New England Children's Writers, Illustrators Group Hosts All-Day Revision Workshop in Westport

The Southern Region of New England Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustraors is hosting an all -ay revision workshop featuring former editors Eileen Robinson and Harold Underdown at Write Yourself Free, 252 Post Road East, Westport, on Sunday, March 4, from 9:30 am to 5:30pm.

Workshop Details: Learn how to revise like an editor by working with two experienced editors, who have distilled the methods they've used in editing manuscripts with individual clients and in the online Kid's Book Revisions class.

To create a framework, they'll compare reader response theory and the lit. crit approach, and explore ways to gain objectivity and to focus on different aspects of manuscripts. You will learn and try out a variety of techniques for self-editing, from big picture revision down to copy-editing, working on your own or with a partner. You will also work together in a model critique group, critiquing one another's manuscripts, and learning how to manage the group dynamics to make the process more productive.

In the afternoon, you can put theory to work and both revise and plan further revisions to your manuscript while meeting with Eileen or Harold individually and, getting feedback in ad-hoc critique sessions, or digging in on your own.

This workshop is appropriate for all Children's Book writers, picture book through YA.

Registration: The event is $125. To register, send an email to Stacy Mozer at necritiquegroups@gmail.com with your name and phone number. Attach a document (formatted in .doc) with a synopsis and the first 15 pages of your manuscript. Once Stacy has confirmed receipt of your manuscript, she will send you the address to send your registration fee. This event is limited to the first 20 responders who correctly attach their manuscript.

Underdown is a freelance editorial consultant. He has worked at Macmillan, Orchard, and Charlesbridge, and has experience in trade and educational publishing. He enjoys teaching, and in that role wrote The Complete Idiot's Guide to Children's Book Publishing, now in its third edition. He founded and runs "The Purple Crayon," a respected web site with information about the children's publishing world at www.underdown.org. He speaks and gives workshops at conferences, including the Highlights Foundation's Chautauqua Retreat and SCBWI's national and regional conferences.

He runs the Kids Book Revisions online tutorial and workshop service with Robinson. Last year, they gave workshops at the Highlights Foundation and the LA SCBWI National conference.

A former executive editor at Scholastic, Robinson works with both published and unpublished authors and helps them to strengthen their writing, look at their work from a marketing perspective and learn the part of the business that isn?t writing so they have a better chance of getting published. She began F1rstPages.com in 2005 and joined up with Harold Underdown, author of the Idiot?s Guide to Publishing Children?s Books and owner of the Purple Crayon web site, in 2007 to create KidsBookRevisions.com and recently launched Move Books in the Fall of 2011.