Program

Create Your Own Gold

Define what success means for YOU by creating a personal benchmark of greatness. Newbery, Geisel, and Caldecott honoree author/illustrator Grace Lin will use her own books and journey as an example of how to set your goals, pace yourself, and stay in the race for the long haul.

Before Grace Lin was an award-winning and NY Times bestselling author/illustrator of picture books, early readers and middle grade novels, she was the only Asian girl (except for her sisters) going to her elementary school in Upstate NY. That experience, good and bad, has influenced her books—including her Newbery Honor WHERE THE MOUNTAIN MEETS THE MOON, her Geisel Honor LING & TING, her National Book Finalist WHEN THE SEA TURNED TO SILVER and her Caldecott Honor A BIG MOONCAKE FOR LITTLE STAR. But, it also causes Grace to persevere for diversity as an occasional New England Public Radio commentator and when she gave her TEDx talk “The Windows and Mirrors of Your Child’s Bookshelf,” as well as her PBSNewHour video essay “What to do when you realize classic books from your childhood are racist?.”

In 2016, Grace’s art was displayed at the White House and Grace, herself, was recognized by President Obama’s office as a Champion of Change for Asian American and Pacific Islander Art and Storytelling. In 2022, Grace was awarded the Children’s Literature Legacy Award from the American Library Association. Grace is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and lives in Northampton, Massachusetts with her husband, daughter and a fluctuating amount of chickens.

The Ultimate Writing Relay: Readers, Relationship, and Revision

Throughout the course of writing a book, you must pass the baton of your story from one writing phase to another. National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature Meg Medina relays her three Rs of picture book writing while showing how she put the manuscript for Evelyn Del Rey is Moving Away through its paces.

Meg Medina is the Library of Congress’s 2023–2024 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature and the author of the Newbery Medal–winning book Merci Suárez Changes Gears. She is also the author of award-winning young adult novels and picture books, including No More Señora Mimí, illustrated by Brittany Cicchese; Evelyn Del Rey Is Moving Away, illustrated by Sonia Sánchez; Mango, Abuela, and Me, illustrated by Angela Dominguez, which was a Pura Belpré Author and Illustrator Award Honor Book; and Tía Isa Wants a Car, illustrated by Claudio Muñoz, which won the Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award. The daughter of Cuban immigrants, she lives in Richmond, Virginia.

Level Up Your Picture Book Game
Any good athlete these days studies championship moves. They dissect how the best in their field achieve greatness and they analyze their own performance to see how to up their game. Jon Klassen and Mac Barnett take us through close readings of several picture books—both their own and others'—to reveal why they work and how we can apply these prizewinning skills to our own manuscripts.
JON KLASSEN is the creator of the #1 New York Times best-selling I Want My Hat Back, which won a Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor, and its companions This Is Not My Hat, which won a Caldecott Medal and a Kate Greenaway Medal, and We Found a Hat. He is also the author and illustrator of The Rock from the Sky and The Skull. Originally from Ontario, Jon Klassen now lives in Los Angeles.
MAC BARNETT is a New York Times best-selling author of many books for children, including Just Because, illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault; A Polar Bear in the Snow, illustrated by Shawn Harris; John’s Turn, illustrated by Kate Berube; and Twenty Questions, illustrated by Christian Robinson. He lives in Oakland, California.
Together, Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen have collaborated on eight children’s books, which received a wide range of accolades and honors, including three E. B. White Read-Aloud Awards and a Boston Globe–Horn Book Award. They also both serve as executive producers of the Apple Original Shape Island, based on their Shapes Trilogy.

Winning with Wordplay
Wordplay works with all types of picture books. From funny stories to lyrical nonfiction, playing with words can be the best part of the writing and reading experience. Our own wordplay warrior, Julie Hedlund, will train us to recognize when we should lean into all the puns, alliteration, and double entendres and when to hold back.

