I’m going to be a part of two workshops at the NESCBWI this coming spring. For some of you who don’t already know, NESCBWI is the New England branch of the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and they have a conference every spring. My first conference was back in 2008, but this will be my first time as a presenter!
The conference attendees are an interesting mix of newbies (“What the heck is a query letter?”) and award-winning authors. I love going to this conference because otherwise, I spend most of my time either alone with my computer or scrambling around with my two small (but growing) children. This is my opportunity to talk to actual grownups who care about children’s literature :)
The two workshops I’m doing are both on Sunday. The first is a panel called “Don’t Dis Disability: Writing What You Don’t Know”. This panel features experienced librarian and disability advocate Carrie Banks and award winning author Padma Venkatraman. This topic is a new one for the NESCBWI conference, so I am hoping this is the first of many future conversations about disability in children’s literature.
The other workshop is called “Part-Time Writer, Full-Time Mom: A Discussion on Parenting and Creating Books”. I think the importance of this topic is self-evident :)
I hope you can come! Registration begins February 9th but the info is up now so you can start thinking about which workshops you want to pick.