Finding Your Footing - Tita Berredo

Tita Berredo volunteering for SCBWI at the Bologna Children's Book Fair 2023

Hello again, everyone! 

Are you ready to know about my story with SCBWI? Here we (FINALLY) go!

I joined SCBWI as soon as I finished my Master's. I was yet again in a new country, this time Scotland, knowing zero people and without a clue of where to start. Suddenly, I was more than “not alone”, I was surrounded by peers — extremely talented people at different career levels — who welcomed me simply because I wanted to be part of it. I think most of us know how that feels; we’ve all been there. If you’re here reading this, you certainly have.

My first connection with SCBWI was through the Glasgow local group. We would meet once a month in a library, share our manuscripts, exchange experiences, and share, well, our feelings. That sense of belonging was such an important one on many levels. It kept me active, it kept me engaged, it kept me working and networking. And I quickly realised something else about it and about myself: I liked sharing in that space, and I liked making those moments happen and last.

Hosting events and book launches for my local group

The more I participated in events, the more I thought, “hey, I could organise something like that too”. The thing about organisations run by volunteers is that everyone helping each other. Everyone is keen on sharing, collaborating, and giving space to those who are proactive and have time and experience to offer.

Hosting Sketch Crawls for SCBWI British Isles

That’s when things really expanded. I went from helping locally to hosting the Picture Book Retreat — one of my favourite SCBWI experiences ever. Bringing together authors, illustrators, and industry professionals for a weekend of deep creative focus felt like the perfect blend of everything I love: community, craft, and a good dose of organised chaos. I also became involved in SCBWI conferences, helping plan sessions, support speakers, and create spaces where people could learn and connect. Soon I was being called to volunteer at international events, like in Bologna, and I was lucky enough to pair that on the same year that one of my projects was selected to be featured at the Bologna Children's Book Fair. Being part of the SCBWI presence at the BCBF was a whole different level of energy — international, inspiring, and a little overwhelming in the best possible way. Helping run those events, meeting creators from all over the world, and representing our region on that stage was one of those moments of thinking volunteering really takes you places.

Drawing live for SCBWI in Bologna - BCBF 2023

Hosting SCBWI talks with high profile authors

Interviewing award winning creators for SCBWI - BCBF 2023

I kept “graduating” through different levels of volunteering, just like when you start a job as an intern and then work your way up until you are the manager. The more I shared, the more experience I gained to share, and the more people wanted to collaborate with me. From speaking up in a local group, I went to hosting meet-ups, to organising book launches, to interviewing publishers, to being featured in an online magazine (and then helping run it!), to hosting conferences, to being a guest speaker!

Speaking as SCBWI British Isles Illustrator Coordinator - NY Conference 2024

Speaking at the SCBWI British Isles Conference 2024

This year I had my very own panel at the SCBWI NY Winter Conference, and it was so rewarding to see so many people recognising me from the dozens of other events that I participated and hosted. The more I put myself out there, the more opportunities came, and the more experienced and confident I became to do more of it. That’s the thing about confidence: you gain it by doing things!

My very own Break Out Session at the SCBWI NY Conference 2026

The best thing is that, at the same time I was doing all of these things, the more people were getting to know my work by extension. Remember last week, when I said that I kept chasing different ways to share my art and expand my network? Now I can say that the best way, in my opinion, was becoming a SCBWI volunteer. It's such great spotlight for creators, which generates a natural self promotion. Also, publishers looove creators who like to show up beyond their work.

2023 Bologna, representing SCBWI and having my work selected for BCBF 

I am not saying that you should be volunteering, or that you must network all the time. This kind of self exposure suited my personality, but it can be a lot to ask of creators. So if it's not your cup of tea, don't feel pressured or guilted to do it – your priority is your craft, everything else comes after that. What I am saying is that volunteering in this community is such a big part of who I am, because it suits so much who I’ve always been.

The funny thing is... you find your footing by walking.

Next Thursday will be my last piece of writing for this series, and I'll do my best to make an extra special finale.

