Join children’s book author, Ann Marie Stephens, for a one-day boot camp to boost your picture book writing! Whether you’re beginning a new story, finishing a current work-in-progress, or looking ahead to future stories, Ann Marie is ready to support and inspire! From the first line to the last word, explore techniques for out-of-the-box plotting and for creating unique characters. Learn how to leave room for an illustrator and find ways to choose the most irresistible words to bring your manuscript to the next level. You’ll discover quick and painless methods to edit without ruining your masterpiece. You’ll combat mundane middles and everyday endings to equip you with what you need to polish off your picture book. During this exciting bootcamp, Ann Marie will share mentor texts, brainstorming tips, and other valuable advice. Participants will have opportunities to interact and give input on the struggles and successes of everyday literary life, while also gaining golden nuggets of wisdom and new connections. | Flexible.

This is a two session symposium.
Session One: 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Session Two: 2:30 – 4:30 p.m. ET

Ann Marie Stephens is the author of numerous picture books including the Arithmechicks series, the CATastrophe! series, and more. Her books have been translated into several languages and have been featured on lists such as Fuse #8, Children’s Book Council, and Hot Off the Press. She is a retired, award-winning elementary teacher with over 30 years in the classroom. Ann Marie’s poetry and literacy work has been featured in Bon Appetit

Magazine and on NPR. She is represented by Emily Mitchell at Wernick & Pratt Agency. Ann Marie lives in Virginia and can be found at https://www.annmariestephensbooks.com/

Congratulations! You published your book! Now you need to promote it!

In this120-minute boot camp course, #1 New York Times Bestselling author Kwame Alexander will share his hard-learned, proven tips and techniques that continue to land him on bestseller lists. Kwame will help you understand that completing and publishing your book is only the start of the process; the real work comes in finding readers to buy it. It doesn’t matter if you have the most prestigious publisher behind your book, YOU, as the author, will still need to do a lot of promotion yourself. Don’t worry, Kwame’s got you! He’ll teach you what you should do and how to do it and by the end of the course, you’ll have a unique strategy that you can use to raise your book’s profile as well as your own!

Kwame Alexander is a poet, educator, Emmy-winning producer and #1 New York Times bestselling author of 41 books, including the new release Black Star, the second installment of his Door of No Return trilogy, This Is The Honey: An Anthology of Contemporary Black Poets, Why Fathers Cry at Night, An American Story, The Door of No Return, Becoming Muhammad Ali (co-authored with James Patterson), Rebound, which was shortlisted for the prestigious UK Carnegie Medal, and The Undefeated, the National Book Award nominee, Newbery Honor, and Caldecott Medal-winning picture book illustrated by Kadir Nelson.

Kwame is also the Emmy-winning Executive Producer, Showrunner, and Writer of The Crossover TV series, based on his Newbery-Medal winning novel of the same name, which premiered on Disney+ in April 2023. The series was produced in partnership with LeBron James’ SpringHill Company and Big Sea Entertainment, Kwame’s production company that

is dedicated to creating innovative, highly original children’s and family entertainment. Other current projects in development at Big Sea include America’s Next Great Author, the groundbreaking reality television series for writers.

A regular contributor to NPR’s Morning Edition, Kwame is the creator and host of the Why Fathers Cry podcast, premiering September 2023, featuring conversations about love and parenting and loss, with fathers and sons. He regularly shares his passion for literacy, books and the craft of writing around the world at events like the Chautauqua Lecture Series, the Edinburgh Book Festival, Aspen Ideas, and the Global Literacy Symposium in Ghana, where he opened the Barbara E. Alexander Memorial Library and Health Clinic in Ghana. Most recently he was appointed the Rudell Artistic Director of Literary Arts and Writer-in-Residence at the Chautauqua Institution.

His mission is to change the world, one word at a time.