Monday, October 11, 2010

Guest Blog by Joyce’s client, Kimberlee Mendoza


Kimberlee Mendoza, a member of the board of the San Diego Christian Writer’s Guild. She writes:

September 24th and 25th, Maranatha Church, in Rancho Bernardo, hosted the annual “Writing for Life” San Diego Christian Writer’s Conference. As always, this event was an encouraging environment filled with agents, publishers, new writers, published authors and everything in between.

This year’s keynote speaker, Miles McPherson (former San Diego Charger and Pastor of the Rock Church) shared his writing journey of his inspirational book, Do Something! His best counsel to all writers: “Share your work with lots of people who will give you an honest edit.”

Other speakers in attendance were, San Diego news anchor, Carol Lebeau, ActOne’s Barbara Nicolosi-Huntington, and in my opinion, the highlight of the conference, New York Bestseller, Lynn Vincent. Her talk was sometimes emotional, other times funny, but continuously captivating.

When not attending a general session, writers were given a chance to meet one-on-one with agents and publishers to receive advice, encouragement, and occasionally that coveted business card. They also had the opportunity to attend workshops on speaking, self-publishing, poetry, dialogue, character creation, and more.

The overall theme that seemed to define this year’s conference was probably “collaboration”—that to be a great writer, you need to join a critique group, surround yourself with other writers, and don’t be afraid to share your work. I’ve been attending this conference for almost a decade, and I have to say, this was one of the best.

Kimberlee Mendoza
ministry: www.torridfaith.com
writing: www.kmendoza.com
conference: www.sandiegocwg.org

Thank you Kimberlee for sharing about this San Diego conference with us. I’ve been to it twice and I highly recommend it. Check with their web site for information for next year.

In His service,

Joyce

4 comments:

Raquel Byrnes said...

I attended as well and loved the general sessions. I got so much out of the workshops also. Susan Meissener gave a great one on creating the page turner and I couldn't jot down notes fast enough. Glad I wasn't the only one that felt it went well. =)

Edge of Your Seat Romance

Judith Robl said...

Those of us in the middle of the country (Kansas) would love to have those opportunities, but distance and budget have a way of keeping us out of the loop. Thanks for sharing online. That's where we get most of our help.

Hartline Literary Agency said...

Raquel, I'm glad you got to attend the conference. It is one of the best.

Judith - I hope you get to attend a conference one day. There is a conference in Kansas City about this time of year. It is The Heart of America Conference, Nov. 11 - 13. You should check it out, maybe you could go to that one.

Jeanette Levellie said...

There are so many wonderful conferences all over the nation, and some of them provide scholarships. I'd like to go on Caribbean cruise one!