Banner and logo artwork throughout this newsletter by Michelle Weltz

Quarterly Question?????

In the last issue we asked "What would you like to see from the Montana region that you aren't currently seeing?" Thanks to those of you who answered the poll. We had seven responses which were pretty much split evenly between writer-specific, illustrator-specific and in-person events with one vote for more webinars. This is your region, and your opinions help your regional team decide where to put their energy. So, please take a second to click on your answer to this next poll:

Please send comments to Regional Advisor Jodi Hausen at montana-ra@scbwi.org. Thank you for your input.

News and Announcements

Be a Guest Contributor

A HUGE thank-you to LuAnn Rod and Jeanne Bowman for contributing articles for this issue.

We know there are a lot of resident experts out there across our great state of Montana, and we'd love to hear from you. Have you discovered some tips that could help your fellow kid-lit creators? Have you read a great craft book or discovered some other resource you want to tell us about? Would you like to share a behind-the-scenes piece about how you created your last book? We would love to include more guest articles from our members in upcoming newsletters.

We ask that articles be no more than 800 words and be written with the goal of helping or inspiring our writers and/or illustrators. Guest contributors will receive space for a short bio and a link to their website and social media. If you have something you'd like to share, please email the article (or a proposal) to mtscbwisocial@gmail.com.

Note: Submissions are not guaranteed publication.

Volunteers Needed

Your MT-SCBWI regional team is currently looking for two volunteers to fill important roles for our region. We are in need of someone to serve as a Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Coordinator as well as someone to serve as the Virtual Hobnob Coordinator. In addition to the perks of networking and helping your peers, these volunteers will receive free membership to SCBWI. If you'd like to know more about what's involved in these roles, please email Jodi Hausen at montana-ra@scbwi.org.

Awards and Grants

Current or upcoming opportunities include:

• PAL Members: Submit a proposal to speak at the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) 2025 SCBWI-sponsored conference to be held Nov. 20-23, 2025 in Denver, Colorado. SCBWI deadline is Friday, Jan. 17, 2025. For more information about submitting, check your member home news feed on the SCBWI website.
• WIP Awards: The Work-in-Progress Award showcases outstanding manuscripts from the members of SCBWI. One winner will be selected from each of the following five categories: Picture Book, Chapter Books/Early Readers/Middle Grade, Young Adult Fiction, Nonfiction, Underrepresented Fiction or Nonfiction (previously called Multicultural). Submissions open March 01, 2025.
• Featured Illustrator: features one illustrator member each month. The Featured Illustrator’s art is highlighted prominently on the homepage and all SCBWI social media.
• Draw This!: A monthly art prompt, part of the SCBWI publication Insight. Two winners will be featured in Insight and on social media.

SCBWI Winter Conference

Registration is now open for the SCBWI Winter Conference. Highlights for the in-person conference include:

• keynote speakers Sophie Blackall, Peter Brown, and Erin Entrada Kelly
• industry panels
• one-on-one manuscript and portfolio critiques
• portfolio showcase for illustrators
• creative labs taught by established authors, illustrators, editors, and art directors

The in-person conference will be held in New York City January 31, 2025–February 02, 2025. Early bird registration pricing ends after January 5.

The virtual conference will run February 21–22, 2025 and includes:

• Golden Kite Awards ceremony
• industry panels
• creative labs
• peer critiques

Early bird registration pricing for the virtual conference ends after January 24, 2025. Visit www.scbwi.org to learn more and register.

Balance

by LuAnn Rod, guest contributor

When a sheepdog gathers a flock of sheep by running around the entire group and stopping at the top in a direct line from the handler, it’s called balance. Border collies have been bred to instinctively display the behavior for good reason. By keeping the sheep between the dog and the handler, optimum control of the sheep is attained, and the flock will readily head in the direction the handler wants them to go.

Wouldn’t it be nice if attaining balance in writing was a simple gather?

Unfortunately, there are too many things going on at the same time, too many tasks in a day. Creative life gets as out of control as a breakaway ewe and a shepherd not keeping her eye on the big picture. When that happens, one sheep becomes the one brain of the entire flock, and one little dog has the job of putting it all back together. Sometimes he succeeds. Sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes the shepherd is a help. Sometimes the shepherd stands there wondering “what in the hell happened?”

The same is true in the writing life.

All it takes is one little plot twist or minor character to take off in a dead run in the exact opposite direction of where you think you’re going.

Unfortunately, you don’t have a faithful partner in balance on the other side to control the flow.

Or do you?

I think of it this way. There are two people writing a book. There’s the writer, the one typing on the computer, racking her brain for some logic to go along with a plot point or to keep motive up to speed with character growth. Then, there’s the other one—the dreaded editor—you as the editor, I mean. The part of you who questions every decision, parses words, and dares to look at trends and recent sales and whispers, “that’s just like yours” or “it’ll never sell, why bother?”

