Banner art by Michelle Weltz

Quarterly Question

Last issue we asked about Virtual Hobnob attendance and whether the hobnobs seem helpful. With only a few responses (hint, hint) about 63% of responders said they love them. A few folks (and you know who you are) clicked "Other, please send us a note." We received one comment via email (more about that under Virtual Hobnobs further down in this newsletter). Please don't be shy. Your regional team is here to serve you and the more we know about what you need and/or want, the better able we are to provide it for you. And we love feedback of any sort too. And so without further ado, here's this issue's question:

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

News and Announcements

Awards and Grants

Current or upcoming opportunities include:

Karen Cushman Late Bloomer Award: Accepting submissions from unpublished children's book authors or author/illustrators over the age of fifty through March 31.

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 through March 31.

Don Freeman Grant for published and pre-published illustrators. Submissions open through March 31.



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.

Crystal Kite Award for PAL members will open for 2025 submissions sometime this spring. Keep an eye on the awards and grants page and your SCBWI Insight for more details.

And remember to check the newsfeed on your member home page for other opportunities like this one for illustrators from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers' Emerging Artist Award with a submission deadline of June 15.

Illustration by Jen Ard

Come Join our Monthly Virtual Hobnob

The virtual hobnobs are held at 7 p.m. Mountain Time on the first Thursday of every month. They provide a way for the members of this widespread region (and others) to feel a sense of community and camaraderie as we do the hard work of creating kid-lit. The tips offered during the Tip Potlucks provide a bonus list of resources.

It has come to our attention that some members have not attended the virtual hobnob because they feel they have no advice to offer others. Rest assured, there is no requirement to share a tip at these gatherings. These tips serve as conversation starters with some very interesting discussions having spun off from them. Also, please note: You don't need to be an expert to share a tip. We're all in this crazy realm of kid-lit creation together. If you have found even the tiniest thing that has inspired, motivated, or helped you in the slightest way, it's probably worth sharing.

If you would like to see a virtual hobnob in action (and hear the recommended tips), follow this link to watch a recording of a recent session.

Tip or no, please join us at our next virtual hobnob on April 3.



Photo courtesy: Billings Public Library

For 12 months during 2024, writers and illustrators across the nation met and created work together based on a series of 12 prompts created by writer Megan Emmot.

Thank you to Megan for writing such amazing prompts, suggesting brilliant ideas to make this project better, helping to coordinate our meetings, watching time for us while we created, and acting as a brilliant cheerleader for each of us as we worked on our projects.

Thank you to Allynne Ellis and the Billings Public Library for exhibiting our work and promoting our regional group to the general public. We cannot thank our librarians enough for the work they do every day to make sure our community members have access to the resources they need—and that includes inspiring stories for young people. 

Thank you to every one of the creators who participated. Your words and artwork are inspirational and wonderful. Each one of you are creative powerhouses, and I can’t wait to see what you come up with next! Thank you for showing up to the meetings and contributing to this little idea!

Photo: Sheila Ruble

Sparks Sessions returning in May! 

Starting this May, we will email you a shiny new prompt, written by Megan Emmot, on the first of every month for the next 12 months. You can use this prompt to create a new story, poem, or illustration for your portfolio. We will share our work at our monthly co-working sessions, which will take place on the second Saturday of each month at 1 pm Mountain Time. 

You can work on the prompts even if you don't attend the co-working sessions and you can attend the co-working sessions even if you don't work on the prompts. The sessions are meant as a way to socialize, share your work, get feedback, and to set aside some time to work on your creative project. The sessions are generally divided into two 45-minute blocks: one for working, the other for sharing. 

All creators are welcome at these sessions. Links to the sessions will be emailed, so keep your eyes peeled for them!

Sparks Virtual Show May 10 at 1pm

Come join us for a celebration of all our hard work from last year! For our first Sparks co-working session of 2025, we will begin with a virtual presentation of our work from 2024. Writers will read their stories and poems, and illustrators will talk about how they were inspired by the prompt to create their pieces. This is a continuation of the physical show, which occurred at the Billings Public Library in February. Invite your friends and family to celebrate your work with you! 

