Two new members of the team!

I'd like to introduce two new members to the Words & Pictures Team. Please give a very warm welcome to our new Slushpile Challenge Editor, Elaine Cline - who has taken over from Chitra. And to our new Events Editor, Vivienne Dacosta - who will be taking over from Lou in January. Lou will continue with her other role of doing a fabulous job of being joint Writing Features Editor with Julie.

Elaine Cline ~ Slushpile Challenge Competition Editor

I joined SCBWI when I moved to Devon three years ago. SCBWI has given me invaluable support and keeps me motivated which is why I'm happy to undertake the role of Slushpile Challenge Competition Coordinator. I've gained much from being a member, received practical advice and it's great to network with other children's writers.

And an enormous thank you to Chitra, for doing such a fantastic job

The SlushPile Challenge has opened up doors to members, by shining a light on SCBWI member submissions exclusively. It was great to be the volunteer who brought such an opportunity to SCBWI British Isles. While I was managing it, I'm happy to report we extended the competition to European members. Even though the challenge is for a random 15 entries, we have been delighted when agents have generously read all submissions in many of the challenges, which ensures we open doors for more members.

Agents are very enthusiastic to accept our invitation to judge a challenge and hope to find their next big name amongst our members.

The feedback provided by agents is extremely useful to everyone who enters, and also to all members and readers of W&P - as the agents highlight why each winner is chosen.

Vivienne Dacosta ~ Events Editor

Vivienne is probably better known as the owner and editor of Serendipity Reviews, which she has successfully run since 2009. The blog is heading towards one million views and was voted  one of the Guardian's Top Ten YA book blogs of 2015. She also won Champion of Content in 2015 at the UKYA Book Blogger Awards.

Vivienne has been a member of SCBWI for three years now and is busily editing her second book. She  used to be a primary school teacher, until she gave up to write full time. She lives in West Sussex with her husband and twin daughters, as well as her loony dog, Sunny.

And an enormous thank you to Lou, for doing such a wonderful job

This is a very interesting and varied role. It offers huge opportunity to be in touch with agents, publishers, writers and illustrators and seeing how the whole thing works together. You really do get to be in touch with professionals up and down the country. It's fascinating!

If you like going to events, then this is perfect for you. Equally, if you can't get to events, you can still do this role. Because of being overseas, I haven't been able to get to any of the amazing events I cover.

This is one of the reasons I'm looking to hand over the role, I've had to send out reporters to interview for example Julia Churchill, when I would've loved to interview her myself.


A very warm welcome, both!

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Nancy Saunders is the Editor of W&P. You can find some of her short stories here, and on Twitter @nancyesaunders