Words & Pictures from the Beginning to the Beginning

Welcome...
to Words & Pictures. By the magic of the Web, around fifty people have conspired to bring you this online interactive version of the SCBWI British Isles newsletter. As much a blog as it is a magazine, the blogzine, Words & Pictures is new today.  I'm Jan, your editor.

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The blogzine may be new but Words & Pictures isn't. I'm delighted to share this first digital editorial with the Carnegie shortlisted author Elizabeth Wein who founded Words & Pictures in 1996. I'll let Elizabeth tell you how it began.

Back in 1996, Gloria Hatrick contacted me because I was one of a handful of UK residents whose names were in the SCBWI directory. Gloria was the Regional Advisor of “SCBWI British Isles” and she was anxious to get some networking and interaction going among members. We were very farflung and one of the ways Gloria and thought we could keep members connected was through a newsletter. I volunteered to put something together.

Newsletters are all about connection; they give the group a focus, a point of connection and add to the group identity. At a time when the choices for connecting with other SCBWI members or indeed, anyone, can be befuddling, why do we need yet another? Like all great blogs, Words & Pictures offers something to connect about. But there's more, think of Words & Pictures like a conference. A virtual venue where as well as connecting  you can showcase your work, ask a publisher or an agent, learn from expert practitioners, celebrate success, keep up with members round the region and even across the world. For the first time Words & Pictures is open access, we particularly welcome non members and when you've seen what a great place SCBWI is to be, we hope you'll join.

We held our first meeting in London in the summer of 1996, and later that year we printed our first issue of the new newsletter, edited entirely in Microsoft Word and printed at a local copy shop. We mailed it out to our 25 members; and to some of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) who lived in the UK, encouraging them to join our SCBWI region. We organized a contest to design the SCBWI BI logo, and another to come up with a name for the newsletter. Words & Pictures was the result. The first issue with that title appeared in Winter 1997. I produced quarterly print issues for five years until I turned the newsletter over to Leila Bouri in 2002. 

There are quite a few members of the Words & Pictures team that I've never met in the real world! We've emailed, facebooked, tweeted, skyped, yahooed, so I feel like I have. I look forward to the real thing.

I was delighted when I read Elizabeth's vision for the newsletter.             

My original vision for the newsletter was much more ambitious than I was able to make it. I really wanted readers to be able to interact with it like people do with the Internet today. Unfortunately few of our readers were even connected to the Internet. So the best I ever managed was to include a list of web sites of interest. Our Winter 1997 issue included an article that began, “What exactly is the Web?” and provided a list of SIX “useful search engines” which DIDN’T include Google! Seems like the dark ages now, but happily www.scbwi.org did exist even back then! 


...from 'SIX useful search engines' in 1997, to an embedded, connected, linked blogzine in 2013! Plus, something I've already found very handy: Sheila's Videos -  how to do social media videos that fill the embarrassing gaps in knowledge someone editing a blogzine should really have covered by now. Sheila's making Words & Pictures some exclusives. How the world moves ...

 My editorial team consisted of ME. Gloria usually provided me with a Regional Advisor’s letter, and I would pester a couple of other people to report on meetings or come up with articles and drawings. Then, with one lead story, I wrote the rest of the copy myself. 

Here’s an excerpt from a story titled “How to Make Your Debut”, published in our Autumn 1997 issue: 

“In case you think that writing for children is always plod, plod, plod, with never any gain in sight, consider the case of new writer Joanne Rowling. Not only has she sold her first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, to an American publisher for an advance worth more than £100,000, but she has three different producers arguing over the film rights to the book… She plans a series of six more books to continue Harry Potter’s story, and has already delivered the first of these to Bloomsbury, her British publisher.”

I am very proud of my editorial team.  Not only are there these fabulous people working together to give readers something new to read every day many more are writing and illustrating some excellent content. 

Here are some highlights: 

• Sara O'Connor from Hot Key Books introduces her column 'Ask a Publisher' today, MONDAY,
• SCBWI bloggers feature in Nick's first ten minute blog break round up on TUESDAY
• Ferelith Hordon gives us an exclusive interview about the Carnegie Medal judging process on WEDNESDAY
• Maureen Lynas introduces herself as SCBWI's new Network Coordinator on THURSDAY, 
• our Art Director's portfolio  opens  the SCBWI Featured Illustrator section on FRIDAY, 
• (look out for episode one of Amanda Lillywhite's brand new web comic Duck & Bear on the following Friday)
• there's the first crop of members successes to celebrate on SATURDAY 
• Agent Anne Clark sets SCBWI members their first Slushpile Challenge on SUNDAY,
• And look out next week too, for our first 'wish you were there SCBWI event write up.

When Leila Bouri took over the newsletter in 2002, she revamped its look and increased the size of the folio; in 2005 the task of editor passed to Eileen Nester Ramchandran, who introduced colour and by 2009 had turned the newsletter into the on-line production I had originally envisioned but had been unable to achieve.


I'm also  really pleased that Stephanie Williams who took over from Eileen is still on the team. I'm also grateful to the SCBWI illustrators who have given Words & Pictures a head start by allowing us to absorb the Illustrators' Blog.
You can read more about Words & Pictures' history and our 2013 vision here.


I am absolutely delighted to see Words & Pictures back in existence. Under Jan Carr’s enthusiastic guidance, with self-publishing and Internet access so much easier and faster than it was 15 years ago, and with a full editorial and production team willing to go the extra mile to make contributions and generate reader interest, the new, improved Words & Pictures will go far beyond my original modest ambitions—here’s to a bright future!


Thank You, Elizabeth and I'm delighted to say that on THURSDAY we have an extra feature, when Candy Gourlay  interviews Elizabeth about her Carnegie success.
So I very much hope Words & Pictures lives up to expectations, that it will inspire you, support you and that you'll feel moved to comment! 

Jan Carr

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Jan Carr is the editor of Words & Pictures. Her fiction is older middle grade, she blogs occasionally and loves to write in magenta.