Those who were counting on flying in were not so lucky. Facebook friends continually reminded us that flights were cancelled and many would have a difficult time getting to the conference. That's one plus to driving - not being dependent on an airport schedule, and we really enjoyed our travel time. Plus, it was a really beautiful drive through the snow. Pretty stress-free travel overall.
For my second reading, I had originally planned to read the same piece, but after seeing who my editor was going to be, I decided to quickly change direction and read from Reach For the Stars: Nancy Grace Roman, "Mother of Hubble". I ran down to the hotel's business center during lunch to print out my new pages and I was ready to go. The advice I received at this table was to add more of my subject's childhood. Again, I have it. It had been cut from an earlier version. The group at the second table seemed much more interested in this story than the group had at the first table with my other piece. I think even the editor was highly interested in it, since she asked me if I was published and how many words were in this biography. Encouraging for me, especially since this was a publisher I was particularly interested in submitting to. I had previously studied their biographies and knew they published some titles very similar to what I was writing. Cross my fingers on that one. For those keeping count: End of Day 1, two editors I've been invited to submit to.
Would I go again? I don't know. It's pretty expensive to attend a conference in the middle of New York City. Also, there weren't as many schmoozing opportunities as I've experienced at regional conferences. But getting the chance to submit to five closed publishers is pretty exciting, and hopefully I will have some positive feedback from my submissions. Keeping my fingers crossed on that front!