As the newly appointed Social Media Coordinator for the Oklahoma SCBWI region, I am very excited to announce the first half of this year’s Twitter Chat lineup. Most chats are held on the fourth Tuesday of each month, however, we do have a few special dates running up to our Spring Conference in April, when some of our speakers will be joining us. How amazing, right?
No matter the date, each Twitter chat session will last one hour, from 7-8pm CST, and we’ll be using the hashtag #okscbwichat.
Here is our Twitter Chat Line-Up:
JANUARY- Sonia Gensler
Sonia Gensler is the award-winning author of Ghostlight, a contemporary middle grade novel, as well as The Dark Between and The Revenant, both young adult historical novels. She is obsessed with Gothic horror and loves to write ghostly mysteries.
Sonia grew up in a small Tennessee town and ran with a dangerous pack of band and drama geeks. As an adult she experimented with a variety of impractical professions—museum interpreter, historic home director, bookseller, and perpetual graduate student—before finally deciding to share her passion for stories through teaching. She taught literature and writing to young adults for ten years and still thinks fondly of her days in the classroom. Sonia currently lives in Oklahoma with her husband and cat.
Sonia will be our guest on January 26th, from 7-8pm CST. Her Twitter username is @soniagensler. To participate in the chat, please use the hashtag #okscbwichat.
February – Gwendolyn Hooks
Gwendolyn Hooks is the author of twenty published books, including her popular Pet Club series. Two of her Scholastic early readers, The Mystery of the Missing Dog and Three’s A Crowd, sold over 100,000 copies each. She’s also written nonfiction picture books, including Arctic Appetizers: Studying Food Webs in the Arctic.
Her latest book, Leona Mitchell: Opera Star, was released this past fall as part of the I AM OKLAHOMA series. In 2016, Lee & Low will publish her picture book biography, Tiny Stitches – The Life of Medical Pioneer Vivien Thomas.
Gwendolyn blogs on The Brown Bookshelf to push awareness of the myriad of African American voices writing and illustrating for young readers. The American Library Association selected The Brown Bookshelf as a Great Website for Kids.
Gwendolyn will be our guest on February 23rd, from 7-8pm CST. Her Twitter username is @GwenTheGweat. To participate in the chat, please use the hashtag #okscbwichat.
March – Victoria Selvaggio
Victoria Selvaggio is an Associate Agent with The Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency. She has a strong background in business ownership, and she worked for over seven years as a volunteer and Regional Advisor for SCBWI: Northern Ohio. Drawn to the publishing scene first as an author writing all genres, with her most recent publication in the 2015 Children’s Writer’s and Illustrator’s Market, Vicki’s passion for honing the craft carried over into reading manuscripts for the agency in 2013.
Currently, she is excited to read compelling manuscripts that will resonate with her long after she’s done.
Victoria will be one of our fantastic speakers presenting at our OK SCBWI Spring Conference in April. To learn more about our conference and to register for this event, CLICK HERE.
Her current wishlist:
“I am currently looking for all genres (lyrical picture books, middle grade and young adult fiction, new adult, mysteries, suspense, thrillers, paranormal, fantasy, narrative nonfiction, adult fiction), but find I’m particularly drawn to middle grade and young adult. I especially love thrillers and all elements of weird, creepy stuff. If it’s out of the box, and it will make me think and think, long after I’m done reading, send it to me. On the flip side, I yearn for books that make me laugh, cry and wonder about the world.” (From agent’s website.)
Victoria will be our guest on March 29th, from 7-8pm CST. Her Twitter username is @vselvaggio1. To participate in the chat, please use the hashtag #okscbwichat.
April – Karl Jones
Karl Jones is an Associate Editor with Grosset & Dunlap/ Penguin Young Readers. Karl works on a variety of licensed and original middle grade and activity books, as well as some early YA projects. He acquired and edits the Just Jake series from New York Times best-selling kid author, Jake Marcionette and edits a middle grade/YA transition series by established stage and screenwriter, Justin Sayre-the first book in this series, Husky published in September 2015.
He also develops, acquires and writes unique original activity books like Day of the Dead Activity Book and Build A Boyfriend, as well as hiring work-for-hire authors for several licensed book programs for entertainment and gaming properties including Star Trek, Powerpuff Girls, Uncle Grandpa, Regular Show and Shovel Knight.
He is particularly interested in realistic middle grade and YA fiction and format-bending storytelling projects. In his free time, he enjoys comedy and storytelling events, outdoor adventures, and live music. He is a native Oklahoman.
