A Successful Conference

The 2009 Pennwriters conference is over, and it was a huge success. Theoretically, it began on Thursday evening - at least for volunteers. I went to the hotel to greet my editor Matt Holliday from Pennsylvania Magazine. We had a nice chat and then I helped stuffing folders. On Friday morning I helped the gift basket coordinator with the monumental task of preparing dozens of baskets for the Chinese auction. That gave me a chance to figure out which baskets I would like to win.
I was the official photographer for the event and hopped from room to room to photograph the speakers. The most important lesson I learned doing this was: Don't try to take pictures when you're laughing--too much camera shake. And laugh we did. The publishing world is not for the faint of heart, and if we didn't laugh sometimes we would pull our hair out. New this year was that several speakers rewarded audience participation with chocolate. Chocolate seems to be mandatory for writers, which was evident in the many gift baskets that were loaded with it.
Speaking of gift baskets: I finally won a basket stuffed with 14 books. Granted, many of the books have been around the bookshelf for a while. But no matter. I already gleaned some helpful advice from one book. And the basket was so heavy that I had to ask a fellow writer to carry it to my car.