SCBWI MD/DE/WV Spring 2014 Conference Summary - Part Four: Wrap-up and a Poem

SCBWI MD/DE/WV Spring Nature’s Revised Draft Conference Summary

March 29^th, 2014

Join the conversation!

Tweet using #SpringRevised14 with your take-aways and thoughts from the conference.

Since my thoughts on the day quite lengthy, I’m breaking up the day into 3 (ok maybe 4) chunks for easier digesting. 

The summary ends with Part Four:

Rori Shay on the Faculty Panel

In the afternoon, I was scheduled to volunteer timing critiques. If you aren’t involved volunteering with your local SCBWI chapter I highly encourage it. You never know what opportunities await you by being more involved. And it’s a lot of fun. Which is a good enough reason for me. :)

I was thinking of attending the First Chapters! session with Alyson Heller, since my critique with her was so awesome I wanted to hear more from her, but the room was PACKED! And since I was only going to be able to stay a short while, I left my spot for someone else.

And I went to Social Media 101 for Authors with Rori Shay, author, and Sara D’Emic, agent at Talcott Notch Literary. They were having a little bit of technical difficulties. Sadly, the computer didn’t want to play nice and switch back and forth from the presentation to the internet. 

But hearing Rori talk about how she uses twitter was a great help to me. "It pays to have a bit of boldness on Twitter,” she said. She began following authors in the area and authors she admires. One author she tweeted ultimately invited her to join a writers group in DC. Another high profile author, though he didn’t have time for and ARC (advanced readers copy) he would gladly help her promote on social media. To all his followers. What a great promotional tool, a little boldness on twitter. Awesome. (Note: I wish I had wrote down the names of the authors she mentioned, I’ll tweet her about it and add them in.)

After timing critiques, I slid in for the last bit of Lesléa’s session In the Flesh: Fleshing Out Our Characters. Just as I entered she was sharing examples, in poetry and prose, of writers describing hands. She then asked us to take ten minutes and describe someone’s hands.

After listening to her read poetry earlier in the day and then again in her session, I was reminded of how much I used to LOVE to write poetry. I very rarely shared any of my poetry, but I think I would enjoy writing and sharing poetry with kids. (Luckily, in April I’m taking RenéeLaTulippes course The Lyrical LanguageLab. I’m even more excited now!)

Here’s one of the poems I wrote during Lesléa’s exercise:

D

soft and warm

smooth and soft

unworn by lack of years

lines filled with dirt, dust and drool

awkwardly caress my face and tangle in my hair

fingers curl tight around my thumb

a baby’s comforting embrace

What do you think? Not bad for my first poem in ages.

Faculty Panel

The afternoon wrapped up with a faculty panel where they answered questions about a lot of different subjects from when it’s the right time to query (when your MS is as good as you can make it) to whether one should use a pen name (seems to really be personal preference.) 

Debra Tess, Senior Editor at Highlights for Children, mentioned that Highlights is ALWAYS looking for new writers and illustrators. Unsolicited, so no need for an agent to submit to them. Definitely check that out! Here is a list of Highlights' current needs.

Hope you enjoyed my four part summary of the SCBWI MD/DE/WV Spring Nature’s Revised Draft Conference. Maybe I’ll see you there September 20-21, 2014 for the fall conference!

Happy creating!