2016 Houston SCBWI Annual Conference

Date/Time
Date(s) - 10/22/2016
8:30 am - 5:30 pm

Location
Hess Club
5430 Westheimer Rd - Houston , Texas 77056

Category(ies)

  Conference Home | Faculty & Speakers | Hotel | Logistics & Social Events | J. L. Nixon Award | First Look Panels | Portfolios & Illustrator Breakout

Here is the full lineup of speakers and faculty:

ART DIRECTOR
Maria T. Middleton is an Art Director for Random House Children's Books and began her career at HarperCollins and spent nearly a decade designing award-winning books for ABRAMS Kids. Maria is drawn to out-of-the-box thinking, hand-lettered typography, and quirky but lovable characters.

AGENTS
Ginger Clark has been a literary agent with Curtis Brown LTD (New York) since 2005.  On the adult side of her list she represents science fiction, fantasy and horror. On the children’s side she represents middle grade and young adult fiction and non-fiction.
Brianne Johnson started at Writers House at 2007 as an intern, and is now a Senior Agent. Brianne represents everything — picture books, middle grade, YA, and select adult fiction.  Across all genres, she looks for humor in unconventional settings and a bigger theme that the reader will walk away with.
Kelly Sonnack is a Literary Agent with the Andrea Brown Literary Agency and represents all types of children's literature. In picture books, Kelly looks for a good sense of humor, stories that stretch a young reader's imagination, and an authentic voice. In YA and MG fiction, she is drawn to light science fiction, and well-crafted fantasy but also appreciates literary voices and character-driven stories with heart.

EDITORS

Katherine Jacobs is a Senior Editor at Roaring Brook Press, Macmillan Children's Publishing Group. Katherine works on everything from picture books through YA, fiction and nonfiction. 
Susan Dobinick, Associate Editor at Farrar, Straus, & Giroux/Margaret Ferguson Books enjoys working on  picture books with quirky, dry humor and underlying heart, and  novels with lyrical and literary writing in stories with a big hook.

E-CRITIQUE ONLY FACULTY

Nikki Garcia is an assistant editor at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers where she works on everything from picture books through YA. While open to projects for all ages, she is particularly interested in voice-driven literary or commercial middle grade and YA, and is not the best match for science fiction or space opera.
Sean McCarthy founded his own full-service literary agency in 2013. He works on children's books for all ages, and is actively looking to build his client list.
Christa Heschke is an agent at McIntosh and Otis, Inc. in the Children's LIterature Department. She is actively acquiring for all age groups in children's.

LOCAL FACULTY

Crystal Allen is the author of middle grade novels, How Lamar’s Bad Prank Won a Bubba-Sized Trophy (Balzar and Bray, 2011) and The Laura Line (Balzar and Bray, 2013), and The Magnificent Mya Tibbs: Spirit Week Showdown (Balzar and Bray, 2016).
Joy Preble is the author of The Sweet Dead Life and its sequel, The A Word (May 2014), both from Soho Press. She is also the author of the Dreaming Anastasia series (Sourcebooks) and  the contemporary mystery/romance Finding Paris, which was released April 2015 from Balzer and Bray/Harper Collins. Another paranormal mystery/romance, It Wasn't Always Like This, arrived from Soho Press in May 2016.
Sandra J. Howatt is the author of SLEEPYHEADS (Beach Lane/Simon and Schuster), illustrated by Joyce Wan. This debut picture book received great reviews and was nominated for the 2014 Kirkus Prize.
Sherry Garland is the critically acclaimed author of more than thirty books for children, teenagers and adults. Her picture book, The Lotus Seed, was a featured book on the Reading Rainbow TV program; her Dear America book, A Line in the Sand, was made into an HBO TV show.
Kimberly Morris has authored more than 60 books for children and young adults, many of them under a pen name, for popular series including Disney Fairies, Animorphs, Freshman Dorm and Sweet Valley.

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