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, August 25th.
CLICK HERE to view our full #okscbwichat 2020 schedule.
It was a delight to talk with Frances Gilbert, Editor-in-chief of Doubleday Books for Young Readers, during our latest Twitter chat. It was also very enlightening.
She shared a wealth of knowledge in a short amount of time, from what makes a good rhyme to what you should do during a face-to-face critique and much, much more.
Here’s an introduction to Frances:
August 25th – Frances Gilbert – Editor/Author
Frances Gilbert works at Random House where she is the Editor-in Chief at Doubleday Books for Young Readers. She started her career with books in high school when she worked in the children’s department of her town library. After graduating from university with an M.A. in English, her first job in publishing was as a Book Club Editor at Scholastic Canada in Toronto. She moved to New York in 2000 to set up a children’s editorial division at Sterling Publishing.
Frances is also a published author. Her picture book, GO, GIRLS, GO!, a cars and trucks book for girls, that was released last fall.
Her Twitter handle is @GoGirlsGoBooks
We had an outstanding conversation with Frances. She discussed her unorthodox stance on query letters and her new insights she gained about the creative process (and what it takes to market your own books) after writing her own picture books.
She talked about what makes for great rhyme…and what doesn’t. She discussed her editorial style and how she approaches working on a new project. And she shared many thoughts about board books, like how to decide if you should write a board book versus a picture book version of your story. All of which was very enlightening.
As Frances will be one of our faculty members for our online SCBWI OK fall conference this October, she gave us a great idea what to expect from her presentation with fellow Children’s publishing superstar, picture book author extraordinaire and SCBWI OK member, Tammi Sauer. They’ve worked together on several projects. (Tammi stopped by the chat and added a joyful moment to the conversation when they talked about their past collaborations and other things.)
The hour flew by, and honestly we all could have talked with Frances for another hour or two. I’m really looking forward to our conference!
***Interested in the rest of our conversation with Frances?
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 