Storymakers Conference 2010

I'm sitting right now with the coolest editor on the planet. OK, it doesn't hurt that she's also a good friend and just downright nice. Any guesses?

Lisa Mangum!

We're enjoying the LDS Storymakers Conference, 2010. Yesterday's sessions were fantastic. Some of the particularly good sessions I attended (let's not mention that I only attended a couple due to pitch sessions), were:

1. Laura Rennert, senior agent with Andrea Brown Literary Agency. She gave a very informative presentation on how to ace the audition with agents with specifics on on the query letter. Some of this I already knew, but she also directed us toward ways that agents look at the queries. I'll refer to my notes for this, which I may post as an addendum--assuming I can figure out how to do that, hah! It was unusual in that I saw how she looked at the query. Key: Who, What, Where, and Why Should I Care?
2. Elana Johnson on writing query letters. Excellent handout that showed the nuts and bolts of the query. These are terribly difficult for me to craft. Her suggestions about writing in the style of your book and about boiling down the entire story into a sentence finally hit me. I've read this before, but it still needs to sink down. Of course, writing epic fantasy means I think really big, so this is a naturally difficult feature for me.
3. Pitch sessions with Laura Rennert and Nephele Tempest. Nephele asked for 3 chapters, and Laura very gently described to me why she doesn't represent epic, but gave great encouragement on how to prepare my middle grade book and said she'd see it when I got it written. Time to write!