Conference Opening Ceremonies...


SCBWI Executive Director Lin Oliver (seen above on the big screen) opened this year's annual summer conference with her usual wit, then asked the conference faculty to each step to the microphone and give one word that summed them up or expressed their goal for the conference. This is a three-year-old SCBWI conference tradition. Here are a few of my favorite word (with occasional attribution):

• scrotum (Susan Patron)
• dare
• anthropomorphism (Lisa Wheeler)
• experiment
• reach
• reciprocity
• testosterone (Sonya Sones)
• royalties (Walter Dean Myers)
• low-maintenance (Krista Marino)
• medicognition
• vim (Arthur Levine)
• reinvent (Cynthia Leitich Smith)
• courage
• ready
• determination
• nerdfighters (John green)
• sietsa
• sparkle
• revolution
• pink (Allyn Johnston, dressed to match her word)
• whitespace
• comics
• honky-tonk-bedonkadonk
• upstreporous
• a new compound word: scotchcaffeine