Poetry Camp, a CWIM Giveaway, and Lots More!

Our Teaching Authors topic for this new series of posts is agents: who has one, who doesn't, and the advantages and disadvantages of submitting with or without an agent.

But before I begin that discussion, I must mention Poetry Camp, an amazing experience organized by Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell, the geniuses behind Pomelo Books and the Poetry Friday anthologies, along with Western Washington University's Sylvia Tag and Nancy Johnson. I was so happy to see our own April there, along with 35 or so other children's poets and a very enthusiastic audience of teachers, librarians, and other poetry people. What fun! Besides meeting, talking with, and learning from all those wonderful poets, we ended the conference with a performance by Jack Prelutsky. In its online Industry News, Publishers Weekly included a photo of our group.

My husband and I drove from Wisconsin to Bellingham, Washington, for the conference--an amazing journey of 4,685 miles! We took advantage of a few opportunities to camp along the way. Here's a camping poem from our first night outside:

in the middle of somewhere

vast star-bright sky
tiny dome home
we fall asleep to owl hoots
coyote howls
train whistles
wake up to bluebirds
singing in the new day

Now back to our scheduled topic. I've never worked with an agent, so I can only discuss the pros and cons of submitting on my own. In a nutshell, I have the freedom to submit to any editor who accepts unagented manuscripts (I also add names to my contact list when I meet editors at conferences), and I bear the responsibility of managing all that submitting and negotiating on my own.

I wrote about submitting directly to editors in an article in the Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market (CWIM) 2017. For "Be Your Own Literary Agent," I interviewed four other children's book authors who also submit their own work. Mary Ann Rodman, Lisa Moser, Janet Halfmann, and Gretchen Woelfle answered questions about networking, finding editors, tracking submissions, and negotiating contracts. To celebrate the article, we're giving away a copy of the CWIM 2017, courtesy of Writer's Digest Books. You can enter below.

Another announcement: Hundreds of new children's books published in 2016, both traditionally and independently published, are celebrated in the SCBWI Book Blast. You can search for specific titles and authors and even buy books. Among other treasures, you'll find Carmela's new edition of Rosa, Sola (in paperback and ebook) with discussion questions for classroom use.

Use the Rafflecopter widget below to enter to win your own copy of the Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market 2017. You may enter via 1, 2, or all 3 options. If you choose option 2, you must leave a comment on today's blog post. If your name isn't part of your comment identity, please include it in your comment for verification purposes. If you prefer, you may submit your comment via email to teachingauthors [at] gmail [dot] com. The giveaway ends October 31 and is open to U.S. residents only. Email subscribers, if you received this post via email, you can click on the Rafflecopter link at the end of this message to access the entry form.

Irene Latham has today's Poetry Friday Roundup at Live Your Poem. Enjoy!

JoAnn Early Macken

a Rafflecopter giveaway