Saturday, September 24, 2011

SCBWI-AZ'S Welcome to Our House Conference Oct. 1

I'm excited. One week from today, October 1, is SCBWI-AZ's fantastic, "Welcome to Our House" Conference. They've got an amazing line-up of industry experts flying in from New York, plus--for the first time--they are featuring breakout sessions by local authors--including me!!

I get to share my, "Writing from your Inner Truth," workshop. I'm love that one. I'm thrilled to get to give it again. It's based on the struggle I had when I wrote TAKEN BY STORM. It was so hard to get the balance right between how much or how little of Leesie's faith to share. I was making a huge mess of it, so I took a break (well, I had to write my critical thesis and chose this topic!), and studied how other authors did it. I zeroed in on Katherine Paterson's creative and critical writing. She is still one of my biggest heroes.

She is so inspiring. Here's one of my favorite quotes from the presentation,

"What treasures we have inside ourselves—not just joy and delight but also pain and darkness. Only I can share the treasures of the human spirit that are within me.  No one else has these thoughts, these feelings, these relationships, these experiences, these truths." (Katherine Paterson, “The Journey Inward,” The Writer, August 1995.)

No wonder Katherine Paterson is the National Ambassador for Children's Literature.  


2 comments:

  1. Congratulations on speaking at the SCBWI conference. That sound like a great topic.

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