Grand Prize Winner! Art by Neha Rawat.
We are so happy for Neha Rawat and Marissa Valdez for taking top honors in the SCBWI Online Summer Spectacular Portfolio Showcase (whew, that’s a mouthful)!
Neha was one of two grand prize winners, and won $1000 for art supplies and three Zoom meetings with art directors. And Marissa was one of four honorees, and won $200 for art supplies and a Zoom meeting with an art director. This was out of 477 participants worldwide! 🤯
Honoree! Art by Marissa Valdez.
We just love Neha’s and Marissa’s work, and we knew it was just a matter of time before they went big!
They are both regulars around here, so you may recognize their work. Both have entered out monthly art contest multiple times, both have won the contest and both have gone on to illustrate a podcast episode for us! Remember these beauts?
Art for Episode 44 by Neha Rawat.
Art for Episode 49 by Marissa Valdez.
If you haven’t heard of it, SCBWI stands for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and it is pretty much THE organization to belong to if you want to be a kidit writer or illustrator. There are chapters all over the world, and they regularly host all kinds of conferences, awards, grants, programs and events.
The Portfolio Showcase was part of the SCBWI Online Summer Spectacular, a digital event featuring some of the biggest names in kidlit. It just wrapped up on August 4.
We spotted lots of familiar names out of the 477 participants in the Portfolio Showcase, and we are so proud of you all for putting yourselves out there! Even if you didn’t place this time around, it’s great practice for when you do 😉