Monday, August 16, 2010

"My Quick Review Of: The "Write On Con" Writing Conference"



I don't know about the rest of you, but I thought the WriteOnCon.com free writing conference for kidlit writers was absolutely awesome! Also, since the conference was free, any interested writer was encouraged to attend, plus the curriculum focused on picture book, middle grade, and young adult writers.

WriteOnCon.com did have a few temporary glitches due to the overwhelming response that they had. I'm not exactly sure, but I think that maybe Google wasn't prepared for all of the creatively talented people that would be converging on one tiny little spot at the same time, and it blew their "little minds". Can you imagine what would have happened if WriteOnCon.com had have offered the conference to more than just kidlit writers? Why, it probably would have closed down the entire Internet!





Then on top of that, after Google finally got everything squared away, some of the participants (namely me!) still had trouble getting on to the WriteOnCon.com site because now their own individual Internet Service Providers (ISP's) were having problems with either Google or the WriteOnCon.com site itself. It was a little bit frustrating...

But as far as I'm concerned, none of this should reflect negatively upon the founders/presenters of the WriteOnCon.com event itself. Each one of the people involved in organizing, presenting and the actual nuts-n-bolts working at this fantastic conference are to be congratulated for the excellent jobs that they did!





NOTE: The following are the people in the WriteOnCon.com "gang" that are to be recognized for their outstanding work throughout this event:


THE FOUNDERS:

  1. Jamie Harrington

  2. Elana Johnson

  3. Casey McCormick

  4. Shannon Messenger

  5. Lisa and Laura Roecker

  6. Jennifer Stayrook







THE AGENTS/EDITORS:

  1. Michelle Andelman with Regal Literary.

  2. Regina Brooks with Serendipity Literary Agency, LLC.

  3. Catherine Drayton with InkWell Management.

  4. Natalie M. Fischer with The Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency.

  5. Mandy Hubbard with D4EO Literary Agency.

  6. Weronika Janczuk with D4EO Literary Agency.

  7. Mary Kole with The Andrea Brown Literary Agency, Inc..

  8. Jennifer Laughran with The Andrea Brown Literary Agency, Inc..

  9. Kendra Levin with Viking Children's Books.

  10. Steven Malk with Writer's House Literary Agency.

  11. Mark McVeigh with The McVeigh Agency.

  12. Martha Mihalick with Greenwillow Books.

  13. Molly O'Neill with Katherine Tegen Books.

  14. Kathleen Ortiz with Lowenstein Assoiciates, Inc..

  15. Paul Samuelson with Sourcebooks, Inc..

  16. Anica Rissi with Simon & Schuster.

  17. Holly Root with Waxman Literary Agency.

  18. Elana Roth with The Caren Johnson Literary Agency.

  19. Joanna Stampfel-Volpe with Nancy Coffey Literary and Media Representation.

  20. Kate Schafer Testerman with KT Literary.

  21. Suzie Townsend with FinePrint Literary Management.

  22. Michelle Wolfson with Wolfson Literary Agency.






THE AUTHORS/ILLUSTRATORS:

  1. Josh Berk

  2. Tera Lynn Childs

  3. Rosemary Clement-Moore

  4. Kimberly Derting

  5. Lindsay Eland

  6. Jennifer Fosberry

  7. Risa Green

  8. Rachel Hawkins

  9. P. J. Hoover

  10. Shelli Johannes-Wells

  11. Julia Karr

  12. Kody Keplinger

  13. Lindsey Leavitt

  14. Tom Leveen

  15. J. S. Lewis

  16. Cynthea Liu

  17. Jodi Meadows

  18. Shelley Moore Thomas

  19. Aprilynne Pike

  20. Janette Rallison

  21. Lisa Schroeder

  22. Crystal Stranaghan

  23. Tiffany Strelitz Haber

  24. Stasia Ward Kehoe

  25. Daisy Whitney

  26. Suzanne Young

  27. Michelle Zink







The Illustrators from "Studio Five" are:

  1. J. H. Everett

  2. Bob Singer

  3. Alice and Martin Provensen

  4. Andrew Mitchell

  5. JR Johnson

  6. Marilyn Scott-Waters





I just wanted to publicly acknowledge all of the people that went to so much work bringing us such a fabulous writer's conference...and all for FREE, too, I might add! In addition to that, I wanted to give them a great big THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart, because I don't know that I would be able to attend a conference any other way. ~If I have missed anyone in error, please accept my apology, then let me know so I can edit this posting right away! Thanks.~ So...here's a special thanks to all of you:








I guess that's all for now, folks. Be sure to use the links above and visit the people that you're interested in checking out. Every one of them is super talented & creative and you'll be glad that you've gotten to know them in one way or another. Trust me!

Until next time...stay safe, stay well, and may the Lord bless you all.

Cynde


Please visit my other blogs:
Cynde's Daybook ~and~ Usurper Exposed. Thank you!


10 comments:

Vicki Rocho said...

I agree. It was pure awesome. I'm still going through the content - how fantabulous is that? The conference is over and yet it lives on, much to my delight!

Can't wait for next year's!

Cynde L. Hammond said...

Vicki,
Yep, I'm still going through it, too.
Thanks so much for stopping by my blog!
Cynde

Arlee Bird said...

Pretty cool that so many folks collaborated to put this thing together.

Lee
Tossing It Out

Cynde L. Hammond said...

Yes, it was well-organized and quite an amazing conference. I bet next year's will be even better!
Thanks for stopping by, Lee. I hope to see you again real soon.

Cynde

Elana Johnson said...

Hey, thanks for the great roundup! I'm glad you enjoyed the conference.

Casey McCormick said...

Thanks for attending the conference and giving it a positive review, Cynde. I love your enthusiasm!

Shannon Messenger said...

How did my google alert miss this post? So strange. #googlealertfail

Anyway, thank you SO much for such an incredible review of our conference. It's nice to know our hard work was appreciated and that people enjoyed it. Here's hoping we can make next year even better!

Cynde L. Hammond said...

Dear Elana, Casey & Shannon,

Thanks so much for coming over and commenting on my blog. I enjoyed the "WriteOnCon.com" conference SO MUCH that I wanted to acknowledge it by showing my appreciation with a nice little review, and I'm so glad that you all liked it.

You guys did an AMAZING job and I can't wait until the next conference!

Sincerely,
Cynde

dellgirl said...

Hi, Cynde. Thanks for sharing your wonderful experience with the conference (minus the glitches). Great post!

I’m just dropping by to say hello. I hope you are doing okay and everything is fine. Hope you have a super week!

Cynde L. Hammond said...

Thanks, Leona!
As a matter of fact, I'm not doing well at all; my computer went haywire AGAIN! I don't know what I'm going to do. It just stopped, went to restart all on its own, did some weird numbers, then said "preparing desktop...", and when it was all done, everything on my computer was changed and I no longer had access to ANY of my folders on my desktop or inside the computer. All I can do is start it and look at it. I can go on the internet, but I don't have access to ANY of my documents! I don't understand what happened?!
I'm borrowing a computer right now, but I don't even know where to begin. I can't get at my MS or anything. I could just cry.
Oh well...thanks for stopping by. I'm sure I'll figure this out sooner or later--I'm just in shock right now.
Have a blessed week.
Cynde