The SCBWI Writing Conference
(Empire State Building, NYC, Feb, 2023)
Last February I attended the SCBWI conference in New York City, my first in-person writing event since 2019. Folks were almost giddy with the face-to-face interaction. Our Canada East representative, illustrator Julien Chung, had regional members exchange contact information and say hello prior to arriving – this helped ease us into the conference and I was grateful for it.
The opening keynote speaker, Marla Frazee, discussed her career and the challenges of the pandemic, while weaving in details about her creative process for her picture book In Every Life, that took 25 years to come to fruition. I could identify with some of her thoughts and strategies and wondered if I would one day tell a similar story about my work. She explained that these beautiful odes to our family or life experience cannot be rushed, and at one point, her words brought us to tears.
The True Revision workshop with authors Elana K. Arnold and Eliot Schrefer was exactly what I needed, giving clarity to my MC’s relationship with the place she left and the place she had traveled to. They were excellent and inspiring presenters.
When attending a writing conference, I always add on a manuscript consult. These are golden opportunities to meet agents and editors and get professional feedback on your work. In NY, my consult was with a lovely literary agent who gave me a glimmer of an idea that I grabbed onto after losing all objectivity on my first YA novel that I have been querying.
While there, I also met an agent that had sent a personal rejection in the past and it was nice to connect in person with her and now social media. Agents are people too, I realized, and maybe part of this publishing game was about building relationships. My journey to future publication has been circuitous and the words of Aisha Saeed, our final keynote, struck a chord, where she talked about looking at success through the lens of connection and personal meaning. This was revelatory.
If you can add an extra day or two to your conference trip, I highly recommend it. I have visited NYC often but am allergic to lineups so have never been to the Empire State Building. We had spring-like weather and the view was truly incredible - with the ESB app, I finally memorized the layout of the island.
Desperate to charge my phone and always interested in visiting libraries elsewhere, I entered the NYPL and found the Rose Main Reading Room. They don’t want tourists disturbing patrons so you must explain to the young sentries the purpose of your visit. I said I was a writer from out of town and needed to work. Inside, after plugging in my phone (there’s an outlet for each person) and recovering from the beauty of the surrounding Beaux-Arts room, I pulled out my notebook and wrote. Then I organized my post-conference thoughts and prioritized my upcoming writing tasks.
After every conference I leave with something valuable, notes for a new picture book, ways to improve works-in-progress, new friends and contacts, and heaps of inspiration.
If you are just starting out as a children’s writer, consider joining SCBWI or CANSCAIP (Canada) to meet others in your writing community and encounter opportunities for creative growth.
After years of writing, I have to agree with Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love, who said, “A creative life is an amplified life. It's a bigger life, a happier life, an expanded life, and a hell of a lot more interesting life.”
Go forth and be creative, friends! And visit me on Instagram!
Links of interest:
· https://elanakarnold.com/revision-season/
· https://www.marlafrazee.com/in-every-life
· https://www.nypl.org/about/divisions/general-research-division/rose-main-reading-room