We were saddened to learn of the untimely passing of our good friend and CWHV committee colleague, Valerie (Val) Marchini on June 9th after a short illness. Val was a founding member of CWHV and worked with us for many years prior to that as an SCBWI conference committee member. She was a bright light in our lives and we remember her with loving affection and gratitude. Val leaves behind her husband, Tim, three children, Tracy, Brian (B.J.) and Danielle, their spouses, five grandchildren and two sisters. 

 Faculty for the Sept. 19 conference will be announced soon!

2026 September Conference

Save the date! Our fall conference will be held on September 19, 2026. This will be a full day conference with lunch. The details will get ironed out the closer we get to the registration date.

We have a new venue this year. It's the Heartwood at Vassar, 165 College Avenue, Poughkeepsie, NY 12603. The Heartwood is a state -of-the-art facility.

Registration will be opened sometime in August. Check the website for updates.

2025 November Conference

Our November 8, 2025 CWHV conference was held at the Hampton Inn & Suites at 2361 South Road, Poughkeepsie, NY.

This was a full day conference with a Panera lunch, and paid critiques (optional) from our faculty.

We started our day with our humorous keynote speaker, Alan Katz, children's author and a six-time Emmy nominated writer for TV series. He was a delight and everyone enjoyed him.

Erika DiPasquale, Editor at Harper Children's Books explored what makes an anthropomorphized animal or object a strong children's book character and through guided discussions, nature connection activities and play.

Catherine Laudone, senior editor at Beach Lane Book, discussed the five tools for crafting strong characters: Unique character motivation, Overcoming obstacles, Emotional highs and lows, Positive and negative relationships with secondary characters, and Evidence of change in the resolution.

Catherine also did an off-the-cuff first page session.

Kelly Going, award winning children's author, did manuscript critiques throughout the day.

Thanks to all of our presenters, our faculty and our committee staff. We couldn't do it without you. 

2024 June Conference

Our June 8, 2024 CWHV Conference was a wonderful success. Our keynote speaker was Susanna Leonard Hill who delivered an inspiring speech on persistence. She also enlightened us on where she got her ideas, how to find new ideas and how to dig into your own past, feelings and fears for emotional truth.

Alexandra Penfold, an agent at Upstart Crow Literary, explained in detail the picture book editing process and what questions one should ask when editing, and how to develop an emotional connection between the reader and the character. She also shared mentor texts with their illustrations. Attendees worked on their pitch as their hands-on exercise.

Mekisa Telfer, an editor at Roaring Brook Press, discussed the voice of your characters and how voice can set the mood, used multiply published works to demonstrate how voice can define your characters and setting, and reviewed the different stylistic tools of writing. The hands-on writing exercises focused on the voice of your characters in your novel.

Alison Weiss, an independent consultant, talked about the lows and highs of publishing, the disappointments and the joys. She discussed marketing ideas and strategy, how publishers get their sales numbers, explained the profit and loss process and what to do if your publisher closes or your editor leaves.

Everyone enjoyed a delicious Panera lunch while chatting with fellow writers or the faculty.

Our closing session was a Q & A Panel with Alexandra and Mekisha.

Many thanks to our hard working attendees, without you our conference wouldn’t exist. Also, a big thank you to our faculty Susanna Leonard Hill, Alexandra Penfold, Mekisha Telfer and Alison Weiss.

A final thank you goes to our dedicated staff Catherine Ciocchi, Della Ferreri, Tania Guarino, Valerie Marchini and Karen Orloff.

"Thank you for all your efforts in putting on another great workshop. I learned so much and made wonderful contacts and new friendships. The CWHV events have been informative and inspiring." Mark Rentz, June 2024, conference attendee

 

Mekisha Telfer

Susanna Leonard Hill

Alexandra Penfold

Alison Weiss

                                                

2023 November First Pages Conference

We were thrilled to have Sean McCarthy, agent and owner of the Sean McCarthy Literary Agency: Meredith Mundy, Editorial Director of Abrams Appleseed and the Abrams Preschool Program; and Beth Terrill, Editor, NorthSouth Books give their professional advice on our CWHV First Pages Conference.

Comments ranged from nice alliteration, liked the use of onomatopoeia, too many shifts in perspective, voice feels didactic and many comments on rhyme and character. There were also comments about conflict, narrative action, transitions, wrong format for age and /or subject and 100 more opinions.

We broke for a delicious Panera lunch.

After the First Pages were concluded, Sean ran a workshop on pacing. Below are the topics: Pacing, Meet the Characters, Anticipation and Escalation of Conflict, Character Driven Action, Crisis and Resolution, Lasting Memory and Transformation. Sean discussed all of these in more detail.

We closed out the afternoon with a Faculty Q &A with Sean, Meredith, and Beth.

We want to thank our attendees for their continued support of the Children’s Writers of the Hudson Valley and for our faculty, Sean McCarthy, Meredith Mundy, and Beth Terrill for spending the day teaching us how to make our first page stronger, clearer and more inviting. Last but no least, we want to thank our hard working committee members for another successful conference.

For photos, click conference pics and scroll down to November 2023.

 

2023 June Self-Edit and Query Workshops

The Children’s Writers of the Hudson Valley was delighted to have Sara Schonfeld, Associate Editor at HarperCollins Children’s Publishing, lead a workshop on self-editing like an editor and how to strengthen your query letter. Sara was warm, friendly, approachable, and knowledgeable. Below is a brief summary of our workshops.

Some of Sara’s tips for self-editing was a reverse outline, write down what happened in the story and what is it doing for the story. When editing ask yourself questions, does each scene advance the character or plot?

Think about your main character: what are the themes, relationships, growth, motivation.

After Sara’s PowerPoint presentation, our writing exercise was to edit several pages of our manuscript focusing on specific areas.

Tips for strengthening your query included what to look for when researching your comp titles, how to find examples of comp titles, answering the five basic questions (what, when, who, how and why) and following the four basic structural parts of a query letter. 

Sara reviewed proper query protocols when submitting multiple query letters to editors or agents.

Some common mistakes in writing query letters were too much world building, too much information, too long and others.

Our writing exercise was to rewrite our query letter. Sara read many query letters to the group and gave constructive feedback. Even if your query wasn't read, listening to Sara's comments were still valuable.

We want to thank Sara for spending the afternoon with us and teaching us about self-editing and making our queries stronger. Also, we want to thank our hard working attendees and the CWHV staff.