See you then, beijos!

Read the full series in order here:

Part 1 - Changing Careers to Fulfil Your Dreams

Part 2 - Entering the World of Children's Books

Part 3 - Finding Your Footing

Part 4 - The Power of Community

Tita Berredo is a Brazilian children’s writer and illustrator. She holds an MA in Children’s Literature and Illustration from Goldsmiths UOL and a BA in Marketing from PUC-Rio. Her work has been recognised internationally, including a London's House of Illustration award and selection for the Bologna Children's Book Fair. She has illustrated books for the US and Brazil, and is making her author–illustrator debut with a Seuss Studios early reader published by Random House Children's.

Tita is SCBWI's International Illustrator Coordinator, and a Picture Book reviewer for My Book Corner. 

Find Tita's work at www.titaberredo.com follow her on Instagram: @titaberredo

On Translation

Or when you realize that writing sometimes is not just writing... 

By Mina Witteman

Translation

Last week, I wrote about writing in another language than your native tongue. The challenges of doing so can be daunting, but, for me, the joys of playing with new words, of exploring new grammar and spelling rules, of finding a new voice make an exciting novel world. 

Translation is a whole different tale. Since few acquiring editors in the US, where I settled more than eight years ago, read Dutch, I started helping my Dutch publisher by translating excerpts of my middle grade novels into English for them to offer at international book fairs. The relative ease with which I wrote in English completely disappeared when I tried to translate my own work. It seemed impossible to nail my protagonist's Dutch voice in English. I quickly realized translation was a whole different form of art. How is that, you ask yourself? I have just the right person for us to shed some light on this. 

Let's Hop Over to Amsterdam

And hear what a professional translator has to say! Laura Watkinson translates from Dutch, German and Italian into English. Her translations have won many, many awards and honors. Laura was born in Britain and has lived and worked in the Netherlands for over twenty years. Laura was the founder of SCBWI The Netherlands (now SCBWI Benelux). Hi Laura, good to have you here! 

LW: Hi, Mina! Good to be here.

 

MW: My first question: How did you become a translator? And what is it that pulls you to the art of translation and to languages in general?

LW: I’ve always been fascinated by languages, ever since I discovered as a little girl that there were other languages out there, not just English. My mom had a dictionary with a list of foreign expressions in the back, and I remember trying to pronounce them when I was about seven years old. I focused on languages at school and university, so translation was a natural step for me. It helps that I also love reading books and experiencing different countries. Translation is the perfect portable career.

 

MW: Perhaps a silly question, but how important is reading across borders? 

LW: What better way to find out about how other people and cultures tick? Reading about others’ lives helps us to develop empathy and understanding. Reading stories that originated in other cultures reminds us that there’s more going on in the world than what’s happening in our own little corner. Translation also gives us more stories and different voices. Reading across borders is of vital importance today, just as it has always been. What I’m saying here might sound like clichéd, but that’s because it’s so true.

 

MW: A study of the Index Translationum, the Unesco-managed database of translations from a diverse array of literary, academic and popular genres, shows us that over the period 1979-2007 more than half of the translations had English as source language. Next were French, German and Russian with, respectively, 10%, 9% and 5%, followed by Italian, Spanish and Swedish, each with 1 to 3%. All other source languages, including world languages like Chinese, Arabic, Japanese and Portuguese, represented less than 1% of the international world of translations. It shows that translations from the English are dominant. It also shows that it’s probably hard to get books translated from the more peripheral source languages. Can you shed light on how books get chosen for translation? Is there anything a writer can do to advance their chances?

LW: My experience of the process of choosing books for translation has largely involved publishers and book fairs. The most important book fair for children’s book is held in Bologna, Italy, every year. Publishers from all over the world attend, with the aim of buying and selling rights. A publisher who’s selling rights for a book that’s not in English will typically take along some publicity material and an excerpt of the book translated into English, as English is the closest thing to a common language for most publishers. That package will be presented to potential buyers from all kinds of different countries during meetings at the fair, and with luck the book will make its way from there into various other language territories.

