SCBWI New Mexico Handsprings Conference 2009

We had a fabulous conference this last weekend! One of our best in a couple of years. The visiting agent, Chris Richman from Firebrand Literary and Ruta Rimas, asst editor from Balzer and Bray imprint were fun and fantastic and well prepared. (Hit the link for a FAB interview with Ruta - she is WAY FUN and KNOWS YA).

It was Chris Richman's VERY FIRST conference and he did great. He was funny and friendly and gave some of my friends very encouraging critiques on their work. YAY!

Here are a few pics. I actually remembered to bring my camera! Course it's my NEW SPIFFY LUMIX camera I was tellin' y'all about a few days ago . . . how could I possibly leave it at home?!



Me and Lauren Bjorkman who is a member of the Class of 2009 with her book, MY INVENTED LIFE



Here is upcoming writer, Kris Conover, who is way fun and you can see me laughing at what she just said. (Are you working on your revision, Kris???)



Carolee Dean and moi! caroleedean blogged about the conference, too.
She was a presenter and is a good friend and critique partner. Her new YA, THE ROAD TO HUNTSVILLE, will be out in 2010 with S&S!!!



Shirley-Raye Redmond just sold her 21st book!!!
Her Random House Step-into-Reading books have sold about 200,000 copies!!!



Kersten Hamilton during her presentation on characters - showing off new tennies! Both caroleedean and I caught Kersten's glowing shoe laces in our photos. We must have *magic* cameras . . .

Why, here is Carolee's MAGIC CAMERA RIGHT HERE!!!



A good time was had by all!!!

Friday Five

1. I'm spending hours online researching for my editorial revisions of THE HEALING SPELL, but not blogging - or getting the treat of reading y'all's blogs and catching up! Darn.

2. Still doing trip recovery, catching up around the house, and downloading 950 photos - yes, you read that right! I took nearly 1,000 pictures with my new nifty Panasonic Lumix camera that my husband bought me as a treat for my trip. I LOVE this camera!

3. I'm also reading the 150 pages of copied research from books and newspapers and Master Theses from the Louisiana State University Special Collections. Did you know that they stay open until midnight? Very good news for us after a day of interviews and museums, but YEP, they had to kick us out at midnight!

4. Here's a photo of the azaleas in bloom. We were at the tail end of the season though, but I snapped up all I could! Gorgeous.



5. I'll be at our annual New Mexico SCBWI Handsprings conference this weekend! Can't wait!

I have landed . . .

I'm back! I'm home! I'm safe!

But it feels so strange to be home again - like I just returned from Mars or something instead of Louisiana, just a hop, skip and a jump from New Mexico. After you get through 980 miles of Texas that is!

16 days of 5 hours sleep a night, non-stop gabbing with one of my best friends, traveling 3,000 miles, and meeting AMAAAAAAAZING people and staying in AMAAAAAAZING places.

LOVED IT!!!

Pictures and stories coming over the next few weeks . . . but first I am in desperate need of about thirty hours of sleep. And groceries. And clean clothes.

And I gotta call my mom.