I am certainly very well fed from our local SCBWI conference whose theme was: Feed Your Genius. Thank you to our fantastic RAs and AdCom that do so much to keep the show running smoothly.
I especially enjoy listening to local success stories ... so much heart and inspiration.
Kevan Atteberry wondered why he was even on the panel because his vision of success is to write and illustrate his own picture books. It will happen, Kevan. But it's lovely to celebrate the smaller successes along the way.
Justina Headley reminded us all to: "stop whining and do the work!" Yup, she was speaking to me.
Deb Lund wrote a poem about her inner critic!
Some of the best sessions that I went to were about plotting and deepening our work by Lisa Papademetriou, Michael Stearns and Grace Lin.
The keynote addresses were wonderful.
Adam Rex talked about getting his break in Spider magazine.
Grace Lin told us a story about wanting to be a champion ice skater and while she waited for winter, how she drew ... lovely, lovely presentation. She talked about being labeled as a multicultural author, how insecure she felt by it at first, but how these were the books that touched children. So now she doesn't worry about the label and instead writes the stories that only she can write.
Ellen Hopkins shared how she came to write her first book, Crank.
And Jon Scieszka made us laugh with stories from his childhood. What a knucklehead!!!
The best part was meeting up with old friends and making some new friends. Pictures forthcoming.
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2 comments:
Thanks, Vijaya. It was a great conference, wasn't it? I loved Grace's presentation and my daughter was thrilled to get copies of Year of the Dog and Year of the Rat. Still, chatting over dinner was my favorite part!
Laurie, it was great to see you again and talk more sitting down instead of standing up.
My daughter was thrilled to have the signed books as well. And Grace writes a couple of Chinese characters, so that is waaaay coooool.
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