Mina Witteman – author | editor | teacher of creative writing
Posts from the “Children’s books” Category
A short post this time. Just to let you all know that in a couple of hours I will be on my way to New York, to the Winter Conference of the SCBWI. Main objectives? Meeting with my friends from all over the world, expanding my network, and learn a thing or two about the craft of writing. I’ll be at the Marketing Intensive on Friday, where I hope to find out more on how we writers can market our books and find our readers. One of the speakers is Susan Raab of Raab Associates, a stellar marketing firm working the field of children’s books. We are trying to get her to come to the Netherlands and enlighten us here, too. Saturday will be…
One of the people I admire immensely is Belgian author and poet Bart Moeyaert, so when my teacher, prize-winning author Benny Lindelauf, read a chapter from Moeyaert’s much-praised book Brothers (Broere), last Saturday, I sat back and let his beautiful prose seep into my inner world. In Brothers Moeyaert gives the reader a touching peek into his childhood as the youngest of seven brothers. Good things never come in ones, is my experience. And indeed this one didn’t either, for Bart Moeyaert turned out to be scheduled for a talk, an interview and a debate in Amsterdam. Needless to say that I rushed over to the Balie right away. I have to thank my dear friend Daphne de Heer of the SLAA — the association that…
The Literary Death Match. I can easily say that for me it was one of the highlights of 2011, even though it scared the shit out of me. People filed into the theater at the Smart Project Space, more people than I had anticipated. I ducked into one of the reserved chairs in the front row, my back turned to the masses, pretending they weren’t there. My muse and a couple of friends had my back, so I could concentrate on breathing. Breathing? What breathing? I didn’t breathe at all. Todd Zuniga and Megan C. Garr took the stage. They introduced the Literary Death Match and what it was about: 4 readers reading from their work, 3 jurors ready to slash 2 of the…
We are looking back at an excellent first SCBWI NL conference. I think every single participant loved the speakers, their keynotes, lectures and the hands-on break-out sessions. I particularly liked Doug Cushman’s opening keynote and his advice to always remember how you started, why you started, and, most important, what drove you to wanting to be a writer or an illustrator. His Space Cat is a terrific illustration of that: written when Doug was 8 years old and published a couple of years ago. As he said: we don’t change that much. Erzsi Deàk of the Hen&ink Agency enlightened us on what agents and editors are looking for these days. Her breakdown of the buzz at the Frankfurt International Book Fair was insightful and helpful…
Three things came together this past week. We had a couple of late bloomers signing up for the first SCBWI conference in the Netherlands. Yay! D-Day is this coming Saturday and I am very, very excited about the illustrious illustrator and writer Doug Cushman who will open the conference. The title of his keynote? In the Beginning Was Space Cat. Who doesn’t remember the cosmic adventures of the space hero who effortlessly rivals Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon and many other great space age heroes? Space Cat was the onset of Doug’s stellar career, as it still is the onset of the reading careers of so many kids. The other thing that came to me was the Literary Death Match. These killing matches, as co-creator…
Mina Witteman 