Our Drop-in Query/First Page/Illustration Critique Booth, featuring critiques by Published and Listed Members of SCBWI, will be available to conference attendees on Saturday during breakout sessions. Sign-ups for these critiques will take place at the booth and will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. Each 10-minute critique (of one manuscript first page, one query letter, or one illustration) costs $10.00, to be paid directly to the critiquer. Some critiquers accept credit card payments, and some only cash. We suggest you come armed with $10 bills if you plan to purchase multiple critiques.
Drop-In Query/First Pages/Illustration Booth Schedule
9:30am-10:30am
Melody DeLeon
Melody DeLeon is an author, avid reader, gamer and mineral hunter. She’s been a longtime member of SCWBI and enjoys attending SCWBI conferences. She’s been published in a book of skits for youth and is currently hard at work on a young adult epic fantasy adventure. She travels about the country, hunting for mineral owners and daydreaming about her fantasy world, with her faithful sidekick kitty, Dasha the Siberian. She hunts for mineral owners during the day, but at night she hunts the forces of evil in her favorite games and her fantasy. You can learn more about her at her website: MelodyDeLeon.com. Melody is interested in critiquing middle-grade and young adult material.
10:30am-11:30am
Barbara Carney-Coston
Barbara Carney-Coston is an award-winning media producer, writer, and educator. She began her career as a teacher and then worked in educational television, producing programs for public television, The Learning Channel and a variety of private clients. For National Geographic, she produced many web features, including one about the Underground Railroad that won a Parents’ Choice award and was designated an ALA Notable Website. She has written for Highlights for Children, Hopscotch, and Washington Parent magazines. Her historical fiction novel, To the Copper Country—Mihaela’s Journey, named the winner of the 2017 competition for Children’s Fiction by the Midwest Independent Publishing Association and the 2018 Outstanding Michigan History Publication for Children and Youth by the Historical Society of Michigan. Barbara is interested in critiquing all middle-grade material.
Kathy MacMillan
Kathy MacMillan is a writer, American Sign Language interpreter, librarian, signing storyteller, and avowed Hufflepuff. She writes picture books (the Little Hands Signing series, Familius Press), children’s nonfiction (She Spoke: 14 Women Who Raised Their Voices and Changed the World, Familius Press), and young adult fantasy (Sword and Verse and Dagger and Coin, both HarperTeen). She has also published many resource books for educators, librarians, and parents. Kathy serves as the co-Regional Advisor for the Maryland/Delaware/West Virginia Region of the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Kathy is interested in critiquing query letters and first pages for fiction and nonfiction picture books, middle grade, and young adult.
11:30am-12:30pm
Jonathan Roth
Jonathan Roth is the author-illustrator of the chapter book series BEEP AND BOB (Simon &Schuster/Aladdin), which chronicles the adventures of the new kid at space school and the devoted little alien who won’t leave his side. BEEP AND BOB is aimed at elementary kids who like funny and exciting stories and has been recommended by School Library Journal, Booklist, and Scholastic Teacher Magazine. Jonathan is also an elementary art teacher and lives in Rockville, MD with his wife and two kitties. Jonathan is interested in critiquing query letters, picture books, chapter books, and middle grade.
1:30-2:30pm
Meg Eden
Meg Eden’s work is published or forthcoming in magazines including Prairie Schooner, Poetry Northwest, Crab Orchard Review, RHINO and CV2. She teaches creative writing at Anne Arundel Community College. She has five poetry chapbooks, and her novel “Post-High School Reality Quest” is published with California Coldblood, an imprint of Rare Bird Books. Find her online at www.megedenbooks.com or on Twitter at @ConfusedNarwhal. Meg is most interested in critiquing Young Adult material. She is also open to Middle-Grade material as well.
Katia Raina
A former award-winning journalist and currently a middle school English teacher in Washington, D.C., she has an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her debut novel, CASTLE OF CONCRETE, set in the last year of the collapsing communist Russia, about a Jewish girl falling in love with a boy who may be an anti-Semite, is coming this June from Young Europe Books, a literary press. Katia would love to critique your Young Adult material, especially if it’s historical. Katia is also comfortable reading your middle-grade materials.
Jonathan Roth
Jonathan Roth is the author-illustrator of the chapter book series BEEP AND BOB (Simon &Schuster/Aladdin), which chronicles the adventures of the new kid at space school and the devoted little alien who won’t leave his side. BEEP AND BOB is aimed at elementary kids who like funny and exciting stories and has been recommended by School Library Journal, Booklist, and Scholastic Teacher Magazine. Jonathan is also an elementary art teacher and lives in Rockville, MD with his wife and two kitties. Jonathan is interested in critiquing query letters, picture books, chapter books, and middle grade.
2:30-3:30pm
Susan Detwiler
Susan Detwiler is the author/illustrator of Fine Life For A Country Mouse, a picture book published by Penguin Random House in 2014. She has illustrated several award-winning books for children; her seventh title for Arbordale publishing, Bat Count: A Citizen Science Story was released in 2017. She has been a PAL member of SCBWI since 2003. Her books and portfolio can be seen at susandetwiler.com/ Susan is interested in critiquing picture books, illustrations, and middle-grade material.