Attendees Thoughts on Writers Conference

Many of the attendees provided wonderful feedback about our 2nd Annual Comadres and Compadres Writers Conference. Thank you to all the published authors, agents, editors, aspiring writers, sponsors, and volunteers who made it all happen. We can’t wait to get started on planning next year’s conference! You can check out the Twitter feed about the conference by following the hashtag #LCWC. Some of the attendees were inspired enough to write a blog post about their experience! A few highlights below…

 

Natalia Sylvester’s debut novel, Chasing the Sun, about a frail marriage tested to the extreme by the wife’s kidnapping in 1990s Peru, is forthcoming from New Harvest/Amazon Publishing in spring 2014. In her blog post, NYC in Pictures & Takeaways: On Community, Diversity in Publishing & Being Grateful, she writes:

Reyna Grande, author of The Distance Between Us, was the keynote speaker at the Las Compadres & Compadres Latino Writer’s Conference. During the Q&A she compared promoting all her books—not just her most recent one—to having kids: just because you have another child doesn’t mean you stop raising the older one.

[The] panel on fiction with Mario Alberto Zambrano, author of Lotería, and David Unger, author of The Price of Escape, was full of so many amazing insights. Asked about how we should bring our identity into our work, Zambrano mentioned that we all have multiple backgrounds, identities and obsessions. Lotería made him pull from his Mexican-American experience. His next book, set in Paris and about a dancer, connects to his past as a professional ballet dancer. We are so many things, but not every story will have room for all our identities, and we should be okay with that.

 

Dallas Rico is a high school Spanish teacher, blogger, and aspiring short story/novel writer. In 6 Reasons You Should Attend Comadres & Compadres Writers Conference, reason #4 is one of the main reasons why the organization Las Comadres was started – to foster a supportive network of friends and colleagues.

4. Support and get involved with the local literary community in New York
So many different groups joined together to help make this event happen. The amazing La Casa Azul Bookstore, which I’ll be blogging about soon with an interview with the owner, sold books written by the authors who presented.

The Center for Black Literature helped organize the event advertised their own events that attendees could get involved with. These are just a few examples of the local areas of interest I learned about at the conference.

 

Shelley M. Diaz  is Associate Editor of School Library Journal. She is currently pursuing her MLIS in Public Librarianship with a Certificate in Children’s & YA Services at Queens College. In Latino Writers Convene at 2nd Annual Comadres Conference, Diaz writes about writing for children and young adults:

Eileen Robinson, former executive editor at Scholastic and Harcourt and cofounder of F1st Pages, an editorial consulting firm, led the craft workshop for children’s writing. […] The session mostly focused on technique, but also reminded participants to stay true to their vision and culture. “It’s important to find your unique voice. Who can tell your story better than you?” Robinson encouraged.

Author Matt de la Peña and graphic novelist Jorge Aguirre […] confessed to wishing they knew more about the publishing industry before attempting to publish their first efforts, and de la Peña, known for Mexican Whiteboy (2008) and Ball Don’t Lie (2005), shared that he didn’t even know what “young adult” meant when he first started his writing career.

 

Eleanor Parker is a writer, blogger, and photographer who describes herself, “If you’re looking for Ellie Parker, Army brat and world traveler, you’ve found me!” In Wrapping It Up – Las Comadres Writers Conference, Parker emphasizes the importance of having a mentor:

I especially enjoyed listening and meeting Karen E. Quinones Miller, a presenter who spoke about self-publishing. This woman stole my heart with her vibrant energy, raw courage, tenacity and accomplishments in the publishing world from her beginnings as a self-published author. There are those among us who enter this life destined to be life teachers and mentors for others. Karen is that teacher for me. I knew it instantly.