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Conference Recap

Happy Monday Everybody!

I hope you all had a good weekend :-) I had a great weekend.

Friday night was the Meet & Greet for those attending the NWHRWA's Lone Star Conference. (Click to go to the NWHRWA's Website)

In this relaxed atmosphere, I got to first meet Naomi Hackenberg of Elaine P. English PLLC . Naomi was very personable, and really nice.

I also got acquainted with one of the Finalists of the Lone Star Contest for the YA Category--which I had been the category chair. It was a delight to meet her and soak up her enthusiasm.

Keynote Speaker, Randy Ingermanson, was also at the Meet & Greet, so I got an opportunity to say hello to him. He also seemed very nice and has a good sense of humor :-)

Christine Whitthohn was also in attendance. She also seemed very nice. I sat in with a small group and listened to her talk about the business during the Conference and she gave a wonderful talk during lunch.

The Conference was incredible. We had door prizes, baskets raffled off, and other prizes available. The facility was very nice, and the staff quite helpful. We were in beautiful rooms (both meeting and overnight rooms). The food was good, and they saved many a life by having coffee and tea available (there are several coffee drinkers in the NWHRWA alone--me being one of them).

Christine Whitthohn, Naomi Hackenberg were taking pitch appointments, along with Amy Boggs (of Donald Maass Literary Agency). I didn't get a chance to meet Amy Boggs, but she gave some very good information during the Q&A Agent Panel.

A lot of people got requests for query letters, partials and fulls. So we had some very happy Conference go-ers.

Randy Ingermanson was giving excellent advice on setting up story summaries and marketing oneself. Katy Budget Books was there and had one of his books for sale.

During one of the breaks, there were 4 published authors signing books...among them was Randy Ingermanson, and Christie Craig (who also did a short talk at lunch time about not giving up--she told some very funny stories and I laughed so hard I nearly had tears trickle down my cheeks).

The final placements from the Lone Star Contest was announced at the Conference and that information should be available in the near future.

All in all, I think it was a huge success and everyone I talked to had enjoyed themselves, learned something, and/or gotten something out of it.

For those of you who couldn't make it this year, be sure to check out the Lone Star Conference next year--you never know who you'll meet or what really good information you get, but I went last year and this year and both years I've had a wonderful time and learned a lot. :-)

Have A Merry Monday!

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