If you went to SCBWI Wild Wild Midwest Conference...
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I was wondering if any of you SVS'ers attended the conference in Naperville, IL this weekend and what your thoughts were. It was my very first conference and it was a lot to take in! 3 days of stuff! Did you have a portfolio review? Meet with anyone? Get great advice? (If you saw a lady with a bright orange coat, that was me.)
It seemed like a lot of the information was geared towards writers or people who want to both write and illustrate their own book. All this time I've been thinking that just illustrating for others is the norm. One agent did say that it's totally okay to just want to illustrate, but I was also told I should create a dummy book to show my storytelling ability. I had a few book ideas already but I don't know much about writing beyond basic spelling and grammar!
Something that I picked up over and over was the importance of postcards with compelling images. It should make someone want to know what the story is. Several agents / art directors said that a book was created based off an image they received.
I had a very very very encouraging portfolio review with John Sandford from Cricket Media and I walked out smiling. Just that was worth the fee and the driving back and forth.
Also... I plugged SVS a couple times so I'm hoping they all show up here soon!
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Hey Lydia I just joined SCBWI here in Arizona so I haven't really been able to attend any events yet (there aren't any happening any time soon here) Good to know about the dummy book. I will defiantly make sure mine is done before I go. Congrats and good luck with Cricket Media please let us know if anything comes of it. I've been trying to come up with a good design for a post card myself but it's really hard to figure out what kind of image to put on there. Also really hard to come up with a mailing list.