Sticking the Landing: Endings in Picture Books
It’s all leading up to this. Just like a gymnast on the last apparatus of the meet, your picture book must stick its landing to have a shot at making it to the medals stand. Bestselling author-illustrator Katie Davis will coach us on how to take the twists and turns of our fiction and nonfiction stories to create an ending that will have kids clamoring for your book over and over again.

Born and raised in Pennsylvania and Virginia, Charlotte Wenger grew up with a bookish, editorial mind but was first drawn to publishing work in college. She then worked for a publishing services company in Philadelphia until shipping up to Boston to earn her MA in Children’s Literature from Simmons. After gaining editorial, sales, and agency experience, she became an associate editor for Page Street Kids, where she loved working with debut talent and building relationships with authors and illustrators. She brings the same mindset to agenting, valuing the developmental and relational work that goes into creating successful stories and fostering long-lasting collaborations. She also serves on the national advisory board of the Mazza Museum, the world’s largest collection of original artwork by children’s book illustrators, and enjoys music and adventuring outdoors in her free time.

Jazmia K. Young is an associate agent at Curtis Brown Ltd. She received her bachelor’s degree in English with a concentration in Creative Writing at the City College of New York and was a graduate of the Publishing Certificate Program at CCNY. She is interested in representing children’s books, picture books through YA, focusing on middle-grade fiction/non-fiction with the goal of amplifying underrepresented voices and experiences. She particularly loves stories with friendship ties, complicated family dynamics, and grief or loss. Being a New York native, anything based in the great NYC has her heart. Jazmia is also the Administrative Assistant of the Association of American Literary Agents.

Jennifer Rofé wanted to live in the Berenstain Bears tree house when she was a child. Today, she represents the authors and illustrators who create the characters and worlds that inspire young readers. As a senior agent with the Andrea Brown Literary Agency, Jennifer works with creators primarily in the middle grade, picture book, and illustration spaces. Her clients range from seasoned, award-winning, and bestselling authors and illustrators to industry newcomers.

Some of Jennifer's clients include Newbery Medal winner and National Ambassador of Young People’s Literature Meg Medina; Edgar Award winner Christina Diaz Gonzalez; Mike Boldt, author-illustrator of The Blue Spruce Award winning picture book Bad Dog; Amber Ren, illustrator of Because by Mo Willems; and Renée Kurilla, illustrator of Just Because, by Matthew McConaughey.

Jennifer has been on the faculty of many conferences including the Big Sur Writer's Workshop and numerous SCBWI events, and she is especially known for her The So What? Factor presentation.

Feather Flores joined Simon & Schuster / Atheneum Books for Young Readers in 2022 after four years at Chronicle Books. She works on smart, joyful picture books; middle grade romps with coming-of-age themes; distinctive, atmospheric graphic novels; and bold, open-hearted YA that explores everything our identities, and our world, can be. Her list encompasses fiction and nonfiction, with an emphasis on stories by, about, and for people from marginalized communities. She was named a PW Star Watch Honoree in 2023 and an inaugural recipient of the We Need Diverse Books Internship Grant in 2015. Feather edits from the San Francisco Bay Area.

Maria Camila Correa is an Associate Editor at Random House Books for Young Readers. She is actively building a list of original and imaginative picture books and is the editor of the interactive Who’s In Your Book? series by Tom Fletcher and the bestselling Books of Kindness board book series. Previously, she worked on the Random House brands team, where she edited the New York Times bestselling How the Grinch Lost Christmas! and the sound book adaptations of classic Dr. Seuss books. Born in Medellín, Colombia, Maria is also a translator. Before joining Random House in 2020, she worked at Little Tiger Press in London and is a graduate of the University of Glasgow’s MEd program in Children’s Literature and Literacies.

Associate Editor Sydnee Monday joined Kokila/Penguin Young Readers in May of 2018. Their growing list features children’s lit debuts from Kiera Wright-Ruiz, Gwendolyn Wallace, Rinny Perkins, Walela Nehanda and more. Prior to Kokila, she worked at NPR, the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, and Sankofa Bookstore in Washington, D.C. They're a graduate of Howard University.