SCBWI ANNUAL SUMMER CONFERENCE, DAY 1

The huge California Ballroom at the Hyatt
Regency Century Plaza

The first day of the SCBWI annual summer conference was exhilirating, inspiring, overwhelming...and exhausting! They had a record number of attendees—1300 of them—3 levels of conference rooms, and a lunch line so long you thought you were at a JK Rowling book signing. 


I attended a multicultural workshop with Rukhsana Khan, one on navigating the turbulent waters of picture book publication with Laurent Linn, and listened to motivational keynote speakers, Bruce Colville, Jerry Pinkney, and Emma Dryden. But my favorite part of the day has to be the keynote presentation by Libba Bray, who was terrifically funny and her recollections of spending a year writing the "wrong" manuscript before she got it right was truly inspiring, and a reminder that to succeed in writing, one needs the 3 P's: Patience, Perseverance, and Persistance. 

Faculty members waiting to introduce themselves

Keynote speaker Bruce Colville