SCBWI-AZ'S Welcome to Our House Conference Oct. 1

I'm excited. One week from today, October 1, is SCBWI-AZ's fantastic, "Welcome to Our House" Conference. They've got an amazing line-up of industry experts flying in from New York, plus--for the first time--they are featuring breakout sessions by local authors--including me!!

I get to share my, "Writing from your Inner Truth," workshop. I'm love that one. I'm thrilled to get to give it again. It's based on the struggle I had when I wrote TAKEN BY STORM. It was so hard to get the balance right between how much or how little of Leesie's faith to share. I was making a huge mess of it, so I took a break (well, I had to write my critical thesis and chose this topic!), and studied how other authors did it. I zeroed in on Katherine Paterson's creative and critical writing. She is still one of my biggest heroes.

She is so inspiring. Here's one of my favorite quotes from the presentation,

"What treasures we have inside ourselves—not just joy and delight but also pain and darkness. Only I can share the treasures of the human spirit that are within me.  No one else has these thoughts, these feelings, these relationships, these experiences, these truths." (Katherine Paterson, “The Journey Inward,” The Writer, August 1995.)

No wonder Katherine Paterson is the National Ambassador for Children's Literature.  

You Give = We Give

Jess, from She Known as Jess, along with two of her fellow YA blogerina's in Australia are sponsoring a remarkable event to celebrate the giving season. If their followers send them books used or new books to put under three K-Mart Giving Trees in Australia (or donate cash so they can purchase books), they will give you lots of entries to contests for some amazing price packs!

I was happy to donate books to such a creative way to help others. SING ME TO SLEEP, TAKEN BY STORM, and a bag of beautiful Michael and Leesie M&Ms are part of one U.S. prize pack. Yeah. These prizes are huge.

Please check out their post to see what you can win. They have prize packs for Australia, UK, US and International prizes . . . so all of you can enter. Or click on their button that I'll have in the side-bar from now until Christmas.

Look what Windowpane Memoirs is Launching!

Michelle over at Windowpane Memoirs is starting a fun feature on her site, "The Divine Secrets of the YA Sisterhood!" Michelle has been a huge supporter of Michael and Leesie--since the beginning of their journey. She was the one who started the "Don't Break the Connection" blog campaign that convinced me to release UNBROKEN CONNECTION independently and then share Michael and Leesie's final journey on this blog. She continues to come up with fun, exciting ways for the YA blogerinas to meet, connect, and share their passion for books! You go, Michelle!