Fabulous SCBWI Fresno event and tour of the Arne Nixon Center

At last a moment to blog. Got to take my children''s book writing, illustrating, and publishing students on a field trip last Saturday to Fresno (about 3 hours away) where we participated in Erin Dealey and Patricia Newman's fantastic SCBWI workshop on writing picture books. They invited participants to send the first page of their manuscripts for critique and did a brilliant job of critiquing with the perfect combination of honesty, insight, and encouragement. They crammed a tremendous amount of information in and made it a spectacular event. What a dynamic duo. We also got to experience a tour from Angelica Carpenter the Director of The Arne Nixon Center for the Study of Children's Literature.

The Center has one of the largest collections of children's books on the West Coast with a large collection of multicultural and Lewis Carroll books (eclectic) and everything else you can think of. I loved how passionate Angelica was in sharing the books and resources there - I felt like a kid in a candy store. They also have a whole bunch of original art from wonderful artists like Aliki and Thacker Hurd. I was over the moon with happiness being there and wished that I lived closer to take advantage of their fantastic collection.

The drive there and back was a blast and we met up with other class members who live in the Modesto area and usually commute to Sacramento for our classes. Right now four of my students drive 2 hrs to class from North and South (2 each). Fortunately they mostly car pool. We had a lovely dinner and ooh and aahed over the day and discussed what delightful things we were going to do for the last class coming up on the 21st. Will let you know. I always get sad when a course comes to an end as we tend to get very close.