The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, whose last New York meeting took place in February 2020, brought its annual gathering back to the Big Apple on the weekend of February 11 and 12. Mindful of accessibility and its global membership, the organizers will follow the in-person event with a virtual conference on February 25. Those who missed keynotes from Marla Frazee and Aisha Saeed, or the panel of agents and editors, can tune in for the pre-recorded sessions; live sessions on February 25 will include online courses, known as “creative labs,” led by Beach Lane Books executive editor Andrea Welch, Philomel associate publisher Jill Santopolo, and Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group art director Aram Kim.
Kicking off the conference at the New York Hilton Midtown on February 11, SCBWI executive director Sarah Baker welcomed in-person attendees. Aware that successful and “pre-published” authors and illustrators were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, Baker emphasized the “friendly, supportive” mission of SCBWI. “There really is no such thing as too many good children’s books,” she said. “Let’s root for each other, let’s teach each other, let’s inspire each other to create the best and most important books we possibly can for young people.”
Two-time Caldecott Honoree Marla Frazee, creator of All the World, Everywhere Babies, the Boss Baby books, the Farmer and the Clown series, and her illustrations for the Clementine series, delivered a powerful and personal opening keynote about failing to complete a humorous project during the Covid years—and instead completing a meditative picture book, In Every Life. In the pandemic, “everything that was previously simple became hard, and everything that had already been hard became impossible,” she reflected. “There was so much loss to process every day. My creativity and sense of humor, and the kind of books I had done for my whole career, have been based on feeling a whole lot more OK than I do now.”
Unable to engage with “the funny book” she’d been trying to write, Frazee turned to a project she’d begun in 1998, a rendition of a call-and-response Jewish blessing. Back when she was a stressed-out, early-career author and illustrator, Frazee showed the original manuscript to Trina Schart Hyman, a generous but exceedingly peppery mentor. “I was looking for a course correction in my own life,” Frazee said, and she complained about her artistic struggles to the established illustrator. “Her first sentence back to me was, ‘You’re right, the center doesn’t hold, and most things are falling apart.’ ” Hyman prompted Frazee to articulate her reasons for wanting to create books, despite punishing hours and effort: “Who are you doing this for?”
Frazee shaped that tough response into takeaway advice. “This question of balancing our life with our work isn’t ever going to be resolved,” she told the audience. “For a lot of us it’s easier to show up for others than it is to show up for ourselves.” Frazee admitted she has wrestled with time and grief of late. She also shared, in family photos and her own illustrations, how In Every Life answered the question, “Who are you doing this for?”
Redefining Success
Amal Unbound author and We Need Diverse Books founding member Aisha Saeed gave SCBWI’s closing keynote, announcing that she wanted to talk “about success, or making it, and what that means,” notably to those from marginalized or historically underrepresented communities. Saeed has achieved remarkable wins as a children’s author, from her YA debut Written in the Stars to Amal Unbound’s 2018 Global Read Aloud status to her 2019 picture book Bilal Cooks Daal. Yet her publishing journey was slow and discouraging at first.
“Twenty-nine editors over the course of about three years all said no” before Nancy Paulsen said yes to Written in the Stars, Saeed told the audience. Now she makes light of the rejection with humorous “nope” slides at school visits, “and we laugh about it because, spoiler alert, I eventually got published! But three years of being told no is the opposite of hilarious, and it was more than just the no.” A Pakistani American author, she was informed that her stories of South Asian kids were not commercial or mainstream, and no amount of editorial revision could change that. She also heard Written in the Stars described as “a quiet book,” likely to go unsupported by publisher resources.
This “sobering moment” related to her own identity and subject matter coincided with the larger reckoning that sparked the #WeNeedDiverseBooks hashtag around BookCon 2014. An admirer of WNDB leader Ellen Oh, Saeed got involved and was swept up in the literary activism of Malinda Lo, Jacqueline Woodson, and Matt de la Peña. The grassroots movement grew, and Saeed found herself a central member of the “beautiful, vibrant” We Need Diverse Books community. (She remains committed to their goals, but no longer serves within the organization.)
Meanwhile, “success shifted a little, and now I saw another mountain peak in the distance,” Saeed said, another goal to be met. With each new book and accomplishment, Saeed felt compelled to exceed herself and felt she had lost sight of why she loved writing. She reached out to Beth Pickens, author of Make Your Art No Matter What, to discuss the pressure that accomplishments (or a sense of failure) can bring. “Instead of looking at my career through the lens of achievement, I decided to look at it through the lens of connection and personal meaning,” Saeed said, giving examples of classroom visits that motivated students (and sometimes their parents). Saeed’s redefinition of success reminded SCBWI listeners of Marla Frazee’s opening question: Who are you doing this for?
