As the Social Media Coordinator for the SCBWI Oklahoma Region, I host a monthly Twitter Chat for our members (and anyone else who’d like to participate) where we talk for an hour with someone from the children’s publishing world, be it agent, editor, author, illustrator, etc. The conversations are always lively and enlightening.
We meet from 7-8pm CST using the hashtag #okscbwichat. If you’ve ever been curious about a Twitter Chat, stop on by! We love meeting new people.
This month’s chat session was Tuesday, July 28th.
CLICK HERE to view our full #okscbwichat 2020 schedule.
This was the second visit to our Twitter chat for Janee Trasler. We’re always happy to have repeat guests! Janee has been quite busy since we spoke with her last, and she now has an adorable series of early chapter books that just released in May she was happy to tell us all about.
Here’s an introduction to Janee:
July 28th – Janee Trasler – Author/Illustrator
Janee Trasler writes and illustrates funny books for kids. Including the popular CHICKIES board book series and other great picture books like I AM NOT A CHAIR, CAVEMAN A.B.C. STORY, and the newly published titles FROG MEETS DOG and GOAT ON A BOAT.
Janee loves to make kids laugh. Whether she is writing books, drawing pictures, singing songs, or performing with her puppets, she is going for the giggle. Janee lives in Texas with her hubby, her doggies, and one squeaky guinea pig.
Learn more about Janee by visting her website: http://trasler.com
Her Twitter handle is @janeetrasler
We had a wonderful conversation with Janee. She discussed her newly published early chapter books and how they gave her the confidence to break out of her Picture Book comfort zone. We talked about her work on graphic novels for the very young, which led to a deeper discussion about the different approaches one takes when creating a story in graphic novel form versus picture book form.
She also championed mentor texts as something that helped her understand and learn about young graphic novels before she dove in herself. “Before I started, I took a TON of existing graphic novels for young readers and broke them all down by page number, number of panels, trim size, etc. It really helped. I have Word files full of mentor text notes now.”
Janee also spilled some juicy secrets about her fellow critique partner – and SCBWI Oklahoma author – Tammi Sauer that you won’t want to miss.
***Interested in the rest of our conversation with Janee?
View the full chat recap HERE.
You can read the recaps for all of our chats, from this year and from those in years past, HERE.
valerie r lawson 