Out and About at the Wild, Wild Midwest Conference

This will be a short post because I'm busy preparing to attend the SCBWI Wild, Wild Midwest Conference. In fact, I've written this post in advance and scheduled it to publish right about the time I'll be hitting the road. :-)

For those of you unfamiliar with SCBWI, it stands for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, the premier organization for those interested in writing and/or illustrating for children. SCBWI holds two national conventions every year., The summer conference, held in Los Angeles, will be Aug. 2-5 this year, and the winter conference, held in New York, will be Feb. 21-23, 2014. (Click here to see photos from last year's winter conference.) I've never been able to attend either of these events, except virtually, via the official SCBWI conference blog, so I'm especially excited to participate in this weekend's Midwest conference. I'm hoping it will be the first of many.

Speaking of SCBWI, congratulations to all the winners of the SCBWI Crystal Kite Member Choice awards, which were announced this week. If you're not familiar with this award, you can see the list of winners on the SCBWI website and read about how they were chosen. And for more children's publishing news, be sure to check out the official SCBWI blog.

In other good news, I've found a new home for the Girls Write! summer camps I taught at the Hinsdale Center for the Arts for nine years. (Sadly, HCA closed last year due to lack of funding.) The camps will now be held at the Mayslake Peabody Estate in Oak Brook, Illinois. If you know any budding girl writers who live in the area, please help spread the word. The camp for girls entering grades 4-5 will meet June 24-June 28, 9:30 am–noon and for those entering grades 6-8 will meet July 15-July 19, 9:30 am–noon. For details, see the right sidebar on this page of my website.

Finally, don't forget: there's still time to enter our blogiversary giveaway for a chance to win one of four $25 gift cards to Anderson's Bookshops. See this post for details.

After you've entered, hop on over to Elizabeth Steinglass's blog for this week's Poetry Friday round-up.

Happy writing!
Carmela