First, I would like to congratulate SCBWI for putting on such a great conference. There were numerous technical writing sessions, which covered all aspects of writing so each participant could attend sessions that interested them the most. Also, the keynote speakers were very good, especially Kate Messner. I have been to many conferences related to environmental issues in my previous job, but this was one of the best I've been to and my first related to children's writing.
My journey from Connecticut to NYC started around 3:00 pm on February 7th as my wife and I made our way to New Haven to catch a Metro-North train into the city. The Metro-North route we took stops at Grand Central Station and our hotel was connected to the station so we didn't even need to go outside. The conference was being held at our hotel too so that made everything so convenient and easy.
I attended three technical writing sessions and enjoyed them all. Unfortunately, I was only able to meet one of the speakers, Ann Whitford Paul, after her session, The Language of Picture Books on Saturday afternooon. My first session on Saturday morning, February 8th was Picture Books From Rough Draft to Submission Ready presented by Lesa Cline, Connie Hsu and Alexandra Penfold. There was a huge group in this session though, which made it almost impossible to speak to any of them. I do appreciate receiving a post-conference email from SCBWI with contact information and an offer to submit some writing to both Connie Hsu, Executive Editor for Roaring Brook Press, Macmillan Publishing and Alexandra Penfold, an agent with Upstart Crow Literary. I'm working on submittals for both of these invitations this week.
My last session on Sunday morning, February 9th, was Picture Book Beginnings and Endings (And How to Get From Here to There), which was supposed to be presented by Jane Yolen and her daughter, Heidi Stemple, but unfortunately Jane injured her hip and was unable to attend. Yolanda Scott, Associate Publisher and Editorial Director of Charlesbridge agreed to take Jane's place and they didn't appear to miss a beat. It was nice to see the video of Jane that was incorporated into the presentation. Unfortunately, during the session, I got distracted and missed writing down Yolanda's email. She had extended an invitation to submit a query to her within 8 weeks after the conference. I ended up snail mailing her a query per Charlesbridge's guidelines just before I received a tweet from Heidi that stated Yolanda had given out her email at the session. For what it's worth, I took about 4 pages of notes in this session.
I plan to attend another writing conference once the Covid-19 issue gets resolved. The NESCWBI conference was one that I had been thinking about since it's only about 35 minutes from my home.
Ken
