Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Coming Soon! SCBWI-C Conference!

On Friday, I'm off for the SCBWI-C Conference! I am very excited...like borderline need-a-paperbag excited. For your info, here's my schedule. I plan on updating the blog with info I learn during the conference while there, but who knows what will actually happen in real life.

Friday:
-Wake up at the butt-crack of dawn and drive 4-5 hours to get to the conference. Love living on the wrong side of a long state.
-First event: Critique session on the first 10 pages of my upper MG fantasy, The Amnesia Door, with agent Alyssa Henkin! Talk about going straight to the big stuff!!
-Speech: Pam Zollman-- "Jump Start Your Writing Career"
-Pitch practices on an open mic
-Red-eye critique session--I've exchanged the first three pages of my work with two other writers, organized through the conference, and we'll be meeting and exchaning ideas.

Saturday:
-Speech: Anita Silvey-- "Our Greatest Children's Books and the Stories Behind Them"
-First workshop: "Voice: What is it? Why does it make editor go gaga?" by Martha Mihalick, who I hope to have the chance to accost and throw my book at.
-First pages critque session
-Second workshop: "Tension: Where the Story Begins" by Mark Johnston
-Third workshop: "Scouting Locations: Using Research to Bring Your Fantasy Setting to Life" by John Claude Bemis.
-Speech: "A Talk with Stephanie Greene and Martha Mihalick"

Sunday:
-Fourth workshop: "MG vs. YA" by Alan Gratz (which, for those of you who've been reading my blog for awhile, know this is a big subject for me)
-Speech: Alyssa Henkin-- "Show Me the Sunny, the Money, and the Funny" (on what attracts an agent to a manuscript)

I promise to have notes and posts up as soon as I can. Maybe not during the actual conference--as you can see, I'm going to be tight on time!!--but I will be doing quite a bit with the information I gain here (including writing an article on one of the workshops for the SCBWI-C newsletter!).

Any tips for conference, pitches, and/or critique sessions? Any questions on one of the subjects that you'd like me to ask?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds great -- can't wait to hear what the actual experiences were!

Unknown said...

I plan on writing up something about everything I attend...I am really looking forward to it!

Heather Zundel said...

That is so exciting. I hope it goes swimmingly for you. Good luck driving all those hours!

Unknown said...

Thanks Heather!

PJ Hoover said...

I'm so excited for your critique session! Please let us know how everything goes!