This conference got me jazzed. In the past couple of years I have left the conference rather deflated. I have felt I had so much farther to go. However, I feel like real progress has been made-that I can see where I am going and am closing in on reaching my goals. In the long run, it could still be many more years before anything comes. Never the less, I believe that my persistence will pay off. Hence, I am excited.

I believe a huge part of my excitement are the illustrators & writers I connected with or finally got a chance to hang out and talk to. To name a few:

Melinda Beavers
Katia Wish
Anindita Sempere
Kat Black
Anna J. Boll

I know I am leaving people off but this list could go on and on, folks you are all so amazing, inspiring, and supportive. Thank you for participating and making SCBWI one of the greatest communities of people I have ever known.

As always this conference was non-stop. There was an incredible number of amazing speakers that participated at this milestone conference, Jane Yolen, Lin Oliver, Tomi DePaola, Harold Underdown, Heidi Stemple, Steve Mooser, Sue Burgess and the list goes on.

Including four people that came together for the Advanced Illustrator Academy,
Dani Jones, John Lechner, Kerry Martin, and Nicole Tugeau. They deserve rounds and rounds of applause as they went above and beyond for our group. To accommodate the 5 conference keynotes the Sunday intensive sessions had to lose an hour. We managed to meet for an hour Saturday to make up some time but we still needed more. Working through Sunday lunch(they still had the food too) and door prize announcements they tirelessly critiqued every attendee’s website leaving everyone with excellent information with how to improve their sites.

The day was not without humor. Along with time constraints we also went through 3 projectors. Nothing broke we just had to switch a few times for varying reasons. Despite these seemingly major issues everything ran smoothly. I thank all of the attendees and faculty for hanging together and working through the troubles. It is this flexibility that is going to help us embrace the new possibilities of digital media.

As it was said again and again, publishing is changing, as is the world. We have a new tool within the digital realm. There is much to be learned and together we will find the best new ways to make stories, hopefully accessible to even more children.