Ah conferences....

Conference planning has taken over my life.

I have no topics of conversation.

My family are watching the gibbering wreck become more gibbery....as we get into the sharp end of getting this National Conference of Children’s Writers and Illustrators off the ground. I am awake at 3am worrying about little details....and big ones....I have written nothing but conference related material since February.

But I feel proud of what we have achieved and very soon you will get a chance to see what has been keeping me awake...greying my hair and giving me a nervous twitch...hopefully after the announcement of the programme and registration I will look less manic and go back to writing fiction.

In the meantime the HUGE Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators conference begins taking registrations tomorrow for their MASSIVE 4 day conference in L.A. If you have a spare three thousand NZ dollars....not to mention airfares and food...
Imagine organising this...

maureen

co convenor of Spinning Gold - New Zealand Conference of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators....gibbering quietly in a corner....(how come my other co convenor who is in the middle of work deadlines, tv appearences and a major wow creation looks so good....what are you on Fifi and how come you didn't slip me any......)

pic is the logo of this years American Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators Conference(August 7-10)

3 big ideas with links to even more big ideas...

My inner geek rejoices.

Scientists have found another near earth like planet in Glisese 581. e to go with d that they discovered in 2007

That brings the total of exoplanets up to 347.

This is truly the decade of space exploration. I think the announcement of the discovery of this little planet(ok 1.9 times the size of Earth so not that little) this week is fitting as a testament to Stephen Hawking who is lying gravely ill in England. Stephen has often stated that the future of the human species lies in space.

Ta muchly to P J Hoover of The spectacle blog for alerting all her fellow geek kids writers out there.

Jumped onto Jane Friedman’s blog today. She is regularly posting the best twitter updates she see’s on her blog and today is no exception.

49 creative ways you can profit from content marketing by Sonia Simone

What a comprehensive list and the fun bit is that it that it can definitely apply to children’s bookshops (John.... Malcolm....go take a look) but also Authors and Illustrators could probably apply some of the ways directly to their own business. Actually if you know anyone operating a small business send them on over to take a look.

Twitter is good for something....Posting the title of your latest blog post...drives traffic to your website.

Penguin have just released some teachers notes to go with my book and I would like to thank the teacher who wrote them. They are very good and just what I would have done if I was still in the classroom, probably not in so much detail tho. After all this book would have been one reading group out of five and the reading ages in my middle school classrooms used to range from emergent to teen...but it’s a great resource to have.

On the conference front...(oh no I hear you sigh) things are continuing to come together slowly. However we have tied down a fantastic master class for Illustrators today...I would love to go on their mystery trip...I wonder if I can convince Fifi that I am really an up and coming Illustrator...

No probably not-she’s seen my stick figures.... (darn –that trip is soooo brilliant....sigh )

maureen

pic is an artists impression of Gliese 581 e