Encore!

Encore! grew out of two needs that arose in the mid-2000s. First, many members were requesting more regular SCBWI programming in the New England Region. Second, some Spring Conference attendees were disappointed that they couldn’t attend more of the valuable workshops. Encore! was developed in the fall of 2007 to meet these needs. It’s a one-day conference that repeats four or five of the most popular presentations from the Spring Conference—an “encore performance,” if you will.

In Southern New England, RA Sally Riley approached Jean Brown, the director of the Alliance for the Study and Teaching of Adolescent Literature (ASTAL) at Rhode Island College. Jean was eager to develop an ongoing relationship with SCBWI and offered the facilities at Rhode Island College for the program. Working with Betty Brown and Linda Crotta Brennan, Sally planned a successful event with twenty-eight paying attendees in 2007. Despite Janet Arden’s best efforts, the Encore! program held in New Hampshire did not draw enough attendees to break even. As a result, Encore! was discontinued in Northern New England. In 2008, the second Encore! program at Rhode Island College drew fifty-one attendees.

Over time, the program continued to attract more attendees each year. In 2012, Linda Crotta Brennan resigned from the Encore! planning committee and Julia Boyce took her place. Eventually, the program reached its 100-person capacity and began having to turn people away. Rather than move to a new, larger venue, the Regional Team decided to launch a second Encore! program. In 2016, Francine Puckly and Kris Asselin coordinated the first Central New England Encore! at Mount Wachusetts Community College in Gardener, MA, and in 2017 the program was moved to Devens Common Center, Devens, MA.

Because Francine Puckly resigned from her ARA position in 2017 and Sally Riley stepped down from her RA position in 2018, the region did not offer any Encore! programming in 2018, but it started up again in 2019 at new venues in Connecticut and New Hampshire. The Southern New England program repeats top-rated writing workshops from the spring conference, while the Northern New England program repeats top-rated illustration workshops.