2017 June Conference

Our 5th annual June CWHV conference was an inspiring success! As always, our attendees were hard working and attacked every exercise with passion and due diligence. Our presenters were well-informed, personable and entertaining.

John Cusick, agent at Folio Jr./Folio Literary Management, schooled us with helpful tips on time management, creating a work space, how to persevere in our writer’s journey, the value of critique groups and what qualities they should have and how the “Love of your life” can mess you up! My favorite line: “Give your inner voice a name.” He explained why.

Sarah Jane Abbott and John Cusick

Sarah Jane Abbott, assistant editor for Paula Wiseman Books and Beach Lane Books at Simon & Schuster (Riveted), talked about what contributes to a picture book’s read aloud quality, audience participation, creating a plot arc, your story’s heart and meta books. She discussed character qualities and how to achieve them through writing devices (my favorite part!).

The writing exercises were graphing your plot arc, editing a picture book manuscript using the tools and techniques discussed earlier and giving your character a quality and showing it through writing devices.

Lunch with Brett Duquette

Brett Duquette, senior editor at Sterling Publishing, reviewed the plot arc elements for a novel, why more choices or complications are better for your characters, different ways to start a novel, and when to use a prologue. Favorite line: “Write to kill your characters; edit to save them.”

The hands-on exercise involved writing out a plot arc for your novel or WIP (work in progress).

Harold Underdown

Harold Underdown, independent editor, publishing consultant and founder of the well-respected Purple Crayon website, discussed reader’s response and revision tools. What is the goal of your text? Attendees received a handout listing helpful revision resources, questions to ask yourself about your characters and picture book and novel revision grids. My favorite line actually happened during our First 100 Words Panel: “The way we are reading these is like a parlor game for your amusement. We don’t really do it this way.”

The attendee participation was pairing up with someone who was not familiar with your story and reading your first page. What was the other person’s reader response? 

We closed out the afternoon with our First 100 Words Panel. John, Sarah, Brett and Harold read the first 100 words of randomly selected attendee first pages. Their first impression comments were insightful and helpful to all our attendees.

I tweeted writing tips and advice during the conference. Enter #cwhv in the search bar or go to my feed @val_marchini and scroll down.

We are indebted to our faculty and attendee writers who made our conference a wonderful event. Thank you John Cusick, Sarah Jane Abbott, Brett Duquette, Harold Underdown, attendee writers, Merritt Bookstore and the CWHV committee for your time, participation and investment in our conference!

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“As usual, it [the conference] was fabulous. I really appreciate the work you all put in to make this a stellar event! I especially loved the sessions by John Cusick and Brett Duquette.” Heather Versace, 2017 attendee

“I loved the 100-word critique session. Even though mine was not read, I found that session to be extremely educational. Lots of “lightbulb” moments.” . . . “Great speakers, venue, food, etc.” Judy Cooper, 2017 attendee