I’ve just spent six days/nights in the glorious Texas Hill Country at a lovely lakeside cabin with no television. Wildflowers all over the place! During that time, the temperatures ranged from 44 to 94 degrees, with frequent strong winds and a smattering of rain. Beautiful! I spied lots of deer, turkey, hawks, and doves (and buzzards, lot’s of buzzards), but no hogs or snakes this trip, which is a good thing. I stayed off the internet and shut out news of the outside world. This was not a writing retreat, but I did get in a bit of writing. Funny how solutions come to you when you aren’t thinking of the problems. It was great to be unconnected for a few days, but now I’m scrambling to catch up with my website updates. The site had gotten pretty large and time-consuming so I’m paring down a bit and focusing on the most-visited pages.

Here’s what’s new this week:

Local Events

Here’s what’s going on around the Greater Houston Area this week. If you’d like to be notified of these weekly updates, please use the Subscribe to Updates form on the sidebar!

For Writers

To see future events, head over to Houston Area Writer & Illustrator Events.

APRIL 28-30: DIVERSE INPIRATIONS: CONNECTING THE DOTS

Rice University, 6100 Main St, Houston
COST: Varies

Houston Writers Guild is partnering with Houston Baptist University HWG’s annual March one day conference, including a variety of panels and breakout sessions. The keynote speaker is Nina Sankovitch, author of three books of nonfiction, Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading; Signed, Sealed, Delivered: Celebrating the Joys of Letter Writing; and The Lowells of Massachusetts: An American Family. Agents attending: Doug Grad, The Doug Grad Literary Agency; Jennie Goloboy, Red Sofa Literary; Alex Franks, Literary Agent, The Donaghy Literary Group. Editors attending: Christine Klocek-Lim, Senior Acquisition Editor, Evernight Publishing.

MAY 1, MONDAY, 7:00 PM: SCBWI MTG: AILEEN KIRKHAM

Tracy Gee Community Center
COST: FREE

Aileen Kirkham presents, Nuts & Bolts of Marketability & The Paper Trail: Networking, Timelines, Invoices, Contracts, & Insurance. This meeting is free and open to the public.

Conference Updates

For more conference information and links, visit the main conference pages. If you’d like to be notified of these weekly updates, please use the Subscribe to Updates form on the sidebar!

Agents & Editors @ Conferences

OCTOBER 13-15: SCBWI—IOWA STORYTELLING:UNLOCK YOUR SUPERPOWERS!, CEDAR RAPIDS, IA

AGENT: Jennifer Soloway/Andrea Brown Literary
EDITOR: Jill Santopolo/Philomel
ART DIRECTOR: John Sanford/Cricket Media

Retreats & Writing Workhops

SEPTEMBER 8-10: SCBWI-NEW ENGLAND SQUAM LAKE RETREAT, HOLDERNESS, NH

EDITOR: Christian Trimmer, Editorial Director at Henry Holt Books for Young Readers
AGENTS: Linda Epstein/Emerald City Literary; Wendi Gu/Greenburger Associates

SEPTEMBER 22-24: PACIFIC COAST CHILDREN’S WRITERS NOVEL WORKSHOP & RETREAT, SANTA CRUZ, CA

AGENT: Brianne Johnson/Writers House
EDITOR: Stacey Barney/Penguin/Putnam BFYR

SEPTEMBER 22-24: BIG SUR ON THE CAPE, CAPE COD, MA

EDITORS: Mary Lee Donovan/Candlewick Press; Yolanda LeRoy/Charlesbridge Publishing
AGENTS: Andrea Brown, Jennifer Laughran, Kathleen Russell, Jennifer Soloway/Andrea Brown Literary Agency

OCTOBER 12-15: BETTER BOOKS, CA

EDITORS: Harold Underdone; Emma Dryden; Tiffany Liao/Razorbill/Penguin Young Readers Group
AGENT: Stephan Fraser/Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency

OCTOBER 13-15: SCBWI-SOUTHERN BREEZE BACK TO NATURE KIDLIT RETREAT, NAUVOO, AL

AUTHOR: Heather L. Montgomery

OCTOBER 26-30: SCBWI-NEW MEXICO HUMMINGBIRD WRITING RETREAT, JEMEZ SPRINGS, NM

AGENT: Natascha Morris/Bookends Literary