The Book Academy

Last Thursday I had the opportunity to present at The Book Academy, a one day writers conference held at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. First of all, it was fabulous. The organizers did a great job in every aspect. All of the classes I attended were wonderful and the food was great. A publishers panel was held during lunch which included a question and answer segment so that aspiring authors could gain a better understanding of how the acceptance and publication process works.

The conference started off with the keynote speaker, Brandon Mull, and then everyone broke off into classes. I taught during the first hour and was stunned that my class had standing room only. In fact, the organizers had to bring in extra chairs to make sure we weren't breaking fire codes. Like I said, I was stunned!

Then, as if having 90 people show up at my class wasn't surprising enough, I actually saw people taking NOTES! Now, I will admit that I did spend quite a bit of time preparing for my class, even enlisting a lot of opinions from some friends and family who are English teachers. My cousin Jana and I stayed up late the night before tweaking it because, well, that's what we do.

I was so honored to be invited to present, and I wanted to make sure that no one was disappointed. I did have a few people come up to me afterward and say they enjoyed the class, so hopefully they represent the majority rather than the minority. All I know, is that I was extremely lucky to have so many interesting, engaging people choose to attend and I was impressed with every other presenter I had the opportunity to see.