Last weekend I helped put on the Writers Conference of Northern Appalachia®, familiarly known as WCoNA. I’m part of a small staff who put on this—in my opinion—excellent conference. It’s both exhilirating and exhausting.
My daughter lives in the area, so I spent a couple of days with her, relaxing and recovering, and was home on Tuesday. On Wednesday morning I discovered my boss at Sunbury Press urgently needed someone to fill in for him at a conference in the Lehigh Valley region. So here I am, packing my suitcase again. Like WCoNA, this conference will be Friday night and Saturday. I have a cousin in the area, and will catch up with her afterward, and come home and collapse on Sunday.
I am very excited about this opportunity. I love meeting writers and encouraging them, wherever they are in their journey. I’m a little out of my comfort zone with the panels, and the pitches, but awed by the faith my boss has in me. I’ll be carrying his reputation, and that of the Press, with me. I’ll post more about that when I return.
In the meantime, here are a few thoughts about the WCoNA Conference!
I worked registration mostly, this time. I love greeting both new and returning guests, and was delighted to recognize some who have been with us before. This is our sixth conference, and we’re doing better every year. It was held at the beautiful and warmly welcoming St. Francis University in Loretto, PA. The staff really went out of their way to help us, and everything was lovely, including the food—which is wasted on college students, I’ll tell ya!
We had a lot of authors selling their works, including some new books—more on those later, although I did score a signed copy of Rivers, Ridges, and Valleys, edited by Jerry Wemple and Anne Dyer Stuart. Check out Sunbury Press for a copy!
We gave out our annual Book of the Year award, with some really fierce competition. Of 8 books on our Longlist, 4 made it to the Shortlist. And the winner is:
DEEP & WILD: On Mountains, Opossums, & Finding Your Way in West Virginia by Laura Jackson (Autumn House Press)
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1023362723177496&set=a.450673020446472
As I mentioned, the competition was fierce. Check out WCoNA’s facebook page and chat page for more information on the other excellent books, by Sherrie Flick, Michael Lockett, and Torli Bush.
Also, check out our annual Outstanding Contributor Award, for long term work in our region with writers and our community. This year’s winner is: Maggie Anderson.
Last but not least (and I could write pages and pages about the Conference!) our keynote speaker was the amazing and inimitable Sarah Elaine Smith, whose work Marilou is Everywhere was read and discussed at length by the team. As good as the book was, her keynote was even better.
If you have the opportunity, go to any writers event near you. Your tribe awaits, the people who really understand. And if you’re in our neck of the woods, come to WCoNA, we’ll be delighted to have you.
Have a writerly day!
Free photo from Suzy Hazelwood, at pexels.com. I love it because our WCoNA tagline is: “Our Stories Matter”
Leave a Reply