The editor-you keeps the flock in check, yes, but to what effect?

The other day I was at the farm doing early morning chores. One of the tasks is separating six sheep—four rams and two wethers—from three other rams.

I send sheepdog Max to gather the whole group to the gate where I’ll sort the ones to be moved. All he really needs to do is stay back a bit giving support but not too much pressure.

But four of the rams are Shetland sheep with glorious, curved horns and yellow eyes. They look like they stepped right out of the devil’s farmyard. They don’t like my little dog. One stomps. Another stares. Another charges. Max is scared. He pushes back. He barks. 

Max, just like the editor on my shoulder, is yelling at me to do something. Save him, save the chore, save the plot, get it right, or else.

As his partner, I have one choice. Back Max off, release the pressure, tell him everything will be all right. Trust me.

Being a partner means trust. Sometimes it means making decisions editor-you isn’t on board with. But, I’m the shepherd. I’m in charge. And I rely on balance to move the flock in the direction it needs to go.

So I ask editor-me to release the pressure, trust writer-me, follow my lead. I got you.

LuAnn M. Rod is the author of two middle grade novels, both published by Chicken Scratch Books. Her new Substack newsletter, The Writing Pen, debuted on December 9 at Luannmrod.substack.com. 

It’s no secret that I find coming up with ideas for a project really difficult. Looking for a fresh idea is hard, especially when it feels like everything has already been done. In addition, there is the wonderful inner critic who likes to second-guess every idea that pops up and label it as “too cliché, not original enough, not interesting enough…” But, lately, I have found a collection of tools that help me spark ideas—something I am calling my idea generation machine.

My personal idea generation machine is built on the concept of washing the brain in enough disparate thoughts in order to allow them to spontaneously connect or find patterns and matches among them. 

The first step of building this machine is utilizing a dedicated “brainstorming notebook.” I use a spiral bound dot grid notebook. You can use whatever you like—I just find that the dots make the page less daunting for me. Because I’m using the notebook to make connections, the dots help me remember what my goal is. I used to just scribble on random pieces of paper, but then they would get lost or destroyed. This way, my connections are housed in a place where they can sit safely side by side and hopefully cross pollinate!

Inside the notebook I begin my process by doing some word association. I learned about this from award-winning illustrator Sterling Hundley. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdfbNtbRJ2w

I start off listing everything I can possibly think of that pertains to my subject, usually within the span of an hour or so. Then I spend time researching the thing I am trying to illustrate, even if I am already familiar with it. I am looking for bridges between ideas the entire time.

Once I can no longer think of connected ideas, I utilize the second part of my machine. I begin looking for connections outside of myself. I do this because my memory is poor, and I have lived a sheltered life, leaving me with few personal connections to pull from!

I begin by digging through my collection of books. I look for images or small passages of text that jump out at me as I flip quickly through relevant books. I pause at certain pages and repeat my original query. For example, in trying to solve the recent SPARKS! Prompt, “Full of feathers,” I would pause on a page and say “feathers” while looking at whatever was on that page to see if it would conjure any images in my mind. I’ve noticed that this method works better if you have novel stimuli to pull from.

To find that novel stimuli, I utilize Pinterest. Note: when I am looking at Pinterest, I am not looking to copy any existing artwork. I use Pinterest as another word-generator machine by naming the nouns I see in the images to nudge my brain into making connections.

Pinterest has an interesting feature: when you click an image you are interested in, it populates the page with similar images below, giving you novel searches that you couldn’t possibly have thought to look for. In addition, by using Pinterest I'm regularly building lots of different kinds of boards and routinely pinning things to them. This means my home page will have an interesting mix of ideas ready for me. There is also an “all pins” board where you can see everything you have pinned side by side.

As I scroll Pinterest, I jot down notes. I usually leave these in the form of questions so my brain will seek the answers subconsciously. I continue to write questions, waiting for that electric fizz to tell me I am on the right track. If something clicks, I will make a quick doodle or thumbnail sketch.

When I’ve done this process for a while and nothing new is coming up, or I find myself fatigued, I step away for the evening and let my brain work on it in the background. If I don’t feel like I had any ideas generated by the next morning I will do another round of this process until something shows up. So far, this system hasn’t failed (though it occasionally takes longer than I would like).

Once I feel like I have enough idea seeds, I comb back through my list and star the ones I want to follow. These will then be turned into thumbnails. So if you feel like you’re in a creative slump, try fueling your idea generation machine to jumpstart your creativity. 

If you want to know more about the brain and its process of making connections, check out these clips on Youtube. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1sDjWfDa4w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CwyqtwtMHM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7uXAlXdTe4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4anaU6rdU1Q

Jeanne Bowman is a Montana illustrator. Follow her on Instagram @jeanneillustrates or visit her website to learn more about her creative process. www.jeannebowmanillustrates.com.

