New England Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Conference

Sunday at the NESCBWI conference http://www.nescbwi.org/ began with Melissa Stewart http://www.melissa-stewart.com/ asking great questions to novelist and picture book writer Cynthia Leitich Smith http://www.cynthialeitichsmith.com/ who gave thoughtful, often humorous, and always generous answers about how and why she’s changed the focus of her work, collaborations with her husband Greg Leitich Smith, teaching, multicultural books, Dracula, and many other things.

Kelly Fineman kellyrfineman spoke intelligently and clearly about free verse, surprising none of us who read her blog, offering definitions and examples of building blocks like line breaks, stanza breaks, alliteration, and metaphor. In between she gave us great writing prompts that let us work with these concepts. Some people left with whole poems, and more of us with pieces, but all feeling as if we’d put in some good work with hope for more ahead. And she did assign homework. (And Marjorie marjorielight may frown on students passing notes in her class, but I’m very happy about the note she slipped to me.)

I attended a panel about blogging that Kate Messner kmessner kept well organized. Jo Knowles jbknowles brought her signature kindness and Carrie carriejones added her wacky and warm sense of humor. Actually all three were wise and sweet, but there was talk of a blog presence, how a persona comes across so I can’t resist the adjectives. All talked about how they chose topics, how often they write, the blogs that inspired them, ways readers find their blogs, and pitfalls to avoid. They showcased other people’s blogs, practicing what they preached: that blogging is not about me, me, me but the community many of us have found here and treasure.

It was lovely to end the day writing from prompts given by Jo jbknowles Her good ideas and faith made us all write more bravely than we might have without her. You can click on the link above to read her Monday morning prompt and follow the beautiful way she ended the workshop, opening us to more committed writing ahead.

Conference organizers Greg Fishbone http://gfishbone.com/ and Anindita Basu Sempere arialas have the gift of making it look easy. Thank you, everyone for another great conference!