I’m thrilled that PBParty’s awesome volunteer & PBParty Success Story, Callie Dean, is our Crit Master on the last PBParty New Draft Challenge & Critique Train before the 2026 PBParty contest entries pour in on March 17. Callie has been a HUGE help putting together PBParty Ranking Parties and critique groups – and has lots of helpful tips and and awesome news to share. Wahoooooo!
Speaking of that…at the bottom of this post, you’ll find more information and a sign up link to join a Ranking Party. PBParty participants have raved about how helpful they’ve been in the past. Don’t miss out!
Callie will critique a picture book manuscript for the first passenger to write a new PB draft and add their name to the Google doc. This train starts NOW and runs through February 21 Eastern. *Remember: You must write the entire first draft during this challenge for it to count. It’s okay to flesh out the plot ahead of time.
Tip: You don’t need to share your new draft for the critique. You can send whichever picture book you’d like feedback on the most–which could be your PBParty entry.
In this challenge, everyone is a winner! First of all, you’ll have a shiny new draft (or two). Wahooooo! When you complete the challenge and hop on the Critique Train Google doc, you’ll receive a critique from the passenger above you and give one to the passenger below you. Many writers have told me they’ve met trusted critique partners they continue to work with, which makes me SO happy!
Check out the Critique Train FAQ here.
Please read this entire post – it’s packed with info and tips. Scroll down for a generous critique giveaway everyone can enter, even if you don’t hop on the PBParty Critique Train or plan to participate in the contest. I’ve had critiques from Callie before, and she’s amazing.
The Huge PBParty Critique Giveaway is BACK!
I missed having it last year, and am thrilled the giveaway is happening again this year. Wahoooo! I just started gathering critique donations. Want to contribute? Here’s the form.
Some prize suggestions are: written picture book critique, Zoom chat or critique, full PBParty entry critique (sample, full, query & connection), portfolio, dummy, or illustration critique, ranking up to 5 manuscripts to help them select the strongest.
*If you have a picture book class or workshop you’d like to donate, that would be wonderful, too! Please make sure I have a link to it so everyone can easily click on the prize to find out more about it.
Donations are due by Monday, February 23. It might take me a few days to set up the giveaway. I’ll shout it out as soon as it’s ready, and winners will be notified by March 2, so there’s time to make their entries dazzle before March 17.
Callie’s upcoming book info:
Marvelous Mistakes: Accidents That Made History written by Callie Dean and illustrated by Ana Latese (publisher: Beaming Books), is due to launch on October 20, 2026!
Can anything good come from a mistake? Perhaps!
This picture book explores eight notable mistakes by figures in history, such as biologist Alexander Fleming, fashion designer Vera Wang, and singer Ella Fitzgerald, alongside modern anecdotes encouraging a growth mindset.
A bit of background
During the summer of 2020, I began writing the picture book that would eventually become Marvelous Mistakes (though my original title was The Little Book of Big Mistakes!). Throughout that strange pandemic summer, I found myself collecting stories of “big mistakes” from history, literature, engineering, science, politics, art, and music. But it took A LONG TIME (and about twelve different drafts!) before I figured out how exactly these “big mistakes” should fit together.
(In the meantime, I wrote lots of other picture book manuscripts, and I even received a PBParty Honorable Mention in 2021.)
I kept playing around with my story, unable to let it go. I added new mistakes to the manuscript, took a few away, dug deeper into my research, uncovered new facts, played around with rhyme, dialogue, and layered text. At one point, I even cut my manuscript into pieces (yes, with scissors!) and taped it back together in a new way. But I still felt stuck. Then one afternoon, one of my amazing critique partners called me on the phone with a new suggestion: what if you connected all your historical stories to modern kids?
So that’s what I did. My new version alternated between rhyming couplets about modern kids, and informational paragraphs about their historical counterparts. I entered that version into the 2022 PBParty contest and was absolutely delighted when my entry became a finalist. During the PBParty showcase week, an editor at Beaming Books requested the full manuscript. A few months later, when Beaming made an offer, I nudged all of the agents who were still considering my work. One of those agents was Karly Dizon, at Fuse Literary, who went on to offer representation. And the rest, as they say, is history.
…except not quite. Marvelous Mistakes was originally due to launch in August of 2024, but got pushed back by two years. While I was initially bummed out by the delay, in hindsight the timing has turned out to be perfect. I’ve recently gotten to see some sneak peeks of Ana’s illustrations, and they are breathtakingly gorgeous. She has taken this story to a whole new level, and I cannot wait to share this book with you in the fall!
A few tips for the Critique Train
- Not sure what to write about? Keep an ongoing list of your story ideas in a notebook or Google Doc. Add to it whenever inspiration strikes. I try to participate in Tara Lazar’s Storystorm every January to jumpstart my creativity and keep my ideas fresh. Most of these ideas do not end up going anywhere, but whenever I’m feeling stuck, I reread my list and always end up finding a few hidden gems that I’d nearly forgotten!
