YA Workshop Recap!

The event in Monterey, CA with the Central Coast Writers was awesome!

The meetings are held at a lovely hotel, where Shelley Adina (All About US Series) and I were provided dinner and dessert. We chatted with many of the members, who were all very gracious and wonderful.

After the CCW business concluded, I opened up the workshop by thanking everyone for inviting us. This was my second workshop on the topic of multicultural YA. I was a little calmer this time around! (haha!) But I still need some experience here!



Shelley is an absolute pro! She knows her stuff and went through her Inspirational topic like a breeze!



Here are the points we basically covered:

~ The Dos and Don'ts of Multicultural YA
~ The Inspirational Market
~ How to reach your target audience
~ How to reach readers through the Internet

With various questions from the audience, such as how do we pick our character's names, are personally diaries marketable, would specific ideas or age groups sell for YAs, etc. We had a steady Q&A going, which was very nice!

I also had a pleasant surprise visit by one of our blogger friends, Kelsey from Reading Keeps you Sane! She was visiting family in California, and this summer she'd met Sarah Dessen too! It was so awesome of her to attend our workshop!



I think a few hundred more of these events and I might just actually feel like I know what I'm doing. *wink*

Pics + a Giveaway!

A few weeks ago, YA author Shelley Adina, author of the All About Us series, asked me to join her book signing at Borders in San Jose, CA. You don't have to ask me twice! I agreed and we had a fun two hours attempting to gather customer attention. haha! We had some laughs as you might be able to tell from Shelley's photo. I tend to draw out the giggles from my author friends. :)

Here are a few pics...

And since Shelley was so cool to hang out with I'm giving away a signed copy of Shelley's first book in the series, IT'S ALL ABOUT US!

Tall, blonde Lissa Mansfield is used to being one of the "in" crowd--but being accepted by the popular girls at posh SpencerAcademy boarding school in San Francisco is turning out to be harder than she thought. And then there's her New-York-loudmouth roommate, Gillian Chang, who's not just happy to be a Christian herself--she's determined to out Lissa, too! If Lissa can just keep her faith under wraps long enough to hook Callum McCloud, the hottest guy in school, she'll be golden.

But when Callum pressures her to go all the way with him, Lissa has to decide for herself how far is too far. How can she see that line when he's so gorgeous and popular and she's so dazzled? And besides, she's too busy shopping for a Valentino and booking the hottest celeb for the Benefactors Ball. Who knew finding a place at SpencerAcademy would be so complicated?

So you know the drill--leave a comment from now until Sunday night (September 7th) and the winner will be announced Monday morning!

And here we are with the other half of the conference pics!

Wendy Toliver and myself at a RWA luncheon. Wendy is the author of The Secret of a Teenage Siren and Miss Match.

UPDATE: Here are the YA author RITA finalists at the finalists reception. (L to R) Rosemary Clement-Moore, Melissa Marr, Simone Elkeles and me. Everyone was so nice! And I'm noticing we are all around the same height--short. haha! ;)



Then some of the YA authors hooked up for a hang out Friday night...

Tera Lynn Childs & Sara Hantz



Teri Brown and Amanda Ashby



More fun shots of the night with all of us, and debut author Bethany Griffin...





The next day I participated in my first workshop, 10 Things I Love About Writing YA Romance, with Shelley Adina, Agent Jennifer Jackson, myself, and Carol Culver. Totally talked too fast with nerves, but I got through it and hopefully gave some helpful tidbits!



Here is YA author Dona Sarkar-Mishra author of How to Salsa in a Sari.



And Ally Carter, author of the Gallagher Girl series and myself. Ally came to support me at my first workshop, she made me stand up at the podium, haha. But she did give me a lovely box of chocolates so I forgive her!



I think that will be it for me this week on the RWA conference. Tina will share her pics soon. If I grab some more next week from other authors, I'll be sure to share! :)