Our Professional Day was a star-studded, inspirational day. Our new venue, the Minor Works Building in the Adelaide CBD, proved to be spacious, light filled and with sliding doors opening onto an inviting patch of grass.
Victorian author Dee White, who is the current May Gibbs fellow, gave us an interesting and informative talk with 14 tips for writing, including ‘let your subconscious mind do the work’ and ‘buy chocolate’.
The founding co-ordinator of SCBWI Tasmania, Anne Morgan, who was in Adelaide for research, delighted us with her presentation ‘From Poetry to Non-fiction: confessions and advice from a genre-hopping writer’.
Author, RMIT Creative-writing lecturer and literary agent Danielle Binks was also visiting Adelaide and blew our minds with her brilliant presentation, ‘Liminality and Youth Literature.’ Author Mike Lucas joined her to launch her new middle grade novel, Shakespeare in the Orchard.
We then carried our chairs out onto that inviting patch of grass and ate lunch while catching up with our fellow SCBWI members.
After lunch, SCBWI SA treasurer Kristin Martin filled in for Charlie Archbold to chair the historical fiction panel. Dee and Danielle were joined by local authors Beverley McWilliams and Helen Edwards and had a lively and interesting discussion about the importance of writing historical fiction for children, as well as their approaches, research processes and advice to those attempting the genre.
Alysia Kelly was our inaugural presenter of the Ian Boyd Memorial Session. She gave an engaging account of her road to the publication of her first picture book, Celebration Festival.
Adelaide writer, illustrator and comic maker Georgina Chadderton was our final presenter for the day, telling us about her ten-year journey to write and illustrate her graphic novel, Oh Brother. I was impressed by how she stood up to her overseas editors to keep Vegemite in the book!
The day concluded with our raffle draw and announcement of the silent auction winners (thank you to Danny Snell and Kate Lewis for gifting your stunning art).
We look forward to catching up with the SCBWI SA community on Friday 27th November for our Christmas Dinner at The British Hotel.
Kristin Martin