I attended the Highlights Foundation Super Picture Book Boot Camp Work Shop and I had such a blast. It's held at a facility called "The Barn" at Boyd Mills (home of Boyd Mills Press) just outside of Honesdale, PA, where the Highlights Foundation and Boyd Mills Press publication and editing teams are located. It's located in a rural area, with a forest of trees surrounding the property. Truly a lovely place.
I and the other nineteen attendees who's manuscripts had been accepted were put up in lovely little rustic-styled cabins. All of the yummy meals prepared on site by a wonderfully talented and hospitable chefs and kitchen staff were five-star quality delicious and since they had well water, I was able to drink from a water faucet for the first time since forever.
The faculty assembled for the workshop (Pat Cummings, Denise Fleming, Floyd Cooper and Steve Light, were wonderful, equally invaluable insightful in their critique and encouraging, each an established and successful author/illustrator, each with his/her own distinctive style.
The other attendees were very nice people and equally talented. The special guests, agent Marcia Wernick, Art Director, Patti Ann Harris and Book Publisher, Neal Porter, were also gracious in volunteering their time and energy to allowing me and the other authors to present our work to them as well as sharing with us their wealth of knowledge and invaluable experience within the industry.
To be sure, we all did a lot of work. There were critique sessions with fellow authors as well as with faculty and lots of editing/writing/revising in between. I can say that the workshop helped me clarify the heart of my story as well as further develop the emotional arc of my main character. In addition, I was able to chop out three hundred and twenty words. Overall, I definitely left the workshop with a much improved picture book manuscript, right now, tentatively titled, Itzel and the Cacao Tree.
We had a lot of fun too. We shared great conversations, had many laughs while making new friends and we celebrated our non-writing talents at the Saturday night talent show. We even took a picture using Pringles potato chips as duck lips!
I recommend a Highlights Foundation Work Shop to any serious, passionate children's book writer who wants to surround themselves with talented, like-minded people who can truly help you improve your writing, all while enjoying their company, the great food and the peaceful and gorgeously natural setting. Check out my pictures below!