Karl will be one of our fantastic speakers presenting at our OK SCBWI Spring Conference in April. To learn more about our conference and to register for this event, CLICK HERE.
Karl will be our guest on April 5th, from 7-8pm CST. His Twitter username is @karljones. To participate in the chat, please use the hashtag #okscbwichat.
May – Timothy Lange
Timothy Lange has been a graphic designer, illustrator and fine art painter for over 30 years. He graduated from the Colorado Institute of Art in 1982 and studied at the Art Students League of Denver (off and on) from 1989 to 2003.
He is an active member of the Oklahoma Chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). He was was transplanted to Broken Arrow, Oklahoma in 2003. Aside from the bugs and humidity, he says its not a bad place to call home.
Tim will be our guest on May 24th, from 7-8pm CST. His Twitter username is @TJ_Lange. To participate in the chat, please use the hashtag #okscbwichat.
June – SPECIAL FACEBOOK EVENT!!! Saturday, June 11th, Q&A Event with YA Author Courtney Summers & her Literary Agent Amy Tipton – This is a special event for our SCBWI Oklahoma Members ONLY.
Courtney Summers was born in Belleville, Ontario, in 1986 and currently resides in a small town not far from there. She likes writing books about girls who only have themselves because sometimes that realization is the scariest and most important thing–the slow untangling of the difference between ‘lonely’ and ‘alone.’ Her favourite kind of stories are the ones that make you wish so badly they’d ended differently but deep down you know they really couldn’t have gone any other way.
To date, she has authored five novels. Her first novel, Cracked Up to Be, was published when she was 22 and went on to win the 2009 CYBILS award in YA fiction. Since then, she’s published four more books. They are 2011 YALSA Top Ten Quick Pick and White Pine Honor book, Some Girls Are, 2012 YALSA Quick Pick, Fall for Anything, 2013 YALSA Top Ten Quick Pick and White Pine Honour book, This is Not a Test, and most recently, Please Remain Calm (an e-novella sequel to This is Not a Test) and All the Rage. All the Rage was an Official Tumblr Reblog Book Club pick and named a Best Book of 2015 by Bustle, Book Riot, Chicago Public Library and the B&N Teen Blog.
When Courtney is not writing, she enjoys playing video games, watching horror movies, Supernatural and planning for the impending zombie apocalypse. Her favorite color is green.
Amy Tipton joined the Signature Literary Agency in 2009. She graduated from Naropa University with a B.A. in Writing and Literature and received her MFA from New College of California in WRiting. She comes to the agency after working as a literary assistant and office manager at several literary agencies including JCA Literary Agency, Diana Finch Literary Agency, Gina Maccoby Literary Agency, and Liza Dawson Associates. Amy has also worked as a book scout for Aram Fox, Inc. dealing with foreign rights. She became an agent with Peter Rubic and continued to agent with FinePrint Literary Management. In addition to her agenting experience, Amy also worked as a freelance editor to Lauren Weisberger, author of The Devil Wears Prada. Her work is published in the anthology, Controlled Burn, and pieces of her first and second novel can be found in a variety of literary journals.
Courtney & Amy will be our guests on FACEBOOK on June 11th. On that day, Members who have been invited to join in this private chat can post questions for Courtney & Amy to answer. Our guests will be popping in and out of Facebook during the day to answer questions. This is NOT a live chat.
In order to participate in this Q&A an OKSCBWI member must:
- Have a Facebook account
- Visit the event page and select JOIN to be invited into the private group
- Once someone has approved you, post your questions for Courtney & Amy BEFORE the event begins on June 11th.
July – Brenda Drake
Brenda Drake, the youngest of three children, grew up an Air Force brat and the continual new kid at school until her family settled in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Brenda’s fondest memories growing up are of her eccentric, Irish grandmother’s animated tales, which gave her a strong love for storytelling. So it was only fitting that she would choose to write young adult and middle grade novels with a bend toward the fantastical. When Brenda’s not writing or doing the social media thing, she’s haunting libraries, bookstores, and coffee shops or reading someplace quiet and not at all exotic (much to her disappointment).
Brenda is the host of the ever-popular Pitch Wars, Pitch Madness, and the Twitter pitch of all pitches, #pitmad. Brenda will be discussing what it’s like to host these mind-boggling contests, and how in the world she still makes time to write! Her debut novel, THIEF OF LIES: A Library Jumpers Novel, experienced a very successful release this month.
Brenda will be our guest on July 26th, from 7-8pm CST. Her Twitter username is @brendadrake. To participate in the chat, please use the hashtag #okscbwichat.
