2019 Writing Children's Picture Books Workshop

Arghhh!! My eyeballs, my eyeballs! I have been editing ma short stories for the last few weeks, and now proof reading! Anyone for fried brains? Yet, all too soon it will be too late. The book will be off to the printers and those words and all that punctuation will be set in ink on those pages permanently. Publishing is so yin and yang. So exciting and terrifying, so energising and exhausting. And the book isn't even out yet.

Once the t's are crossed and the i's are dotted I will be gearing up for my Writing Children's Picture Books Workshop with Selwyn Community Education. On Sunday 18th August this year, it runs from 10am to 4pm at Selwyn College in Kohimarama. You can check it out, and register, here. Looks like there might not be too many places left, so get in quick if you're keen.

And just in case you are new to my blog and me - here is a little background information in case you were wondering how I came to run this course. I have written many picture book stories over the last twenty years. Some of them have won awards and been nominated for others. I have experienced rejections and acceptances and I know that having books previously published is no guarantee of having things published in the future. I have submitted with an agent and without. I have picture book number 8 and number 9 coming out early next year. Sharing with Wolf with Scholastic NZ, illustrated by Nikki Slade Robinson, and Moon and Sun with Upstart Press, illustrated by Malene Laugesen. They are very different books. One is dark and funny, and the other gentle and heartfelt. Just this past summer I was a judge for the 2019 Storylines Joy Cowley Award and having made my way through all 158 manuscripts, I have some feedback for future submitters. I'll be talking about this during the workshop. Submissions for the 2020 Storylines Joy Cowley Award close October 31st so you'll have time to polish up your manuscript before you need to send it off.

Do you want to write children's picture books? Do I have a deal for you...

I am really excited to be delivering my full day 'Writing Children's Picture Books' Workshop again on Saturday August 18, from 10am-4pm, as part of Selwyn Community Education at Selwyn College in Kohimarama, Auckland. I'll be telling participants everything I know about picture books: about writing them, about finding an illustrator, about the picture book audience, about what to put in and what to leave out, about preparing and submitting your work for publication, about the children's writing community in New Zealand and a whole bunch of other useful stuff which will help you in your journey to becoming a picture book writer. You can register here. Feel free to ask me questions about the course in the comments section below.

If you are wondering why I am running this course - I've had seven picture books published over the last 12 years (see my booklist in the menu above), several of which have been finalists and award winners, including my most recent, Fuzzy Doodle, (illustrated by Donovan Bixley) which was shortlisted for both the Russell Clark Illustration Award and the Picture Book Award at the 2017 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, was a 2017 Storylines Notable Book and is a 2018 White Raven Book as selected by the International Youth Library in Germany. Fuzzy Doodle has also been published in Australia and in twelve countries across Asia. I also write junior and YA fiction as well as children's short stories, and have a BA in English Literature and a Diploma in Children's Literature. I have successfully delivered this course over the previous two years and I love writing, and reading, children's picture books. I hope you'll come along.