Upcoming Events for Children’s Writers

Posted on September 7, 2011 by Catherine Austen

There are several upcoming events in the world of children’s literature within a few hours’ drive of home. (My home, that is.) Check these out:

GET PUBLISHED! Creators share their experience, publishers tell all, and booksellers reveal the ins and outs of bookselling at this full-day seminar from the Canadian Children’s Book Centre (CCBC). Three panels of experts discuss how children’s books are written, illustrated, edited, and selected for publication and sale in Canada. A full day indeed. It’s happening on September 17, 2011 at the CCBC in Toronto, Ontario. Learn more about the CCBC seminar.

Get the COURAGE TO CREATE with help from the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) at the Canada East Fall Conference in Ottawa, Ontario on October 14-16, 2011. Inspirational talks, marketing advice, manuscript critiques, and lots of networking. Fun and inspiring. Learn more from the SCBWI Brochure.

PACKAGE YOUR IMAGINATION with help from the Canadian Society of Children’s Authors, Illustrators and Performers (CANSCAIP) on November 5, 2011 in Toronto, Ontario. A full day of workshops on writing and marketing your work, with something for everyone, from beginners to experts. Lots of choice and critique opportunities. Learn more about this annual CANSCAIP conference.

And wherever you are on Sunday, September 25^th, 2011, get outside and celebrate literacy and literature with THE WORD ON THE STREET, taking place in cities across Canada. Author talks, publisher tents, family activities – it’s a full day of fun. I’ll be speaking about dystopian fiction at one of the many tents in Toronto’s WOTS, presenting my new teen novel, All Good Children. Check out all the Word on the Street festival events around the country.

That’s a Fall full of workshops! (Why does everything happen around the same time? You just know there’ll be nothing to do come January.) If you miss one of these, you’ll be bummed out. But if you miss all of them, you’ll seriously regret it. So try to attend one and get inspired.

BTW, What’s New Wednesdays will become a monthly post from here on in. (I’m not backsliding on my dedication, but there’s just no way I’ll have news to offer every week unless I include dental appointments and tallies of how many words I’ve written.) The next three Wednesdays will be wordless. (But Fridays will be fab.)