Email montana-ic@scbwi.org if you have any questions.

Photos: Sue Lawrence

The panelists are:

Mariam Quraishi

Illustrator + Senior Designer

Shadra Strickland

Author Illustrator + Agent

Marie Lamba

Author + Agent

Ammi-Joan (Joan) Paquette

Author + Agent

Panelists will be open to submissions from attendees.

A HUGE thank you to Meagan Dallner and Jensen Collins for contributing the kid-lit craft articles to this issue.

Want to be a guest contributor?

Illustration by Jackie Marie Beyer

A query letter is the quintessential sales tool for a novel when seeking traditional publishing. While you shouldn’t query agents or publishers until your book is ready, writing your query letter can be done at any stage, and can help streamline your writing and ideas. Personally, I like to draft a query before writing the book itself, so I have a clear idea how to focus my story. 

There are three main parts to the query letter: the metadata, the story, and the author’s bio. The metadata for your novel should include your title, genre, word count, and comparable titles. I also like to throw in anything unique about the writing style of the book. Is it in verse? Dual POV? Epistolary? STEM? If not contemporary, when is the story set? Also where (if not earth)? Series potential? Set the stage for the agent!



Example:

Dear Agent McAgenting,

I am currently seeking representation for my 50,000-word MG STEM adventure novel, NO GEEKS, NO GLORY. Readers who enjoyed Book Scavenger by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman and Lexi Magill and the Teleportation Tournament by Kim Long may also enjoy this story with series potential.

The main section of the query is for your story. This will be a concise breakdown of your novel into the things the agent needs to know about your book. My favorite way to write this is to first introduce the main character and the internal struggle their character arc will be built around. So, if your character struggles with asking for help, or being a perfectionist, or loving themself, this is where it goes. Then hit the inciting incident that changes the world for your character and begins the momentum of the novel: usually around the ten percent mark.

Next, introduce the opposition or thing that is keeping them from attaining their goal, clearly state the stakes for your character if they fail, and then tie how their character arc is invaluable to their success. Once you have the set up, play around with word choice so the agent can get a sense of voice, so they know what to expect when they dive into those first pages. There is one big rule for the query … Do not give away the ending! This 200-word paragraph should read like a back-of-the-book teaser. It gives just enough info so the agent knows if the book is the right fit for them.

Example:

Twelve-year-old Newton-obsessed girl genius, Jo Rivetti, relies on perfection to stay sane in a world where her sister is a sports star and her brother can’t say no to trouble. So when Jo gets her first ever B+ from her favorite teacher, Ms. Blooms, there is nothing more important than correcting this blight on her spotless record. But then Ms. Blooms suddenly goes missing, leaving only a cryptic note for Jo to find. When deciphering the note leads to a late night recon mission and the discovery of a mysterious math website connected to a hidden inheritance, Jo knows exactly why her teacher was taken. Now she has to get her back, despite a new looming court date (thanks bro), house arrest, and nearly impossible clues. Jo’s never failed anything in her life, and she isn’t about to start now, even if she has to throw perfection out the window so her friends, family, and Ms. Blooms don’t all sum to suboptimal values.

The last section is for your bio. As a querying author, it's not a problem to not have any writing credits. If you have a background in something pertinent to the story, here is a good place to mention it. If not, simply give the agent a little clue as to who you are and any memberships you have. SCBWI totally counts!

Looking for practice? A good idea is to write some queries for your favorite novel or movie. Try to avoid being vague about details—instead of saying "MC runs into trouble at a mansion," tell us what the trouble is. And be careful of over-explaining the world or backstory. It's a hard balance to strike, but practice will help. There are lots of resources for query help online. I like queryshark.blogspot.com the best. It’s a website full of examples and explanations about what works and what doesn’t.  

Best of luck on your queries.

May the words be ever in your favor!