It can help if you’re writing in a language that has funding available for translation costs. As an author, it’s worth checking that your publisher is aware of any such grants and subsidies, so that they can use that information as part of their sales pitch.

            The books that have had a lot of buzz in their home countries are often the ones that are most likely to sell to foreign publishers. The publishers keep a record of positive reviews and pull positive quotes for translation, so that potential buyers can see that the book has already had a good reception at home.

            Writers and translators sometimes attend book fairs too, but there’s no guarantee that you’ll get a meeting with publishers. For me, it’s more about the atmosphere and the chance conversations (and gelato) that you have with fellow publishing professionals.

The Art of Translation

MW: Let's explore some of the nitty-gritty of the art of translation and, specifically, the matter of my initial inability to nail the voice of my protagonist Boreas in English. What are your thoughts about finding the voices of the characters whose words, thoughts, and actions you translate? And how does the voice of the author relate to the voice of the translator?

LW: I think if the voice of the original character is strong, that will come through in the translation. When you’re reading, you enter into that world for a while and develop a feeling for the characters. It’s that feeling that you’re aiming to convey, so that the character has the same kind of impact in the translation as in the original. Sometimes that might mean shifting away from a closer translation, in order to create the same kind of impact.

 

MW: What is your process when you translate? Do you have a certain work order? Books and/or dictionaries that you can’t do without?

LW: My first draft is a ‘quick and dirty’ one, so that I know what’s in store for me. The second draft is where most of the work is done. If I spot certain challenges in the first draft, I already start turning them over and over inside my head and looking for solutions, which often arrive when I’m in the shower or when I can’t sleep in the middle of the night. After the second draft, the text is fairly tidy, but then I go through the book again and again, tweaking and polishing and sorting out the details. Sometimes publishers want an early peek at the first few pages of a translation, and that’s something that I find tricky to do, as my translations aren’t usually finished until the deadline, and there might be a few patches early on in the book that still need work even at a fairly late stage.

 

MW: As you know, I translated my novel from my native Dutch into English. As I described above, that was not the easiest task I set myself. Do you ever translate into other languages than your native English? If a writer wanted to do this, do you have any advice? 

LW: I’m full of admiration for people who can translate in both directions, but that’s not me. I only ever translate into English. It would feel like a different task to me if I had to translate in the other direction – and it wouldn’t be a fun one! I’m very envious of children who grow up in bilingual – and trilingual – families. What a blessing to have a sense of ease and proficiency with more than one language! 

I wouldn’t give advice to writers on this subject, though. I think it’s something you have to decide for yourself. Literary translators are writers, but it’s fair to say that not all writers can be – or want to be – translators.

I Want to Become a Translator. Where Do I Go?

MW: My final question is for all SCBWI-members out there who aspire to be a translator. Where and how can they best start? What is, in your view, absolutely necessary to become a good translator?

LW: I’d say that it’s important to explore the business first and to find a place for yourself there. Contact publishers and other professionals. Publishers may be looking for people to translate excerpts and publicity material. Some publishers have trusted readers who write reports on foreign-language books, and that can be a way to make contacts at publishing houses. Get in touch with funding organizations for your language combination and find out if they have any opportunities for emerging translators. Explore the world of literary magazines. Always make sure that you’re getting paid a fair rate for your work. Never translate an entire book unsolicited, in the hope that you might be lucky and find a publisher. That’s really unlikely. Organizations like the UK Society of Authors and the SCBWI can help with advice. Read books of the kind that you want to translate, in your source and your target languages, so that you keep up to date with what’s being published and the sort of language that you might want to use. Talk to other translators. They’re a good source of advice and opportunities, and you might be able to steer them in the right direction, too. Find kids’ books that you love – and you’ll always have fun!

