I went to the SCBWI Conference in LA and it was fantastic, stupendous, outstanding, tremendous . . . !
There was a super lineup of keynote speakers - here they are (in order of appearance):
Jon Scieszka,
M.T. Anderson,
Loren Long,
Gordon Korman,
Marion Dane Bauer,
E.B. Lewis,
Gail Carson Levine,
Carolyn Mackler,
Gennifer Choldenko, Rubin Pfeffer,
Rachel Vail,
Paul Fleischman and
Ashley Bryan.
There were also a zillion workshops throughout the four days. I'd go into detail, but why reinvent the wheel? There was a team of bloggers who covered the sessions. You can read it here:
The official SCBWI Conference Blog.
I met so many talented and fun people, many of whom I'd talked to online but never in person. I had two roommates I'd found online -
E. Samantha Cheng, a mini-documentary producer and
Shelby Mahan, a middle-grade nonfiction writer. I was worried that we might not hit it off and it would be uncomfortable for us. Well, there was no need to worry - we had the greatest time together! As a matter of fact, we've vowed to be roommates for all future conferences!
I also met my agent,
Jamie Weiss Chilton, for the first time in person! On Saturday night, she and her fellow agent, Kelly Sonnack, hosted a little wine and cheese gathering in the park for their clients. It was so nice meeting them all. On Sunday morning, she took me out to breakfast at a really cool restaurant - can't remember the name of it though. It was nice getting to know her better.
I hope I'll be able to attend next year - it'll be their 40th year so it's bound to be loads of fun! If I do go, I'll know better than to lug 20 books with me. At Friday night's book sale, I only sold five books - and three of them were bought by my roommates! Obviously, this picture was taken before I counted how many books were left!
Anyone out there have a good conference you'd recommend?
