September 28 – September 30, 2018, I spent the weekend at the SCBWI Carolinas “Word and Line” conference. The weekend was filled with craft, networking, and catching up with fellow writers and Pennies. But you know the feeling you get after spending a week or weekend at a workshop or conference filling your mind with ideas, tips, inspiration, and motivation? It’s a little exhaustion, a … Continue reading Conferences – Sharing What I Learn
Writer’s Digest Annual Conference asked us to be their promotional partner this year. We love writers’ conferences—for inspirations, to improve our craft, and to meet and network with other writers, agents and editors, so we were happy to say yes! To announce this partnership, we invited Writer’s Digest to share a guest post highlighting the success story of Tiffany Jackson, author of the YA thriller … Continue reading Writer’s Digest Annual Conference Success Story: YA Thriller Author, Tiffany D. Jackson
Today I’m excited to talk with Sera Rivers. Sera is Co-Director of the 2018 New England SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) Conference, along with Loretta Kapinos. The New England conference is the largest regional SCBWI conference with over 650 attendees annually. Sera’s also an editor and YA author, and winner of the 2016 PEN New England Susan P. Bloom Children’s Book Discovery … Continue reading Behinds the Scenes with Sera Rivers – Co-Director of the New England SCBWI Conference
WriteOnCon is near and dear to our hearts at the Winged Pen because it’s where a lot of us first connected. I’ll be attending this year and I hope you will be too! If you haven’t before, here’s some tips on making the most of it. What is WriteOnCon? WriteOnCon is an online writing conference. No pricey registration fees. No hotel rooms required. No extended … Continue reading Get Ready for WriteOnCon!
Happy #MSWL day! Today, agents and editors from around the world will Tweet their wish-lists. It’s a great way to fine tune your query list and to get an idea of what editors are looking for as well. Manuscript Wish List co-founder Jessica Sinsheimer has been hard at work on another project recently as well: The Manuscript Academy. She stopped by The Winged Pen to … Continue reading An Interview with Manuscript Academy co-founder Jessica Sinsheimer
This month, The Winged Pen’s own Michelle Leonard and Julie Artz were lucky enough to attend Madcap Retreats‘ Writing Cross-Culturally Workshop in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Not only was it a blast to finally meet up face-to-face, but the long weekend was packed with great information and resources. We’d like to share a peek at what we learned with our readers. Highlights We were surrounded by many … Continue reading Writing Cross-Culturally
At the Frankfurt Book Fair, readers are a big theme. It’s the biggest book fair in the world and heavily “rights” focused. The more readers a book has, the more valuable the foreign publishing rights are. The main business of the Fair is to make deals: between publishers and literary agents, domestic and international publishers, and publishers and booksellers or libraries. There are little tables … Continue reading 3 Ways to Find Out About Your Readers from the Frankfurt Book Fair 2016
Recently, two of our Winged Pen members attended the SCBWI Oregon Conference. We sat down with them to talk about what they learned. What was the most inspirational moment of the conference for you? Richelle: Lately, I’ve been focusing on the joy of following my own quirky path – in writing and in life. So I was very inspired by Victoria Jamieson’s keynote, which was … Continue reading Fear, Fan-girling and Flambé: SCBWI Oregon Conference Recap
I met Pam Vaughan at my first NESCBWI (New England Society of Children’s Book Authors and Illustrators) Conference in 2014. At the time, I was overwhelmed by the awesome authors all around me and my mind buzzed with all I was learning from the great workshops on craft and the publishing industry. I kept catching glimpses of Pam running around everywhere with her camera. I … Continue reading Secrets of a Great Author Photo: An Interview with Pam Vaughan
When was the last time you wrote just for fun? I have to admit I haven’t for a long time. It’s hard to squeeze writing time in around the rest of life, so when I get it, I feel pressure to be productive: write the next chapter, deepen a character arc, start on revisions. Something needs to get checked off the list. So when I saw that … Continue reading Writing for Fun: Reflections on a Workshop with Jo Knowles
Some fellow Pennies and I recently attended the New England SCBWI Conference. New England’s is the largest SCBWI regional conference; this year there were 699 attendees. Despite its size, the conference had the feel of a family reunion, punctuated with many shrieks of recognition and tackle hugs. When individual members were honored with awards, the collective joy and pride in the room was palpable. In … Continue reading Wisdom from the New England SCBWI Conference
You’ve signed up for the conference. You’ve chosen your workshops. You may even have signed up for a critique. Now what? You tweak and revise your MS yet again. What else? I asked the Pennies to share their insider tips on how to get the most out of your conference. So without further ado, here are their wise, funny, practical and inspirational tips! Julie Artz: … Continue reading Insider Tips To Get the Most Out of Your Next Conference
