Join us for a panel discussion with Anne Shone (Scholastic), Yasemin Ucar (KCP) and Tara Walker (Tundra/Random House).

Anne Shone is a Senior Editor at Scholastic Canada. She has worked in book publishing for close to twenty years, concentrating on children’s books for the last fifteen. In that time, she has worked with many of Canada’s top children’s book authors and illustrators. Anne edits in all genres, including picture books (recent highlights include Fox and Squirrel by Ruth Ohi, Goodnight, Canada, by Andrea Beck, and Never Let You Go by Patricia Storms); novels (The Opposite of Geek by Ria Voros, and Vikki VanSickle’s Love Is a Four Letter Word); and myriad non-fiction titles at Maple Tree Press and Scholastic Canada, with Helaine Becker, Elin Kelsey, Elizabeth MacLeod and Frieda Wishinsky, to name just a few.

Yasemin Uçar has been a children’s book editor for sixteen years. She worked at Scholastic Canada before moving to the UK in 2001, where she worked as a Senior Editor at Piccadilly Press in London, managing a list of about 25 titles a year. She moved back to Toronto in 2006, and worked as a freelance editor for six years, for several publishers, including Scholastic, Second Story Press, Madison Press Books and HarperCollins. She joined Kids Can Press in 2012. Yasemin has worked with many popular and award-winning authors and illustrators, including international bestselling author Louise Rennison, Barbara Coloroso, Anne Villeneuve, Caroline Adderson, Ashley Spires, Norah McClintock and Helaine Becker.

Tara Walker has been the Editorial Director at Tundra Books, a division of Penguin Random House of Canada, since 2011. Previous to that, she was Senior Editor at Kids Can Press where she got her start in children’s publishing in 1995. Tara has edited some of Canada’s most accomplished writers and illustrators for children, including Mélanie Watt, Linda Bailey, Shane Peacock, Marthe Jocelyn, Richard Scrimger, Wallace Edwards, Stéphane Jorisch, Kyo Maclear, Cybèle Young and Geneviève Côté. She worked for many years as the primary editor of the world-renowned Franklin the Turtle series and acquired and edited the best-selling Scaredy Squirrel series. Tara has edited many award-winning picture books and novels, including six Governor General’s Literary Award winners, the most recent of which is last year’s winner for Children’s Illustration in English, Virginia Wolf.