From Cover to Cover: A Picture Book Class

Are you brimming with picture-book drafts after NaPiBoWriWee? Do you have a drawer full of stories clamoring to be completed and polished? Then Liz Mills has the class for you! Together, we’ll explore your ideas for their marketability, review your drafts to make them the best they can be, discuss the importance of making a dummy book even when you’re not an illustrator, and tackle submission guidelines. All in four weeks! The class will be conducted online, with up to eight participants. I will send out an email at the beginning of each week with information, guidance, and writing prompts. Then as you send in your work, I’ll send each of you feedback. We’ll work on one story a week. I encourage all participants to critique as well. We learn best from each other. Come write and revise some stories with me!

Length of class: Four weeks
Cost: $75
Payment by check or Paypal
Start Date: July 5, 2010
Registration ends: June 20, 2010

About Liz : I am a freelance editor and author who acquired, edited, and managed more than a hundred books in all kinds of formats as an editor at Scholastic. I have also written thirty books, including THE EVERYTHING KIDS’ EASY SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS BOOK and TICK-TOCK SHARKS. My picture book, THE SPOOKY WHEELS ON THE BUS, will be published by Scholastic in July 2010. In my spare time, I am the editor of The Chinook, a quarterly newsletter for the Western Washington chapter of SCBWI, and I’m a member of the Northwest Independent Editors Guild. Visit my website, and contact me at jemills1 AT gmail.com.

Illustrating Children's Picture Books

The UW Illustrating Children's Picture Books class really is the perfect way to keep your butt in chair over the summer. I consider it a boot camp for picture books. All levels are welcome to attend. We will be learning about what constitutes a great picture book and making dummies. Even if you think you know it all, are you practicing it in your own work? Or do you get more done if you are accountable to others? I'm happy to account you this summer!

You don't need to be an illustrator to attend: authors will be encouraged to practice paginating their work and thinking more visually. And I'm SO EXCITED to share the book report assignment I've come up with -- yous guys are going to love it.

You don't need to be an author to attend: if you don't have a manuscript to dummy up, I will have some published texts for you to practice on or you can find a song or folktale on your own.

Wouldn't it be fun to spend a few nights a week this summer making your next project shine, surrounded by kindred, picture book lovin' spirits? Listening to some stellar guest speakers -- Julie Paschkis and Paul Schmid? AND DID I MENTION THERE WILL BE CUPCAKES?

Plus, the class is happening during Eric Carle's birthday and the anniversary of the awarding of the first Caldecott Medal. So be prepared to celebrate those if you sign up!