Sponsored by the San Francisco-South Region of SCBWI

Victoria Wells Arms began her children's book career at Dial Books for Young Readers, and then moved to Putnam. In 2001 she was hired to start Bloomsbury's new American children's list as Editorial Director, stepping down after five years to spend more time with her twins. She is currently editor at large for Bloomsbury, editing a select group of authors and illustrators including Newbery Honoree Shannon Hale, Dale Peck, E. D. Baker, chef Rozanne Gold, Sara Pinto, Kirsten Miller, Susan Vaught and a few others.

Andrea Brown is President of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency, with offices in California and New York City. Formed in 1981, it was the first agency to represent both children's book authors and illustrators. With almost 2000 sales to just about every publisher, the agency's six agents represent all genres of children's books with many bestsellers and award-winning titles, and writers should check the website, www.andreabrownlit.com for guidelines. Andrea is author of WRITERS' AND ARTISTS’ HIDEOUTS: Great Getaways for Seducing the Muse, and is Executive Director of the Big Sur Writing Workshops.

Paul Fleischman grew up in Santa Monica, California, the son of children's book author Sid Fleischman. Drawing on history, music, art, and theater, his innovative books have experimented with multiple viewpoints and performance. He received the Newbery Medal for Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices, a Newbery Honor for Graven Images, the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction for Bull Run, and was a National Book Award finalist for Breakout. His latest book, a braiding of Cinderella variants, is Glass Slipper, Gold Sandal. He lives in Aromas, CA.

Carol Heyer (www.carolheyer.com) is a full time illustrator and writer..Heyer has written/illustrated twenty-five children’s picture books. Her most recent book is Humphrey’s First Christmas (Ideals Children’s Books, Fall 2007) about a cantankerous camel and his journey to the manger. Heyer's art has appeared on everything from book covers to bookmarks. She has done work for Baen Books, Wizards of the Coast, Ray Bradbury, Scholastic, Penguin Putnam/Henry Winkler, and many others. She has won awards from Spectrum, The International Competition for Fantastic Art, Print’s Regional Design Annual, The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and The Society of Illustrators L.A. To date one million five hundred thousand copies of Heyer's picture books have been sold.

Patricia Polacco, author and illustrator of numerous picture books, shares her love of story telling through her work. As a child, Patricia Polacco spent the school year in Oakland, California, and her summers in Michigan. Now she is the mother of two grown children, and she still splits her time between California and Michigan. She also travels to schools and libraries, sharing her stories with children all over the country. She has received critical acclaim for such outstanding works as Pink and Say, which was an American Library Association Notable Children's Book for 1995, and Chicken Sunday, recipient of the 1992 SCBWI’s Golden Kite Award for Illustration. Among other honors, she has received the Jane Adams Peace Association and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom Honor award for Mrs. Katz and Tush.

Randi Rivers earned a bachelor's degree in Writing, Literature, and Publishing from Emerson College in Boston. She then moved to California where she was a manuscript reader before becoming an associate editor for a magazine publisher. During this time she also co-wrote a sketch comedy show and a play, both of which were later produced onstage.Randi returned to Massachusetts and joined Charlesbridge Publishing. Currently an editor, Randi acquires and edits eight to ten children’s books per year. She has worked with many well-known authors, including Sneed B. Collard III, Margery Facklam, and Lois G. Grambling.

David Schwartz has been chasing numbers since early childhood when he looked up at the stars and asked, “How many? How big? How far?” His first book, How Much is a Million? has won many awards and is considered a classic of mathematical children’s literature. G is for Googol, an alphabet book directed at intermediate and middle school grades, is loved for its breadth and humor, while If You Hopped Like a Frog draws upon the amazing abilities of animals to teach the concept of proportion. The author of 50 books, David is a popular speaker at conferences, schools and libraries nationwide. His most recent book, Where in the Wild? Camouflaged Creatures Concealed…and Revealed, co-authored with his wife Yael Schy, combines poetry, prose and photography with a unique layout that enables readers to guess the identities and locations of well-camouflaged animals.

Liz Szabla is editor-in-chief of Feiwel and Friends, a children's imprint at Macmillan that launched in 2006 with the New York Times bestseller, On the Night You Were Born. She's worked in the book industry for over 25 years, starting as a bookseller in the San Francisco Bay Area, and moving on to editorial posts including editor-in-chief of Lee & Low Books, where she worked on award-winning debuts by Javaka Steptoe and R. Gregory Christie, among others. From 1998 – 2006 she was editorial director of Scholastic Press, and worked with both new and established talent, including Ann M. Martin, Walter Dean Myers, Karen Hesse, Suzanne Collins, and Alice Hoffman, and oversaw the publication of bestselling titles including Aquamarine, The Underland Chronicles, Chasing Vermeer, The Grapes of Math, and The Three Questions.

JoAnne Stewart Wetzel worked as a children's librarian for the Redwood City Public Library where she field-tested hundreds of picture books by reading them to children from birth to five for the preschool literacy program that she ran. She spoke on the program at the 2004 California Library Association Conference. Her writing credits for preschool children include poetry in two anthologies for Scholastic and content for the CD ROM, "The Otto Club--A Safe Place to Play" (California State Automobile Association). She's also published two children's books, Onstage/Backstage (Carolrhoda) and The Christmas Box (Alfred A. Knopf).and written content for the CD ROM, "Where In Time Is Carmen Sandiego" (Broderbund). JoAnne was Regional Advisor for SCBWI San Francisco and South from 1999 to 2001.

Ellen Yeomans hauls herself out of bed way too early every morning to feed sheep, goats, pigs, and calves. As a farmhand for nearby 150-year-old Abbott’s farm, she shears sheep, mixes feed, mucks stalls and moves around far too many bales of hay and straw. She also tries out some of her best lines on these barnyard friends. While they seem to offer no editorial advice, the animals do provide a rapt audience. Or perhaps they are just hanging around hoping for another handful of molasses feed. When not working at the farm, Ellen teaches writing courses at Onondaga Community College in Syracuse. She is the author of picture books: Jubilee (2004) and Lost and Found, Remembering a Sister (2000); and a young adult novel: Rubber Houses (2007).Ellen has her MFA in Writing for Children from Vermont College. She lives with her family in Baldwinsville, NY, where she tries not to track too much hay throughout the house.