SCBWI FACES Rebecca Rouillard
 |
| Rebecca Rouillard |
What do you write?
Currently I am working on a teen murder mystery, set in a space school. I’ve also written YA dystopian/sci-fi and MG fantasy, as well as some poetry and adult fiction. I’m not very good at sticking to one genre.
Do you have a ‘day job’ as well as volunteering and writing?
Yes, I work full time as a school librarian in a trust which includes a primary and a secondary school – so I get to read books for all the age categories!
Describe your writing space
I have a lovely desk in our home office, but my husband works from home and he’s always on calls so that doesn’t work for me as I need silence to write. I usually end up in my bed or on the sofa with Magnus, my cat. He’s very helpful and will often walk on the keyboard, bite my toes or just stare at me to help me focus.
 |
| Magnus, the cat, helping Rebecca work |
How long have you been a SCBWI volunteer?
I’ve been volunteering in this particular role since January this year, but I’ve been a SCBWI member since 2019. I was a founding member of the Southbank Writers’ Group, and I’ve volunteered at a couple of the conferences as well.
 |
| Rebecca in costume |
Describe the main tasks of your role as a SCBWI volunteer
Together with the team, I help to organise the SCBWI London evening socials, send out our email newsletters and keep an eye on the email and the Facebook page.
Do you do any other volunteering?
Yes, I’m currently on the organising team for the Spark! School Book Awards and I review books for The School Librarian magazine.
Has volunteering influenced your writing in any way?
Yes, it is fantastic to spend time with other children's writers – no one else can truly understand what this weird and wonderful industry is like and I find a lot of encouragement and support in speaking to writers at all stages of their journey. It’s also great to have a sounding board for my ideas and, of course, to have access to some fantastic opportunities, like the Slush Pile challenge.
What are the advantages of being a volunteer?
It’s an excellent way to meet people, particularly if you are an introvert like me – an official role makes it a lot easier to talk to strangers. As a librarian, it also helps me to keep up to date with new writers and newly published books.
How many hours per week do you spend volunteering?
Probably not more than an hour for SCBWI, and a few hours in total for all my volunteering. We aim to have an evening social once a term.
Do the boundaries between volunteering get blurred or do you have clearly demarcated writing/volunteering times/space?
I should be more organised, but as my writing, work and volunteering are all in the same arena, everything does bleed together. I do have an alert set on my phone for ‘writing time’ that goes off at 9pm every night, which I mostly ignore. I’ve never been a daily habit kind of person and I tend to write in manic bursts during the school holidays. I did manage to accidentally organise our last evening social on the same night as the Euros semi-final match (who could've predicted England would be playing?) but there were a few non-football fans who still turned up.
Favourite children’s book?
Currently, I would say Steady for This by Nathanael Lessore. Growing up, I loved Little Women and identified with Jo March to the extent that I forced myself to spend lots of time reading uncomfortably in trees.
Anne Boyere is one of Words & Pictures' Feature Editors and runs the #SCBWIchat on X (formerly Twitter) chat about books for all ages @SCBWI_BI. You can find her on X/Twitter.
Ell Rose is a non-binary illustrator & animator based in Edinburgh and Illustration Features Editor for Words & Pictures. Their cats sometimes feature in their work in either comics or illustrations/animation. They are available for editorial, non-fiction and fiction books and commercial work as well as 2D motion graphics. Contact illustrators@britishscbwi.org
Tita Berredo is Illustrator Coordinator of SCBWI British Isles and the Art Director of Words & Pictures. Follow her on Instagram, X/Twitter and www.titaberredo.com or contact her at illuscoordinator@britishscbwi.org
No comments:
We love comments and really appreciate the time it takes to leave one.
Interesting and pithy reactions to a post are brilliant but we also LOVE it when people just say they've read and enjoyed.
We've made it easy to comment by losing the 'are you human?' test, which means we get a lot of spam. Fortunately, Blogger recognises these, so most, if not all, anonymous comments are deleted without reading.