Picture Book Summit | 2022

To Imagination and Beyond
The Fan Brothers will discuss their unique path into picture books and talk about some of the unconventional sources for their story ideas. The Earth, when viewed from space, doesn’t have any borders or divisions. Similarly, the world of creativity doesn’t have any boundaries or divisions either. Stories can hop from one place to another: from a t-shirt design that eventually became The Night Gardener, or a careless doodle from thirty years ago that grew into Lizzy and the Cloud. Join Eric and Terry as they reveal how your next story may be waiting in the most unlikely place.

Meet The Fan Brothers
Eric Fan received his formal art training at the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto. His work is a blend of traditional and contemporary techniques, using graphite mixed with digital

Terry Fan received his formal art training at Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto, Canada. Before he could talk, he used to doodle airplanes on the walls. As a grown-up, he spends his days (and nights) dreaming up stories and creating magical paintings, portraits and prints. Born in Illinois, he now lives in Toronto, near the shores of Lake Ontario, which he likes to imagine is the sea.

Do You Read Me?
Surviving as a Writer, Some Contradictory Advice
Being on the writing journey can sometimes feel like you’ve been set adrift in space. Conflicting critiques have left you wondering which lifeline will lead you back to safety. Beloved children's author Kate DiCamillo is here to help you decipher which advice to listen to (and which advice to jettison) as you bring your picture book manuscripts out of the dark and into the light.

Meet Kate
Kate DiCamillo is the beloved author of many books for young readers, including the Mercy Watson and Deckawoo Drive series. Her books Flora & Ulysses and The Tale of Despereaux both received Newbery Medals. She has published several picture books including Great Joy, illustrated by Bagram Ibatouline, La La La, an almost wordless story illustrated by Jaime Kim, Good Rosie, illustrated by Harry Bliss, and two Mercy Watson picture books, illustrated by long time series collaborator Chris Van Dusen. A former National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, she lives in Minneapolis.

The Parallel Universe of Authors & Illustrators
What does it mean to ``leave room for the illustrator?`` What tools can writers use to think visually while writing? Likewise, how can illustrators pull words from their images? Author/Illustrator and Agent Shadra Strickland shares how to get at the heart of your story by making sure both the text and the illustrations do an equal job in the storytelling - for both authors-only and author-illustrators.

Meet Shadra
Shadra Strickland studied, design, writing, and illustration at Syracuse University and later went on to complete her M.F.A. at The School of Visual Arts in New York City. She won the Ezra Jack Keats Award and the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent in 2009 for her work in her first picture book, Bird, written by Zetta Elliott. Strickland co-illustrated Our Children Can Soar, winner of a 2010 NAACP Image Award. She has published with Lee and Low Books, Simon and Schuster, Random House, Candlewick, Chronicle Books, and Little Brown. Her books have received recognition from the American Library Association, Junior Library Guild, and other prominent literary lists. Shadra currently works and teaches illustration at Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland. She also developed an online picture book class at Craftsy.com.

Houston, Your Manuscript Has a Problem
One of the best ways to navigate your course as a writer is through critiques. Whether you’re receiving a critique, or evaluating your own manuscript, you need to know what’s holding your story back. In this session, Katie Davis will show you how to use the input you receive and be a good critique partner along the way. Get ready to take your work to a whole new stratosphere!

Meet Katie
Katie Davis is an award-winning writer/illustrator whose published work includes kidlit genres from picture books to middle grade to young adult. Her first picture book, Who Hops? has been in print for over 20 years, and Kindergarten Rocks! has been a perennial favorite since 2005. She is the former Director of the Institute of Children’s Literature and Institute for Writers. Her books have sold over 820,400 copies and her two guides for writers, How to Promote Your Children’s Book and How to Write a Children’s Book both debuted at #1 on Amazon.

From Lift-Off to Landing: The Cosmic Connection Between the Beginnings and Endings of Picture Books
You’ve seen presentations about great picture book beginnings. You’ve seen them about effective endings. But a truly great picture book relies on the connection between the two. Emma Walton Hamilton and Julie Hedlund show you how to launch topflight stories and navigate them to stellar endings.

