SCBWI Conference Prep In 3 Days!

This is the story about how I got ready for my first regional SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) in just 3 Days.

Illustrators usually prepare for SCBWI Conferences months in advance. Creating new illustrations for your portfolio, making new post cards and/or business cards, and polishing up a book dummy all take a LOT of time.

When the Marvelous Midwest Conference came around in May, I had no plans on going. I didn’t have the fund to attend the conference. I applied for the KidLit Nation Diversity Scholarship for the conference, but I didn’t win.

The week of the conference rolled around, and I was at the dentist when my phone buzzed. I received an email from KidLit Nation stating that a local SCBWI member, Tamara Barker, couldn’t attend the Marvelous Midwest Conference, and she donated her ticket to the Diversity Scholarship! They offered me the scholarship and I was completely thrilled. This all happened on a Tuesday afternoon, and the 3-day conference started that Friday.

After talking to my husband to make sure he would be fine taking care of our son for the whole weekend without me, I started making plans for the conference! They were going to allow me to enter the Art Contest, and get a Portfolio critique. Since this was all last minute there was no way I would be able to attend on Friday because of work, and not having a babysitter for that day. This gave me roughly 3 days to get all my materials together for the conference by Saturday.

Mild freakout about portfolio prints.

I contacted my illustrator friend Michelle Schneider, who offered to share a hotel room with me back when I had the funds and was planning on going to the conference. To my luck, she still had space in her hotel room! I would be rooming with her and two other talented illustrators, Denise Holmes and Jane Smith! (Bless these women for letting me crash with them!)

After securing a place to sleep at the conference I immediately went to my computer for recent illustrations that I could print to add to my portfolio (and one I could enter in the art contest). I gathered several pieces and uploaded them to the Office Depot website to pick up prints the next day.

This was also going to be the first conference I would be attending since I signed with an agent, so I wanted to get new business cards printed with her contact information. I slapped something together in Photoshop, and uploaded my business card files to Overnight Prints!

Last minute business cards from Overnight Prints.

I still had a bunch of postcards left over from my last conference. So instead of trying to get all new ones printed, I printed my agent’s information on return address labels that I already had, and stuck them on the back of the postcards.

Since I wasn’t going to be attending the conference on Friday, I needed to give my Art Contest submission to someone who was attending. Luckily, I work near another SCBWI Illustrator Pav Kovacic. On my lunch break Thursday, I drove over to Pav’s job and handed him my artwork in a rainy parking lot. I totally felt like a spy handing him some top secret documents in a neutral location (because of the rain he hide the envelope in his jacket to keep it from getting wet, which only added to the top secret spy vibe!).

Adding agent info to my postcards.

By Friday, I had all my new portfolio pieces in place, my new business cards arrived, my updated postcards were ready to go, Pav submitted my piece to the illustration contest, and I had a hotel room to save me from driving back and forth. The next day I was driving to Naperville bright and early to attend the final 2 days of the conference.

I wouldn’t have been able to pull this off in 3 days without my husband being completely supportive and amazing, and incredibly generous and helpful fellow illustrators friends I’ve made during this kidlit journey! A huge thank you to KidLit Nation for the scholarship opportunity and Tamara Barker for her generous donation.