Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators

And I said, could you maybe send this to your agent? What do you think? And she said, no, that's not how it works.

What you need to do is join the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, a professional group.

It's the largest international professional association for children's book writers and illustrators.

She said, go join them, go to their conferences, find out who's publishing what, meet editors, meet agents.

The next thing I did was join some professional organizations.

SCBWI is one that I've been part of, Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.

For those of us in Canada, CANSCAPE is a similar one, Canadian Society for Children's Authors, Illustrators, Performers.

There's lots of different organizations out there that support writers and particularly writers for children.

And someone in the group recommended to me, she was writing for children, and she recommended this organisation called Scooby.

It was the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.

Yeah.

And at the time they had a really big faction in the, I think it's an American company, but they had a really big faction in the UK.

But look at the basics.

There's SCBWI, which is the Society of Children's Books Writers and Illustrators.

That is a good resource.

And once you... know what's pitchable as far as formatting and things like that, and the page count, that's also important.

Welcome back to the SCBWI podcast, our series of long form interviews with some of the most influential and interesting people working in children's books.

My name is Theo Baker, and on today's show, I was so pleased to talk with Regina Brooks, founder and CEO of Serendipity Literary Agency, the largest African American owned literary agency in the country.

She's also the author of two books on publishing and craft, writing great books for young adults, everything you need to know from crafting the idea to getting published, and You Should Really Write a Book, How to Write, Sell, and Market Your Memoir.

Yeah.

I think that people come to my agency in numerous ways.

So right now, I'm at the SCBWI conference.

And I know that there is talent in the room.

And that talent, after you speak on a panel, they come to you and they say, hey, I have a project that I want you to look at.

So I had a summer internship with him and ended up in recruiting, saw an opportunity to work at Nestle.

And then and I also had started my own search firm, but I sort of rebuilt their finance recruiting um department and diversified their finance team and then they asked me to do dei and i said i don't know what this thing is and they said we'll get you the best training and they and they really did um then somebody from nestle invited me to amgen the world's largest biotech and then i ended up i was recruited to be the global global head of of diversity, equity, and inclusion for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, which was like a dream job.

I had written a children's book with a multi-ethnic Black Jewish girl that could be a Jutina or Black and Jewish and with food issues, just like me, because we have tummy issues in our community.

And so I was so excited.

And so I maybe don't show up with some of the same things that impact me at work as the person I just mentioned.

And I think I think that nuance was not a part of of the push post, you know, in a post George Floyd world.

So in that year, when I joined the SCBWI or the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, I did that.

Then my first thing on the job was working on our Black Lives Matter post.

I welcome critique.

How did you find your beta readers? Was it through the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators?

Through my friendships with the, uh, as being part of the SCBWI.

Um, and, uh, you know, I've made a lot of friends over the years, all writers in Austin and, uh, in Houston, and well, actually it doesn't matter, right, where in the country anymore.

Uh, but I've made a lot of friends and a few that, um, that I, uh, trust whose books I enjoy to, reading and, uh, they become my beta readers.