I am continuing my New Year's goal of attending different regional conferences with a 3-day event in Charlotte, North Carolina. It's the first in what will be a busy 2nd half of the year. There were a few specific sessions listed on the schedule that attracted my attention, besides kinda liking the area a lot and wanting to visit Charlotte. Also offered was an optional intensive session, and it looked like Gary Schmidt was one of the choices. His session, "Your Narrator, Your POV and You" sounded exactly like it applied to what I was currently working on with my YA Historical Fiction. It wasn't a hard decision. I would attend the RedHot Carolinas conference.
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March brings me to my third conference of 2017, "From Dreaming to Doing", the regional conference for Maryland, Delaware, and West Virginia. I would not have attended except that I learned a member of my online science critique group was from this region and planning to attend. It was close enough for me and thought it'd be nice to meet Kirsten in person. I looked at the schedule and found a few sessions from which I might benefit if I followed the nonfiction track, so I registered. This month was the SCBWI Annual Winter Conference in New York City. I planned to drive along with a critique partner. It would be the first time attending for both of us and we were excited to go. They say the journey is half the fun and we certainly found that to be true. With a winter storm on the horizon we loaded my truck with shovel, de-icer, and windshield scraper, boots, coats, and plenty of water. We wanted to get halfway across Pennsylvania the first day since we were getting a late start to the day. We wouldn't have any weather issues on this leg of the trip, but we knew it would all be a different story when we woke up the following morning. On my last post I mentioned that I had read Harold Underdown's Idiot's Guide to Publishing Children's Books. I actually read this last fall and starting thinking about his ideas and trying a few suggestions. I am in the submission process for a number of manuscripts, and not really getting any results. I think the first bit of encouragement I've had in a long time was at the WPA-SCBWI Conference last fall, and it got me thinking again about what I had read in Harold's book. Conferences are the place to meet editors.
My attendance at SCBWI Annual in Los Angeles was a first for me. I was looking forward to hearing authors, editors, and agents talk about relevant issues. I wanted to reconnect with fellow writers and make new connections. I wanted to be rejuvenated and inspired. I wanted to learn and to have fun. Was I successful? Absolutely! And after having some time to reflect on my conference experience, here is a list of some my personal highlights.
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I remember the excitement of visiting the public library as a child. The magic and suspense of reading favorites like The Velvet Room and The Secret Garden tugged at my imagination. Biographies of George Washington Carver and Betsy Ross allowed me to see the lives of those who came before me and to appreciate their accomplishments. Poetry collections like my favorite The Tall Book of Poems, which I took with me on sleepovers, introduced me to a range of poetry where I could consider how the placement and rhythm of words affected your mood – sometimes bouncy, other times melancholy. Plus, I really loved the way that book felt in my small hands. My goal in writing children’s books, I think, is an attempt to recreate those feelings, those early years of reading books where everything seemed possible.
I received an M.F.A. in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Hamline University and won the Karen and Philip Cushman Late Bloomer Award from SCBWI. I worked as a Children's Librarian for 20 years and still prefer to read books written for young people. I have two Cavapoo dogs named Prince Albert and Daisy Wu, and a black kitten named Mortimer. I am married and split time between homes with my husband Rod in Dayton, OH and in Cadiz, KY where we enjoy our pontoon boat on Lake Barkley.
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