I'm not UNpublished, I'm PREpublished!

So, I go to the SCBWI Houston conference last Saturday and I loved it! We have SUCH a great chapter here and I am SO thankful for all the hard work they put in to pull together a winning bunch of speakers and presenters.  WOW! I learned a ton.

Here are some of the highlights, because, I if I can do one thing well, it's ramble. Here goes the cutting it short:

Conference Speakers
From left to right: Susan Sherman, Kathleen Ortiz, Jenne Abramowitz,
Dan Yaccarino, Heather Alexander, Connie Hsu, Jennifer Rofé

First off, the keynote speaker was Dan Yaccarino, he was simply fabulous. He has written or illustrated over 13 children's books, worked on children's TV shows, and is just plain cool. You can visit his website here: http://www.danyaccarino.com  He was extremely funny and talked about how the simple word "yes" took him great places in his career.

Dan Yaccarino

We had two agents speak this year one was Jennifer Rofé, from the Andrea Brown Literary Agency, Inc. and the other one was Kathleen Ortiz from Nancy Coffey Literary Agency & Media Representation. They talked about the "So What?" Factor and Author websites respectively. Both presentations were VERY well done and gave me a lot to think about and more for my to-do list. (GET A WEBSITE!!!) Also, both were very fun and made me think, "I want an agent!"

Susan Sherman is an Art Director for Charlesbridge Publishing and she had a nice presentation about How Pictures Make the Words Work. I couldn't agree with her more. How I wish I had some sort of artistic talent and then maybe I could be the author/illustrator that so many "just plain authors" wish we could be! :)

We were lucky enough this year to get three top-notch editors to come and give us the low down on what is going on in the children's book market. Again, I loved them. They just oozed information that I desperately need and want to hear. Heather Alexander, from Dial Books for Young Readers, had a presentation entitled "The Hard Sell: How Publishers Sell Your Manuscript In-House and Out" It was a great insight into what editors are looking for and how they pitch your manuscript to the rest of the company.

Heather Alexander

Jenne Abramowitz is an editor for Scholastic and she is a native of Houston. I really enjoyed her talk about writing and publishing chapter books. Chapter books are the next step for kids who have moved past easy readers and are ready to read a bit more, but aren't ready yet for the middle grade novels. I have a feeling that someday soon, I might try my hand at writing a chapter book or two.

The last to speak was Connie Hsu, a bubbly, smiley young lady who's presentation was about "To Do or Not to Do: Knowing the Basics of Children's Book Writing" It was great, since I am still learning a lot of the basics and all.

I turned in a manuscript to be critiqued by a local author, Kathy Duval and an editor from the conference, Heather Alexander. Both of them had good things to say about my picture book. Many things they said I already knew weren't quite right yet and have to tweak, other suggestions were just what I needed to hear and still other suggestions weren't quite right for me. If I have learned anything so far in my journey it's that everyone has their opinions and you can't change what you are to please just that one person. Whew! So, no...no one offered me a contract for my book on site, so back to writing...my journey continues!

I will leave you with the reason for this title. Dan Yaccarino came back and closed out the conference with some great inspiring words. He said that by being at the conference we were doing what it takes to become published. He told us to keep learning and working at our craft because we aren't UNpublished, we are PREpublished authors and illustrators. I truly believe that quote was meant for me. I'm gonna run with that one!

Panel discussion with the speakers