MW: Thank you, Laura! That was a wonderful and very insightful conversation. I am tremendously looking forward to reading many more of your translations. All photos in this post are covers of some books Laura translated. Go check out them out! You want to know more about Laura and her life as a translator in Amsterdam? Follow her on Instagram. 

On Exophony

Or What Possesses a Writer to Write In a New Language?

By Mina Witteman

The Start of a Writing Career

My writing career started, in a way, before I could even write. Or read. My father was an architect, and he would often work on his designs at the kitchen table. I would join him at the table (on the table!) with my very own notebook. While he made his drawings and puzzled over windows and doors, rooms and walls, roofs and chimneys, and everything else an architect puzzles over, I would dream up stories of the people who were going to live in the home he was designing. I dream up what the inside of that home had to look like, what color the walls were, where the table and chairs had to go, what they needed in the kitchen, in the bedrooms, in the bathroom, and, most importantly, who these people were that were going to spend their lives in this new building. I would not only dream it all up, but I would also scribble it down in my notebook, the specs. It was my first foray in writing in a "new" language.

I never stopped writing. In high school, I'd grow bored quickly, but my school had the perfect antidote against (my!) boredom. If you were sent out of class, you had to report to the vice-principal and he would assign writing a two-page essay as punishment. When, after a few weeks of daily reporting to him, the vice-principal realized that what he thought was a corrective punishment, only delighted me to no end. He changed course and ordered me to write the essays in French, rather than Dutch, my native tongue. It didn't matter. I still loved it more than sitting in class and pretending to be engaged. Weeks later, he changed course again and ordered me to write the essays in German, then weeks after that I had to write them in English. That was my second foray in writing in a new language. I went on to have career at mostly English-speaking businesses. I studied the English language and obtained my proficiency in English at Cambridge University. 

So when, my career as a middle grade writer in The Netherlands, took off, I quickly realized that to break into US Publishing--ever the dreamer!--chances of having my work translated into English were very slim, because, you know, who speaks Dutch in the US publishing world? If I wanted this dream to come true, I had to write in English.

Writing In Not Your Native Tongue? 

Would that be too tall an order? I knew famous examples of exophonic writers. Kader Abdollah (pseudonym of Hossein Sadjadi Ghaemmaghami Farahani) was born in Iran in 1954, where he graduated in 1977 from the University of Tehran with a degree in physics. Along the way, he had become politically active and in 1985 he had to flee the country. In 1988, Mr. Abdollah settled in The Netherlands as a political refugee. He taught himself the Dutch language by reading children's books and poetry, and he started writing stories in Dutch. His 1993 debut, De adelaars (Eagles), was awarded one of the most prestigious Dutch literary prizes. 

Vladimir Nabokov grew up in Russia and learned French and English from his governesses. He relocated to Europe but with the rise of Hitler, he and his wife realized they had to move further away and in 1940, the family emigrated to the US. Before that move, he had already finished his first English-language novel, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight. Nabokov does use many Russian and French words in his English prose. he uses many literary devices to make it easier for monolingual readers to understand his stories, often preparing the reader for a foreign word with typography, verbal warnings, semantic explanations, or even translations. Except for the use foreign words in his English novels, Nabokov never wrote in Russian again. 

And then, of course, there was Samuel Beckett, who one day halfway into a story decided that from that moment on he would write in French only. Beckett considered his more limited knowledge of the French language an advantage. It forced him to go straight to the core of a story. It kept him from fluffing up his prose. Beckett too never wrote in his native tongue again. 

Learning the Ropes

Though I know that these writers are decidedly out of my league, it did tell me that it could be done. I immersed myself in the English-speaking world, moving to San Francisco and later to Berkeley, and started writing in English. It's not always easy. I sometimes miss the ease of wordplay that I so like in Dutch. I often compare it to an illustrator who decides to work with a different medium. I have to work harder to find the right words, like an illustrator has to work to find the right strokes. I do not yet have that fingerspitzengefühl for the language that I have in my native Dutch. To build my vocabulary, the thesaurus is my best friend. I read English dictionaries and encyclopedias for pleasure. If I don't know a word, I look it up in an English dictionary rather than an English-Dutch one. And I read and read and read and read: fiction, non-fiction, newspapers, magazines. Everything in English that I can get my hands on. I love the challenge. I love studying texts, dissect sentences, pore over grammar and syntax. I love seeing the progress I make. I love every time I realize that, slowly but surely, I am mastering the language, that I play with words again, that I am finally finding that fingerspitzengefühl. 

