Scenes from the Midsouth Conference in Nashville, Tennessee

The woman on the far right is Kristi Valiant.  She was awarded Honorable Mention for the Illustrator Contest held at the Midsouth Writers Conference.  The thing about Kristi is, not only is she filled with talent and an incredibly hard worker, but you can tell she really enjoys what she's doing.  She is in my SCBWI (The Society of Children Book Writers and Illustrators) critique group in Evansville.  Kristi is also the new Regional Advisor for the SCBWI in southern Indiana.  I'm pretty certain I speak for everyone in the critique group when I say, we are proud of her as well as grateful for her sharing her opinions honestly.  She is a very knowledgeable person. 

This picture was taken at the conference as well.  The woman on the left is Christie Atherton, the leader of our Evansville critique group. Like Kristi, she is a person with a lot of talent and working hard at her craft.  Standing with her is a woman from her online critique group.  Yes-- Christie is in two critique groups.  She also writes for the Evansville Courier & Press and goes to school.

I managed to get Laura McGrail (sp?) in a picture too (she's in the blue and white shirt).  She traveled separately from the rest of us--her husband and daughter came along to have fun in Nashville while she attended the conference.  Laura is a School Psychologist in Henderson.  She travels  once a month to meet with us at the Barnes & Noble in Evansville.  She's another talented writer...

Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of Aimee Blume : (  We roomed together at the Embassy suites where the conference was held.  She is a feature writer for the Evansville Courier, a musician (plays the bag pipes), a chef, a teacher, and writer of fantasy fiction.  I didn't get a picture of her because while everyone was socializing Friday night, she was up in the room working on an article.  I intend to rectify that one of these days soon!  Oh yeah, she also rescues animals!

  Between these women, the book "Writing the Breakout Novel" by Donald Maass, reading in the genre I write, learning from the experts at conferences, and working on grammar and punctuation, I should finish editing my manuscript one of these days and I'll be darn happy about it because when I say finish I mean I'll like it myself.