LDStorymakers 2015 Recap

This time last week, I was at the LDStorymakers conference, an annual writing conference in Utah with classes, panels, agents, editing, speakers, and so many writers. The classes were all fantastic – I took the intensive with Martine Leavitt, the award-winning author of Keturah and Lord Death (which I did a good chunk of my student teaching work on), which gave me so much to work with as I write my next book. She also gave a lovely keynote, which including the quotes below that I just love (graphics made by Kimberly Miller VanderHorst):

The most surreal moment, though, wasn’t in any of the classes. This was the second year I attended the conference in Utah, and since last year it was in April, What Is Hidden hadn’t been released yet. This year, I had two books out. There was a moment when I was talking with two other authors from my publishing house that was just like…wow. A lot has happened in the past year. I released two books. I taught at the Midwest conference. I have accomplished what so many people around me are working on.

It was a bit of a moment.

(Of course, there was also the weirdly surreal moment of James Dashner re-tweeting me, which had my phone blowing up all day, but that’s because I was constantly using the #Storymakers15 hashtag.)

If you missed this year, definitely check out the Facebook page to get a glimpse of all the exciting stuff that happened, and consider coming next year. You should also check out this hilarious youtube series (don’t worry, it’s only 5 short clips) about “real writers”. I’m definitely attending next year, and hopefully I’ll remember to take more pictures next time.