And You?

SCBWI is an international organization. We, its members, come from all corners of the world. We love writing in our native languages, but quite a few of us from outside the English-speaking world, dream of being published in the US too. No one can stop that dream but you. If you want to write in English, or in any other language that is not your native one, go for it. Kader Abdolah, Vladimir Nabokov and Samuel Beckett could do it. So can you! 

 

Mina Witteman is a Dutch published author, who writes in English and Dutch. She lives in Berkeley, California. In The Netherlands, she has seven middle grade novels out, a Little Golden Book, and some forty short stories in children's magazines and read-aloud anthologies. Her novel Boreas en de zeven zeeën (Boreas and the Seven Seas) was a focus title of the 2019 Dutch National Children's Book Week. An educational edition aimed at reluctant readers of the same book came out in 2022. 

Onomatopoeia - words that sounds like what they describe

Buzz... 

Buzz...

Buzz...

Clap!

Buzz...

It's a fun exercise, to see if you can add some of these magical words to your picture book in progress...

Tick,

Tick,

Tick,

BOOM!

And while Onomatopoeia is hard to spell, there are lots of fun lists online to explore!

Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee

Dungeons & Dragons & Dollmakers in Writing

 

By J.S. Puller

 

When I say “Dungeons & Dragons,” I suspect one of two images comes to your mind:  Either, you picture Chris Pine looking dashing and debonair, as in the recent movie Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, or else you imagine a cluster of pimply-faced, socially-inept teenagers, sitting around a table wearing capes and funny hats.  Neither correctly encapsulates the world of Dungeons & Dragons—or the larger world of role-playing available.  Write this down: NEITHER IS CORRECT.  Despite the myopic rep they sometimes get, role-playing games are tools with an incredible power to bring people together, forging lifelong friendships and bonds.  More importantly, for the purposes of this essay at least, they are tools to bring people together for the act of creation.  Players and dungeon masters (those are the players running the game) alike are engaged in populating a rich and vibrant world.  As a lifelong role-player myself, I’ve participated in exciting and emotional gaming over the years that has stuck with me, resonating through my life and shaping my writing.

And that’s how we get to the good part: Writing.  Role-playing games provide some extremely helpful tools that can quickly be adapted to suit an author’s needs.  Here, I’ll share just a couple of them.

CHARACTER SHEETS

Most role-playing games can’t even begin until the players fill out their character sheets.  These are more or less worksheets, individualized to different games and players in those games, that define who a character is and what they’re capable of doing.  More than that, though, character sheets often serve as helpful cheat sheets to outline character personalities and interests.  For example, take a look at the Dark Ages: Vampire character sheet above.  It describes a character named Scarlet.  As you can see, Scarlet doesn’t have much Charisma, as indicated by the single dot beside the word.  She does, however, possess a great deal of Stamina, with four dots beside the word.  Scarlet’s going to be much likely to run away from the evil sheriff, rather than flirting her way out of danger.

And now for the plot twist.  Perhaps you’ve already spotted it, since I’m no M. Night Shyamalan.  A writer or illustrator can use character sheets like this to assist with the planning and development of the characters in their stories.  Our friend Scarlet is actually a character from a play that I wrote a couple of years ago (see Ellen in THE DEATH OF ROBIN HOOD).  I created similar sheets for each character in the story, which helped me to shape their actions and dialogue, which helped me to make choices about how they would respond to the situations coming at them.

