On Saturday, my friend Jennifer and I went to another writers meeting, this time in Napa County:
Sat. April 25, 2 – 4pm, Napa County Meeting, Author Hillary Homzie, Submitting to Agents and Editors
Date/Time
Date(s) – 04/25/2015
2:00 pm – 4:00 pmLocation
American Canyon Library
300 Crawford Way – American Canyon, CA 94503SCBWI SF NORTH & EAST BAY REGION
NAPA COUNTY MEETING
Saturday, April 25, 2:00-4:00 pm
You’ve finished the manuscript…NOW what?
SPEAKER HILLARY HOMZIE, Author
In this hands-on workshop, Hillary will share action steps to help you find your way in the marketplace. You will learn five essential questions to help you assess where to go next with a project. Should you start an agent search? Look for regional or big publishers? Or try self-publishing? Or does your manuscript need another revision? Hillary will share tips on how to find agents who are actively looking for clients, and which resources can help you find the right publisher for your project
About Hillary
As a popular writing teacher and independent editor, Hillary has inspired many to find their voice and special niche in publishing. Writers she has worked with have signed book contracts with almost every major publisher as well as independent presses.
Hillary has experience with commercial and regional publishers, and with self-publishing. She is the author of the forthcoming tween novel The Queen of Likes (Simon & Schuster/Aladdin Mix), as well as the tween novels, Things Are Gonna Get Ugly and The Hot List, and the chapter book series, Alien Clones From Outer Space. Hillary teaches in the graduate M.F.A. program in children’s writing at Hollins University as well as for the Children’s Book Academy. Visit her at www.HillaryHomzie.com and follow her @HillaryHomzie.com
I really enjoyed this meeting and I liked Hillary a lot. I was able to speak to her briefly about how I should approach submitting my work in view of the fact that it is dependent on my own illustrations. I was told that the only way I really could do that was to have an art director approve my illustrations as suitable (or good enough).
I talked to some illustrators while I was there, as well as some writers. And it seems to me that it is rather an unusual thing to be both a writer and an illustrator. But I know people do it, so why can’t I? Maybe my art is not good enough. But then when I try to look at it objectively, all I can say is that I think it is good enough. Other people have told me that it is good and, in fact, very good. So I will leave my illustrations posted on SCBWI’s illustrator gallery. And I will believe they are good enough.
I still have lots of work to do in order to be ready to attempt to publish anything anyway. Although I did finish (finally) the writing for my “Odd Birds” project. Now all I need to do is go back through it all and edit it. But it’s essentially finished – artwork as well (such that it is). And since this project seems the closest to being finished, then that is the one I will focus on at present.
(Onward and upward…)