What an outstanding lineup!
The chats really are a lot of fun. Don’t worry if you can’t make it to every event; I’ll post a link to the Storify version of each chat after every event has concluded.
We have a few more surprises we’re working on. Once we can announce them, I’ll update this page.
I hope you’ll join us!
August – Topic Chat: Support Through Social Media
We will be having another special MEMBERS ONLY event this month on August 20th, a Social Media Hangout, to discuss and share ideas on how our members can better support each other and their books through social media, from pre-ordering books to using Goodreads effectively, and much more. Details on locations and times will be posted on our SCBWI OK website.
To supplement that, our Twitter chat for the month will be on a specific topic: “Sharing Ideas of Support Through Social Media”. During the chat, we’ll exchange our favorite ways of supporting each other through social media.
This topic chat will take place on August 23rd, from 7-8pm CST. To participate in the chat, please use the hashtag #okscbwichat.
September: We have two chats this month!
Brett Wright
Brett Wright is an Editor at Bloomsbury Children’s Books, where he’s worked for the past five years on everything from picture books through YA. He will also be one of our off-site critiquers for our SCBWI OK Fall Workshop in October.
He has worked with authors like E.D. Baker, Jennifer Brown, Nikki Grimes, Carrie Jones, Paul Tobin, Sarah Crossan, and many more. He has also written three books in Random House Children’s OMG Shakespeare series, including Yolo Juliet. He lives in New York, NY. You can follow Brent on Instagram or Twitter.
Brett will be our guest on September 6th, from 7-8pm CST. His Twitter username is @BrettWright. To participate in the chat, please use the hashtag #okscbwichat.
Benjamin Myers
Benjamin Myers is a professor of literature at Oklahoma Baptist University and is the current Oklahoma Poet Laureate. He is the author of two books of poetry LAPSE AMERICANA and ELEGY FOR TRAINS, which won the Oklahoma Book Award for Poetry.
His poems may be read in numerous literary journals, including The New York Quarterly, Nimrod, Tar River Poetry, Borderlands, Salamander, and the Chiron Review, as well as online in Devil’s Lake, DMQ Review, The Pedestal Magazine, Elimae, Poetrybay, and elsewhere. He lives in Chandler, Oklahoma.
Benjamin will be our guest on September 27th, from 7-8pm CST. His Twitter username is @OK PoetLaureate. To participate in the chat, please use the hashtag #okscbwichat.
October: We have two chats this month as well!
Adriana Domínguez
Adriana Domínguez is a literary agent with Full Circle Literary with 20 years of experience in publishing. She will also be one of our off-site critiquers for our SCBWI OK Fall Workshop in November.
Her author client list includes award winners and best sellers such as Michaela and Elaine DePrince, Reyna Grande, Katheryn Russell-Brown and Angela Cervantes. Adriana is interested in picture books that are funny or endearing, with an element of the unexpected; voice-driven contemporary and historical middle grade and young adult novels, and narrative nonfiction, including biographies, and memoirs written by authors with strong platforms. Twists, strong concepts, and diverse points of view are all on her general wish list; works that are at once timely and timeless will always get her attention. Adriana also represents artists with distinctive styles, and not-so-secretly yearns to bring more diverse illustrators into the market.
**To view her full bio and complete manuscript wishlist, visit her agency website.
Adriana will be our guest on October 4th, from 7-8pm CST. Her Twitter username is @VocesBlog. To participate in the chat, please use the hashtag #okscbwichat.
Joe Hight (BOB at Best of Books)
Joe Hight is not only the president of Best of Books, an independent bookstore in Edmond, Oklahoma, he’s behind the online persona, BOB, and the delightful tweets of the store’s Twitter account @bestofbooksok.
Best of Books is a family-owned bookstore celebrating its 30th anniversary as an Edmond institution. Joe and his family took over ownership a few years ago after they moved back from Colorado Springs, Colorado, where Joe was the editor of The Gazette. While working there, his paper won the Pulitzer Prize. Prior to the move to Colorado, Joe worked for The Oklahoman. He was inducted into the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame in 2013.
Joe will be our guest on October 25th, from 7-8pm CST. His Twitter username is @JoeHight. To participate in the chat, please use the hashtag #okscbwichat.
**There will be no monthly #okscbwichat scheduled for November or December as they fall close to the holidays – see you next year!
valerie r lawson 
What a great group of people! Thank you so much for organizing all of this!
You bet. Hope you can join us.