Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Giving Thanks for the Internet (& Conference Blogs)

I can’t imagine my life without the internet. It’s hard to believe that I made it through college, and yes even graduate school, without the internet and a laptop computer. I’m not sure that I could write a book without these lifelines.

I was thinking about a lot of What If questions on writing yesterday. What If: I had to live in New York City to be a writer striving for the goal of publication? Could I still write? Thankfully, the internet makes that question obsolete. Through my laptop, I can connect to publishing houses, literary agents, writers, and conferences worldwide.

The 38th annual summer conference of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) was held earlier this month in Los Angeles. I wasn’t able to attend, but through the blogging efforts of a team led by Alice Pope, editor of Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market, anyone can get that almost-there feeling of attending the conference.
Click here to read The Official SCBWI Conference Blog.

2 comments:

Shauna Roberts said...

I hope you get to the Los Angeles conference one of these years. I'd love to see you!

When I started my freelance writing career, the Internet was barely getting started. To do a single Medline (now PubMed) search, one had to craft the query on the computer using search terms, then upload it, then wait, then download the results. The whole process took 10 to 15 minutes for each search. Now, I can do the same thing online in 20 seconds. I don't know how I ever got anything written back then!

Rae Ann Parker said...

SHAUNA, that is amazing about the 15 minute search. I love google.

I certainly hope to get to the LA conference one year, too. There is also an SCBWI winter conference in NYC that I hope to go to next year.