A "Rising Kite" win at the SCBWI Florida Regional Conference in Miami

Each year at the Florida Region's SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) conference in Miami, writers who are unpublished in a category can enter ten pages of their work in the "Rising Kite" contest. This year I entered the first chapter of my historical fiction ghost story. The YA work is titled Beyond the Stone Eagle Gate and takes place in central Tennessee in 1893.

The photo shows me holding my second place certificate with Lorin Oberweger who judged the finalists in this contest. Lorin is now an agent with Adams Literary. She has built a career in publishing that spans twenty-five years. Lorin is a highly sought-after independent book editor and has offered intensive, deep craft workshops nationwide. In addition, using the pen name Noelle August, Lorin and author Veronica Rossi have co-authored and published a series of Young Adult novels,  Boomerang, Rebound, and Bounce.

Another excellent Florida Writers Conference

Exhaustion and happiness! These two words describe many of us, I suspect, who attended another great Florida Writers Conference held this year in Altamonte Springs, FL. It was great to see old friends and meet new fellow writers and faculty presenters. Unlike the previous three years where I worked as a volunteer, this year I attended and enjoyed the sessions and panel discussions. Bolstering up my courage, I gave a verbal "pitch" at Chris Hamilton's exciting and instructive Pitch Fest Gong Show. I escaped the "gong" but I can't say I knocked 'em dead with my three-minute pitch. However,  I certainly learned what worked and what was missing from my very short description of my YA story CROSS OVER.

The exciting part is I was able to refine my presentation and successfully pitched to an agent the next day who requested fifty pages to review. Excited because I liked him. I truly believe a bit of personal rapport helps both writer and agent on this long and winding road to publication.

Next event is the Western  PA SCBWI conference in Pittsburgh, PA, Nov. 11 and 12. For this conference, I'm concentrating on my upper middle grade story THE WHISPERING CHIMNEY. I'll be showing two editors from major publishing houses my beginning pages. Wish me luck!