Drum roll, please! Meet our newest TA!

Please join me in welcoming our newest TeachingAuthor, Jill Esbaum of Iowa City, Iowa!

TeachingAuthor describes Jill perfectly.
She not only authors award-winning picture books, such as Ste-e-e-e-eamboat A-Comin’! (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) and To the Big Top (FSG), as well as a National Geographic nonfiction series; she also teaches her own Picture Book Workshops and in the University of Iowa’s Summer Writing Festival.  She’s served as an instructor for the Institute of Children’s Literature too.

I’ve been a True Fan of Jill, her writing and her teaching since SCBWI first connected us oh, so long ago.

Click on ABOUT US to learn about our newest TA. 
Then visit Jill’s website to learn even more.  
And be sure to read Jill’s first TeachingAuthors post this Friday.

My fellow TAs and I thank the Universe Jill stepped up to fill the shoes of JoAnnEarly Macken, a TeachingAuthor original and our first alum. 

Lucky us!

But best of all, lucky you, our readers!

And speaking of you, our lucky readers, time’s running out for one among you to win a copy of Sylvia Vardell’s The Poetry Teacher’s Book of Lists in our current Book Giveaway.

Now that you’ve entered our Book Giveaway, join me as I vicariously attend the 41st SCBWI Conference, held this past weekend in LA.

I’m still disappointed I was unable to attend this once-a-summer event that every August changes my Writing Life, connects me to my Children’s Book World Community, helps me hone my craft and lets me dance like no one was watching.

Brew yourself a pitcher of ice-tea, charge your laptop, then claim a park bench where the world will let you be and work your way through the SCBWI Team Blog's Post beginning

Friday, August 3 with editor and publisher Arthur A. Levine’s opening keynote address to the closing celebratory Autograph Party Sunday, August 5.

Thanks to Lee Wind and his SCBWI Team Blog for making my attendance and yours possible.

                                              

And if you and your fingers are still itching to learn more online about Writing for Children, you can join me next week for WriteOnCon, an online Children’s Writer’s Conference created by writers, for writers, Tuesday and Wednesday, August 14 and 15.

I’m happy to report the cost is free!

The bench you parked yourself on to vicariously attend the SCBWI LA Conference will still serve you well.
The conference schedule is designed around writers' working hours.
Everything takes places within the conference website.
Lectures, panels and key note addresses, by editors, agents, authors, illustrators, are presented as blogs, vlogs, moderated chats, webinars, podcasts and livestreaming.
There’s also a critique form, where participants can post query letters and writing samples.

And, finally, should you be a do-it-aloner, and even if you’re not (!), it’s not too late to plug into Laure Halse Anderson’s Write 15 Minutes a Day Challenge at her Mad Woman in the Forest blog.

All of the above has me rewriting the lyrics of a popular seasonal song:

     Summertime,

     when the learning is eas-ier….

And to my new TeachingAuthor comrade,

I say:
Welcome!
Break a pen (or key), Jill!

Esther Hershenhorn