Meagan Dallner grew up in Colorado and now resides in the gorgeous state of Montana. She received her bachelor of science in mathematics from University of Colorado at Denver after completing an associates degree in the applied sciences of diesel technology. When blessed with spare time, Meagan enjoys reading, making blanket forts, and hiking with her family. She is a proud member of the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, SCBWI, and Sisters in Crime. You can learn more about Meagan and connect with her at her website www.meagandallner.com.

Like most of us, before my dream of being an illustrator came true, I had many other jobs. My degree afforded me opportunities and experiences in the business world. Yet it couldn’t completely prepare me for the reality of being a small business owner in self-published children’s books.

The thing about creative careers is they tend to be very open ended. Creative people are very Creative with their business practices. So when you Google “How do I get a client?” or “How long should it take me to make a book?” or “What have I gotten myself into?!?!” the results inherently have conflicting answers. Thankfully, I was able to dig through the muddy results and can now pass some of that information on.

But first, let's get to know me better as a baby illustrator. During those first Google searches, I came across job sites. Places like Fiverr, Upwork, Freelancer and so many more. I put my name on ALL of them. Certain this would prompt the free flow of clients to me, I triumphantly closed my laptop to wait. And wait. And. Wait. After nearly an hour, I couldn’t possibly waste any more time! So I started using their features to “bid” on contracts. Typically on these sites you get some kind of credit system to ask clients to consider you for their project. It’s much like applying for a new job in that it’s very lengthy, difficult and most of the time no one returns a response. Yet, I applied fervently to every “illustrator” job available until I ran out of credits. Then I would wait for them to reset and do it all over again. Until finally I heard the most angelic “ping” from my computer. Someone wanted to work with me! Granted, it was probably because I was the cheapest option on the market. A story for another time. However, in my mind the doors had swung open because of my efforts in perseverance and sheer talent!

Now the real “problems” started. In my hot pursuit of a client, I didn’t consider what to do with them after I got them. It was an immediate learning curve to learn how the sites contracting and scheduling worked. Not to mention what it took to actually make great books. Which, I did not accomplish. My first contract was for an hourly contract in which I created an entire picture book, cover to cover, in watercolor, in 76 hours, over 1 month. It was … messy.

There is a happy ending. I happened to get a super sweet author who was also just learning and we continue to work together today with much better outcomes. However, as I continued to work with these platforms and gained more experience, I found myself dealing with unfair contracting language, projects way below market value and clients that could be improved upon. I found ways along the way to make this all a lot better and even started contracting outside of the site. However my learning process is sipping from a fire hose. So while figuring out all of this, I was also building a website, putting my work on every portfolio website, building a social media presence and joining SCBWI.

Illustration by Jensen Collins

Out of all this effort something magical happened. I call it magic for the sake of drama, but in reality our baby illustrator always had one card up her sleeve. That is the knowledge that in every business, everyone starts at the bottom. The difference in those who find success and

those who don’t, are the people who make a name for themselves. They go out of their way to let people know their name and what they are capable of. Because once someone knows you, they can recommend you. This is a game changer.

This came back to me in raving reviews that encouraged people to work with me. I had clients who wanted to complete more books together. Those clients had communities who loved the book and wanted to work with me too. It came with friends at SCBWI running into someone with a self publishing problem. They had someone who had a solution. I’m still using the job platform in much smarter ways now, but the majority of my work comes from people knowing who Jensen the Illustrator is.

In a creative career way, let’s wrap up how to get your client list. First, you are going to proudly put your name out there. No more whispering it. Next, you’re going to start running into opportunities you don’t feel ready to take on and you’re going to say YES! The worst that’s going to happen is you are going to learn from it and get better. In the meantime, you’ll be making a name for yourself!

A dash of Kentucky, a splash of Montana, and a whole box of crayons. Jensen Collins is a children’s book illustrator whose work features bright colors and bold line work for illustrations that captivate a young audience. Jensen’s passion lies in creating whimsical characters that bring out the giggles. You can learn more and connect with Jensen at her website jensencollins.com.

Celebration Corner

Where we share book news

of our Montana members