- Feeling intimidated by the blank page? Me, too. I’ve realized that every time I start a new project, I spend a not-insignificant amount of time trying to psych myself up before I ever draft the first word. Repeat after me: a terrible first draft is better than no draft. You can always go back and fix a terrible first draft—but you can’t fix a blank page until you write something down!
- Still doubting that you can complete an entire draft in one day? Try the Pomodoro method! Set a timer for 25 minutes, and commit to write until the timer goes off—don’t even pick up your pencil (or move your hands from the keyboard) until then! Then take a five-minute break before doing it all again. Repeat until you’ve finished your draft!
- Planning to enter PBParty this year? Remember, you don’t have to submit your brand-new draft for critique. Use the Critique Train as an opportunity to get some additional eyes on the story you’re planning to submit. Ask your critique partner to pay particular attention to the first 60-70 words to make sure they sparkle! And, if you still want more feedback and/or are trying to decide which story to submit to PBParty, be sure to sign up for the Ranking Party!
I can’t wait to see how many new drafts we’re able to create during this challenge. Good luck!
Wow, thanks for sharing all those helpful tips and your inspiring PBParty journey, Callie. I remember falling in love with your entry, and can’t wait for your amazing book to be out in the world.
Callie B. Dean lives in Shreveport, LA, with her husband, three sons, and one rescue pup. She blogs for the STEM Tuesday team at From the Mixed-Up Files . . . of Middle-Grade Authors, and her essays and poetry have appeared at Coffee + Crumbs, the Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Whale Road Review, and more. Callie is the author of the prose poetry chapbook Metadata (Bottlecap Press, 2025) as well as two forthcoming picture books: Marvelous Mistakes: Accidents That Made History (Beaming Books, 2026) and Unstoppable Song: Olivier Messiaen, World War II, and the Quartet for the End of Time (Lerner/Carolrhoda, 2027).
SAVE THE DATES!
If you’re unagented, don’t forget to prepare your PBParty contest entry for March 17! Here are the contest details. Stay tuned for a PBParty Prep Zoom date on either 2-25 or 2-26. I’ll let you know the exact date and time soon. This will be a HUGE help preparing for the contest. Don’t worry, we’ll share a recording if you can’t make it live. 🙂
The next New Draft Challenge & Critique Train will be… March 19 – 21 Eastern!
Ranking Party
Huge thanks to PBParty finalist, Success Story and Crit Master Callie Dean for running the Ranking Parties for us.
Here’s the form to sign up for a Ranking Party to help you figure out which manuscript to submit to the 2026 PBParty contest. Please fill it out by Monday, February 23 at 11:59 pm EST.
Callie will e-mail each group soon after. The form questions will help her find the best possible matches for the types of manuscripts, number of manuscripts exchanged, and the size of each group.
Each group is welcome to tweak the rules, but here are some suggested guidelines…
- Try to return the rankings within a week. Please let people know if you need longer than that.
- It helps to send the entire picture book…but mark where the 70 word PBParty entry will end. Some manuscripts seem strong, but don’t have a beginning that grabs attention as much as others. But…there may be a way to streamline and give the opening extra oomph (which is why it’s better to examine the full manuscript vs. the sample)
- Rank each manuscript from 1 (this is AWESOME) to 5 (this isn’t ready for the contest…yet). Sharing some brief notes on each would be wonderful. It’s up to each group if they’d like to include more than that.
- If possible, it would be wonderful to give a full critique on the manuscript you believe is the strongest from each person you swap with. A person might receive critiques on several different manuscripts if group members don’t all select the same one. Here’s a PB Critique Group Checklist that can help strengthen your critique.
- It would be good to send the query blurb as well (or the entire query). It’s up to each group to decide. But it’s just as important to get your query critiqued as it is to get feedback on a manuscript. All queries in the final round will be professional and ready to dazzle agents, editors…and the PBParty judges, too!
- One of my favorite parts of the entry form is: What inspired you to write this story…and what do you have in common with the story or main character? (We share this in the final entries agents and editors browse–some people forget to show an emotional connection to a manuscript in a query and we want to make sure your connection shines). This can be up to 100 words. It would be great to include this as well during the ranking party.
- When ranking, it’s good to keep in mind not only the strength of a manuscript, but how marketable it is. Which ones will truly stand out in the crowded PB market? If you want, you can give two ranks–one according to the strength of the story itself, and another for marketability. (We have to pass over so many wonderful entries each year because they don’t stand out enough from the others.)
Ranking parties will also be helpful if you make it into the final round and receive requests for additional manuscripts from agents and editors. Fingers and toes crossed for you!
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