Celebration Corner

Where we share book news

of our Montana members

You'll see some familiar faces here as two of the books we announced the publication of last quarter have also won awards. Please join us in celebrating the continued success of Georgia Jipp: Blizzard Pilot, Bob Marshall: Defender of the Wilderness and Dog Talk. Read about their awards below and then scroll down to see the other books whose publications we're also celebrating.

Our region’s Virtual Hobnobs have been a great success with several sessions of tip potlucks. Here are a few resources and ideas that were shared at the last three. This is in no way a comprehensive list, just a sampling from memory and from saved chats.

October 3^rd

Tana from Billings: Wash your brushes before they dry! But seriously, she said she enjoys roughing in values on a drawing and then printing them on watercolor paper to add color on top. She suggested using gesso to eradicate errors. She also shared that it’s important to think about the visual arc of a picture book, similar to character arc for writing. Vashti Harrison’s Big is a great example of this.

Marcia from Polson: recommended Charlotte Wenger at the Prospect Agency as someone to query. She also said she gleaned a lot from the Children’s Book Academy resources and courses. Mark Mitchell’s blog How to be a Children’s Book Illustrator and mentioned Valerie Bolling as an author to watch; she’s very active online, making appearances and teaching.

Nicole from Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania (near Philadelphia): Children’s Writers’ Word Book is a great resource for determining vocabulary for various age groups or to figure out the age group for which your book is appropriate. For the poets out there (but really for anyone who wishes to write more lyrically), she also shared Renée M. LaTulippe’s Lyrical Language Lab and Rhyme Doctors. And also Nicole raved about Julia Donaldson’s BBC Maestro class and others there.

Marci Whitehurst from Ennis: mentioned that Pat Zietlow Miller recommends copying a book you love to analyze it and then borrow the format for your work.

Michelle from Big Fork: suggested listening to Caldecott winners and other award-winning children’s books read aloud.

Sheila from Billings: had a few suggestions for historical fiction reading (not necessarily kidlit): Anthony Doerr’s Cloud Cuckoo Land, books by Kate Atkinson, and Kristen Hannah.

November 7^th

Andrea from Missoula: a new member, welcome! She reminded us all to stay organized and to “Believe in your story, believe in your voice.” It isn’t always easy but she encouraged us not to get frustrated. She suggested writing that or another inspiring thought on a stickie note and posting it on your computer or somewhere you'll see it often.

Meagan from Bilings: recommended agent and author Angie Hodapp’s book, “Do You Need a Literary Agent?” Angie teaches with Lighthouse Writers. Meagan also had some very exciting news (see the Celebration Corner).

Anne from Pony: reminded us about the importance of speaking with other writers and being an active member of writing communities like SCBWI especially for people like her who live in rural areas. She said she’s gained so much from sharing her work and receiving help from others in the community.

Sheila from Billings: recommended Stephen King’s On Writing and spoke of Jack Collom’s book Moving Windows: Evaluating the Poetry Children Write. Sheila also mentioned she had a couple of her moth photos featured in Montana Outdoors (see p. 25 to check them out).

Meagan Dallner from Billings: Raved about Donald Maas’ Writing the Breakout Novel and its accompanying workbook.

Terry Cocci from outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: has been busy surfing the web and taking courses. “Tap in to what teachers are doing and find a way for them to use your books in their lessons,” she suggested. She also recommended checking out the Highlights Foundation Scholarship and Children’s Book Insiders, among others.

December 5^th

Dorothy Hinshaw Patent from Kauai, Hawaii: Get right to the inciting incident in your book, she suggested. “Don’t dilly dally with background.”

LuAnn Rod from Bozeman: read light escapist books while waiting for responses on submissions. She likes Nona Babcock’s young adult novels.

Jodi Hausen from Bozeman: recommended reading Family Game Night and Other Catastrophes by Mary E. Lambert. She also said she wrote to the author’s agent, Linda Camacho, who she’d met at a conference we'd held in Billings several years ago. Even though Linda doesn’t represent Jodi’s genres, Jodi sent her a quick email to tell her how much she appreciated the book. And Linda responded! You never know when an agent is going to change genres or have the opportunity to advocate for you ... and she’ll remember that message.

Sheila Ruble from Billings: spoke about creating new sound words, a.k.a. onomatopoeia. She likes the idea of making up sound words to enhance character or plot, but they need context. And she said, “If you can’t read it aloud, don’t use it.”

Sue Sutherland from Corvallis: said she “learned a ton” from joining the 12x12 Challenge which challenges participants to write 12 picture books in 12 months.

Marcia Williams from Polson and Norwich, Vermont: absolutely loves children’s PB author Susanna Leonard Hill’s weekly newsletter which lists awards and other opportunities.

Come join us for our next Virtual Hobnob tip potluck

January 2^nd at 7 p.m.

Don’t forget to bring a tip or resource of your own to share.

We hope to see you there!