NESCBWI Wrap-Up

This past weekend I attended the NESCBWI conference and let me just say…IT WAS AWESOME.

If you haven’t had a chance to get to a writing conference yet, DO IT. I know us writers are the home-body type, the want-to-be-left-alone type, the stay-in-pjs-and-mess-around-on-twitter-instead-of-writing type,

but going to conferences is a great way to break out of your comfort zone, meet like-minded people and learn more about your craft and the industry.

I’ll give a brief wrap-up, but I tweeted a ton on the #NESCBWI15 hashtag (as did many others) so you can check that out if you have time.

For those of you who don’t know, NESCBWI stands for New England Society of Book Writers and Illustrators. If you’re not from New England, or the North East, there are different chapters of the society all across the country. I urge you to find your local one and check it out!

So here we go, weekend of awesome.

I roomed with a PitchWars buddy *waves* and met up with a lot of old and new friends from the community *waves again*. Merriment ensued and it was glorious.

At the event, they had a bookstore (because, DUH, BOOKS) and times for people to sign their books. There were a lot of great workshops to attend and some of the ones I took were about race & culture, YA romance, diversity, publishing tips, and so on…On top of all the epic classes, there were some great keynotes from the likes of Jo Knowles (I cried) and Kwame Alexander (I died from laughing) that were very inspirational and empowering. And while the point of a conference is to soak up as much knowledge and information from the sessions and speakers as you can, there’s also a lot you can learn from other writers, too. Their experiences and journey can help to guide your own path or provide good company for the road ahead.

I would suggest you try and get to at least one conference a year. I know they can be expensive, so do your research and find out which one would be most beneficial to you. And hey, if you can get to more than one, by all means, attend more than one!

If you have any questions about NESCBWI or conferences in general, feel free to leave a comment 🙂