Advanced Picture Books, with Celia Lee

In this intimate workshop, you'll receive a written critique of a picture book manuscript from Celia Lee, executive editor at Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, plus get the opportunity to speak to Celia individually in the live group call that follows critiques. You'll also exchange critiques with your workshop peers.  

Who may apply

You must be an Inked Voices member, and you must meet one of the following for this advanced group: 1) traditionally published or under contract; 2) agented (or previously agented in the past 2 years); or 3) querying and getting requests for additional manuscripts. APPLY.  

How it works

You'll submit your pages at the group start, then spend the next weeks critiquing peer stories. The editor will submit their notes near the critique deadline. After critiques are complete, we host a live group debrief over Zoom, in which each writer gets individual time with the editor to dig into feedback, brainstorm next steps, and discuss any writing questions. 

Our goal with these events is to help writers become stronger storytellers. That said, this workshop also comes with a submission opportunity.

About the group workshop format

Participants should be sure they have at least 1 hour to give for critiquing each person's manuscript (plus reading time). Because this is a group of 9, this means you should have at least 8 hours available for your peers' stories.

This makes for an intense workload for the few weeks of peer critique. However, we've also found that this format accelerates learning because you are able to read a professional's feedback on each story you have read and critiqued, and you will listen to each one-on-one in the debrief. Many writers have told us that listening and learning from the professional's notes to others has been just as beneficial to their learning as the feedback on their own work.