Current 2008 Speaking Schedule

Schools, conferences, professional development for teachers–I have a little bit of everything planned for this year.

March 17 Pine Ridge Elementary, Maumelle, AR

April 1 Cathedral School, Little Rock, AR

April 4-6 Act 2 of Novel Retreat in 3 Acts, Nebraska

April 11-12 Arkansas Society of Children’s Bookwriters and Illustrators, Conway, AR
http://members.aol.com/ddpattison/scbwi/spring.html
April 21 Arkansas Association of Instructional Media, Little [...]

Arkansas SCBWI Spring Conference

FSG and National Geographic editors to speak
Arkansas SCBWI Spring Conference, April 11-12
If you’re anywhere close, you won’t want to miss the Arkansas SCBWI Spring Conference.
Editors include Lisa Graff of FSG and Jennifer Emmett of National Geographic.

My 2008 Schedule

Here’s a current schedule of my speaking. It may change at any time, because I’m in discussion with a couple people about other events.

February 4 Ft. Smith Public Library, Ft. Smith, Arkansas. Children’s program.
February 5 Mountain Home Public Library, Mountain Home, Arkansas. Children’s Program with book signing and [...]

Voice: Staying consistent

I’m working on a revision right now and after several false starts, I created a voice that I really like. It’s heavily dependent on a narrator and is pretty informal. It’s worked well for most of Act I.
But as I enter Act II, I’m finding it hard to judge whether I strayed from [...]

Seattle 2007 retreat

Wow! What a trip to Seattle!
I got to meet Mitsy, the Dragon who guards the entrance to the Mirrorstone Books office. And of course, I also met with Nina Hess, the Senior Editor Extraordinaire.
Then, I almost got swept off my feet with the windstorm that hit the city, sending fall leaves blowing. [...]

Fall schedule

Fall Schedule

October 19-21 Novel Revision Retreat, Washington SCBWI, outside Seattle, WA at a retreat center.
October 22 Arkansas Governor’s Arts Awards Luncheon. Rogers, AR. I will be the 2007 recipient of the Arkansas Governor’s Arts Award for Individual Artist for my work in children’s literature.
November 2-3 Self-Editing Workshop, Hawaii SCBWI, Honolulu, [...]

Character names

This entry is part 3 of 13 in the series How to Write a Novel
Character Names Help Characterize
A rose by any other name might smell as sweet, but do you really WANT to smell a swamp lily? Doesn’t the name itself just put you off? Or consider that in early drafts Margaret Mitchell is supposed [...]

Voice Retreat

The Arkansas SCBWI will hold its fall retreat, Voice: The Writer as Ventriloquist on September28-30, 2007 at Mt. Magazine State Park. Speakers are author Kathi Appelt and Candlewick editor Hilary Breed Van Dusen. We’ve just had a cancellation, so there’s an open spot. If you’re anywhere close to Arkansas and want [...]

Phoenix retreat

It was 110 degrees in Phoenix this weekend for a Novel Revision Retreat. If you’ve never attended one, I’ll try to give you an idea of what it’s like.
First, it’s limited to only 20 people at a time, purposely kept small so there’s lots of interaction. Before the retreat, they are divided into groups of [...]

Novel Secrets Retreats

Novel Secrets Series
Author Nancy Sharp has designed a series of three retreats, which is unique in the writing world. It takes writers from an initial idea to a finished manuscript and an evaluation by an agent or editor–in JUST ONE YEAR. Awesome!
Cynsations website is running a series of interviews with the speakers. One of [...]