Meet Emma & Julie
Emma Walton Hamilton is a best-selling children’s book author, editor, and writing coach. With her mother, actress/author Julie Andrews, Emma has co-authored over thirty children’s books, eight of which have been on the NY Times Bestseller list, including The Very Fairy Princess series. She is Director of the Children’s Lit Fellows program at Stony Brook University and co-host of the Julie’s Library Podcast.

Julie Hedlund is an award-winning picture book author, co-founder of the Complete Picture Book Submissions System with Emma Walton Hamilton, and founder of the 12 x 12 Picture Book Writing Challenge. Since 2012, 12 x 12 has encouraged thousands of picture book writers to get their stories out of their heads and onto the page. Her picture book credits include Over, Bear! Under Where?, My Love for You is the Sun and A Troop is a Group of Monkeys. Her next book, Song After Song: The Musical Life of Julie Andrews debuts in 2023.

Associate Agent Karly Dizon was born in the Philippines and immigrated to Northern California as a child. She obtained her Business Marketing degree and has been a Freelance Graphic Designer for over 15 years. Karly began her career in the publishing industry as a reader for Tricia Skinner at Fuse Literary. Her responsibilities quickly grew and she was promoted to Literary Assistant, a role that also included a spot on the production team of Short Fuse. Karly has a deep love for characters with a strong voice and seeks out stories she can get lost in. Diversity in genre fiction is a major bonus. She specializes in picture books, middle grade, and young adult genre fiction.

Savannah Brooks started in agenting as an intern with the Jennifer De Chiara team in 2017, moving to associate agent in 2018. In 2022, she joined the incredible team at KT Literary as an agent, where she represents all of kid lit and adult contemporary fiction, romcoms, thrillers/mystery/suspense, and horror. She’s especially interested in stories that teach her something new, add to a larger sociopolitical conversation, and highlight underrepresented identities and cultures. She earned her MFA, focused in creative nonfiction, from Hamline University and her BS in marketing management from Virginia Tech and worked on the editorial side of publishing for two years prior to joining JDLA. As well as agenting, she works as a publishing and literature lecturer at the University of Minnesota and a teaching artist at the Loft Literary Center. She lives in Minneapolis and can regularly be found at one of Minnesota’s 11,842 lakes—yes, even in winter.

Across age categories, Paige Terlip is drawn to high concept novels with captivating hooks, snarky characters with hearts of gold, creative magic systems, complicated relationships, and found families. She loves well-plotted twists, being a little bit scared, and stories that explore the fluidity of gender and bring queer experiences to light. Regardless of genre, she is seeking inclusive, intersectional voices and gorgeous line-level writing with emotionally compelling narratives. Prior to becoming an Associate Agent, Paige was a Senior Assistant for Executive Agent Laura Rennert, and has been with ABLA since 2017. She comes to agenting with a background in marketing, design, and freelance editorial.

After earning her master’s degrees in Children’s Literature and English Literature from Simmons College in Boston, Emily Feinberg joined the editorial team at Roaring Brook Press. Emily works mostly with picture book and nonfiction titles. She edited Elisha Cooper’s Caldecott Honor book Big Cat, Little Cat as well as Lily Williams’ If Sharks Disappeared and Maria Gianferrari’s Hawk Rising, illustrated by Brian Floca. Emily is not an editor of fantasy.

Emma Ledbetter is Editorial Director of Picture Books at Abrams Books for Young Readers. She joined Abrams in 2018 following eight years at Simon & Schuster, and some other things before that, including a particularly delightful summer interning on SpongeBob SquarePants at Nickelodeon. She has worked with award-winning and bestselling authors and illustrators and is honored to have edited many acclaimed picture books including Christian Robinson’s author-illustrator debut, Another; Sergio Ruzzier’s wonderfully offbeat Good Boy; and Ida, Always by Caron Levis and Charles Santoso, which The New York Times called “an example of children’s books at their best.” She looks for a wide range of fresh, insightful, diverse picture books, and is especially fond of Edward Gorey, Ruth Krauss, and Frances the Badger.

Jess Harold is an editor of children's books with a passion for stories that reflect the world for kids of all experiences. She's worked with some truly incredible authors including Angeline Boulley, Kacen Callender, and Joanna Ho. Jess began her career in marketing at Simon & Schuster Children's before moving to editorial at Scholastic. Now an Editor at Henry Holt BYR, she is eager to find more contemporary stories that center identity and its many intersections in the hopes of creating building blocks for a better world.