Perhaps filling out the whole sheet for every single character is a little much to ask.  At the very least, I would draw some attention to the top of the sheet, where you can read the words “Nature” and “Demeanor.”  Nature is who someone is on the inside, the core of their personality that guides their choices.  Demeanor, meanwhile, is the face they present the world.  Scarlet pretends to be a tough-as-nails survivor who will meet challenges with stoicism and determination.  But secretly, she has the nature of a caregiver.  So, every action she takes is driven by her desire to protect others.  And that's how I wrote her.

An activity as simple as filling out a character sheet is the perfect way to start figuring out who populates the world of your book.

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT

A little-known, yet highly-valuable world on the internet is the Dreamwidth Role-Playing community.  This collective of imaginative writers engages in daily interactions between fictional characters.  Often, players try to tackle writing from the point of view of established pop culture icons, such as Elphaba from Wicked or Captain America from the Marvel movies.  Increasingly, though, the player base is flirting with using Dreamwidth as a way to test out original characters.

Dreamwidth journals are free.  Once you create a journal for your character, you can engage with other characters, through communities of memes and PSLs and games (I know many are scratching their heads at these vocab words, but it's all spelled out neatly and better than I could possibly explain, here).  This is a fantastic place to discover a character voice, hear what they sound like and hear how their voices differ from those of other characters.  Not only is it a great writing exercise, but it can be loads of fun.  You never know what could happen or what situation you could find your character facing.  The weirder, the better I think.  It really shows you how they respond to stress.  What would your character do if they were trapped on in an elevator with Darth Vader?  Or Captain Kirk?  Or Sailor Mars?

ENTER THE DOLLMAKER

If you’ve ever seen any media depicting a game of Dungeons & Dragons, you know that much of the action is acted out by moving little figurines that represent characters on a gridded map.  There are a lot of websites available to create and personalize a figurine for your game.  I myself recently purchased my first-ever figurine for my first-ever game of Dungeons & Dragons.  The website I used is called Hero Forge and it’s available to anyone.  In the process of creating my bard, however, I had something of an epiphany.  Websites like Hero Forge (and other dollmakers) are excellent tools for writing.

If you take a look at the top of this post, you'll see a reproduction I made of the title character from CAPTAIN SUPERLATIVE.  Great for me, as a keepsake of my debut novel, but how does a dollmaker help you?  Let’s say you’re creating characters that inhabit a slightly fantastical world.  There aren’t easy reference pictures available to you if you're making up a whole new species, flipping through a magazine or book of photography.  Well, now you can use Hero Forge to, quite literally, build your characters from the ground up.

The novel that's been taking up a lot of my writing time these last few months has been one set in a supernatural world, with a distinct villain.  One whose features are so "out there" that I found I kept having to reread his introduction over and over again to remember all the details.  Then I got wise.  I built him in Hero Forge and saved the image (see above).  Now when I need to describe him in a scene, I simply pull up that image and have it sitting on my desktop, reminding me that his jeans are ripped, that the cuffs around his wrists are yellow, that he wears his green hair in a gravity-defying ‘do.

Don’t worry if Hero Forge isn’t right for you.  There are hundreds of dollmakers out there.  You can always find the one that you like best.

All you need to do is Google the term "dollmaker" and roll the dice.

(That was also a Dungeons & Dragons joke.)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

J. S. Puller is a playwright and author from the Windy City, Chicago. She has a master’s degree in elementary education and a bachelor’s degree in theatre from Northwestern University. She is an award-winning member of the American Alliance for Theatre and Education. When not writing, she can usually be found in the theatre. She is the author of two novels, CAPTAIN SUPERLATIVE and THE LOST THINGS CLUB. She also has several published plays, including: WOMEN WHO WEAVE (Playscripts, Inc.), PERSEUS AND MEDUSA - IT'S ALL GREEK TO ME! (Lazybee Scripts), and THE DEATH OF ROBIN HOOD (Stage Rights).

Website: pullerwrites.wordpress.com

Twitter: twitter.com/pullerwrites

Facebook: facebook.com/puller.writes