wingless griffin that plays with the boy Max.

All in all, from the edges of the known world to metaphor and flights of fantasy, the griffin offers creative inspiration to writers and artists who dare to pursue its golden treasury of myth and legend.

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Ken Lymer is an archaeologist and folklore enthusiast with aspirations of becoming a children’s book illustrator and writer. He has designed and illustrated teachers' packs for schools (History Key Stages 1 to 3) ranging on topics from Celtic cauldrons and Roman bath-houses to Benedictine monasteries and the dissolution of Abbeys during late Tudor times. These also feature entertaining games designed by Ken including Dragons & Ladders and Tudor trump cards.