The Rafael Lopez Scholarships for the Craft and Business of Illustrating Children's Books are now OPEN UNTIL November 20th. To have a peek at the course click here and to apply for a scholarship, click here.

The Children's Book Academy is proud to offer merit scholarships for writers and illustrators who identify as being of color, or LBGQTI, as having a disability, who are currently underrepresented in the children's publishing industry. In addition, we are offering scholarships for low income folks who might not be able to take this course otherwise as well as to SCBWI Regional Advisors, ARAs, and Illustrator Coordinators or children's librarians who may or may not identify as being of any of these communities above but who do so much to help our field. In addition, because I get homesick and Aussies tend to make courses more exciting, we also give some Aussie scholarships too. This scholarships is named after an illustrator whom I admire and wish to honor who also contributed a really generous interview for the course. Read more further down.

Easy Peasy Scholarship Criteria

Here's all that you need to do:

  1. Using your funniest or most lyrical language, tell us something lovely or quirky about yourself
  2. Describe how you meet our scholarship criteria
  3. Include your website if you have one, or email 3 images labeled with your name and title
  4. Talk about how you are going to give back by helping your fellow students and the Academy by participating in the group and helping us spread the word about our offerings
  5. Tell us who your favorite illustrators are
  6. Let us know if you are agented or if you've been previously published

The Craft & Business of Illustrating Children's Picture Books

Previous Year's Scholarship Winners

Congratulations to our 2018 winners: Adriana Hernandez Bergstrom (now published), Darrenn Canton, Davian Chester, Dani Duck, Denise Henry, Carolyn Le, Catherine Athena Louise, Caren Shiloh, Jerome White (now contracted).

Congratulations to our 2017 winners: Gael Abary (now published), Sandra Bartholomew (now published), Benjamin Robinson, Patricia Rojas, Kim Wilson

Congratulations to our 2016 winners:
Cibyl Kavan, Larissa Marantz (now published), Kristen Warner, Kenneth Lamug (now published), Farouqua Abuzeit, Manjari Chakravarti, Angelica Jackson, Aura Lewis (now published), Rebekah Lowell (now published), Kimberly Frink, and Karen Yin.

Congratulations to our 2015 winners:
Ruben Salazar, Mac McCord, Daisy St. Rose, Melissa Stagi Zepeda, Mariama Ross, Trisha St.Clair, Rosario Carillo (now published), Marion Sipe, Melissa Henry, Cynthia Kukla, and Justine Lawson.

Congratulations to our 2014 winners:
Barbara Baker, Angel Alvarez, Rachel Dougherty, Jerrolyn Crooks -De Gracia, Eliane Mancera, Daria Peoples Riley (now published), and Sharon Sordo (now contracted).


To find out more about the course click here.

Rafael Lopez and Pat Cummings Scholarship at the Children's Book Academy

About the Scholarships

Our scholarships are an opportunity to promote diversity in a meaningful and broad way while opening doors to creatives who may not be able to access the course others.
It is also an opportunity to honor folks we think are absolutely wonderful who do so much to help others in our field.

Meet Rafael Lopez

We are so delighted to be honoring Rafael Lopez with this scholarship for two main reasons: one is the quality of his artwork (gorgeous) and the other is his social activism. To find out more about Rafael, please visit his website here! You will fall in love as he and his work are exquisite.

So do give it a go! To find out when the next scholarship is, please click to join us here!