Wednesday, August 06, 2008

The Golden Kite Luncheon & Awards Presentation...

The conference Golden Kite Luncheon took place on Sunday (I'm posting out of order a bit--I used various notebooks that ended up in various places when I packed), during which lots of awards are given out (and I always cry).

After the food (the vegetarian dish was delish) we were entertained a capella by conference-goer Tyler McGroom, who participated in a contest involving singing during last year's event (for which I, as his table mate, got free SCBWI merch from the bookstore) and volunteered to croon once again.

Next SCBWI Illustrator Coordinator Priscilla Burris announced the winners of the portfolio showcase (which, as usual, she did a bang-up job of coordinating). Here they are:


The judges for the event:Left to right: Abigail Simoun, editor with Tricycle Press; Laurent Linn, art director at Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers; my favorite agent, Steven Malk of Writers House; Frieda Gates, coordinator of the annual NY Children's Illustrators Conference; and illustrator Joe Cepeda.

Next Erzsi Deak was named SCBWI member of the year--because she's awesome.

Then there was the crying...

First SCBWI showed a video tribute to the late Sue Alexander who passed away suddenly last month. Sue was a driving force behind SCBWI from the organization's inception, and the first official member. The touching words from Lin Oliver combined with a James Taylor song...tears.

And Here are the Golden Kite Winners:

2 comments:

Lisa Yee said...

I cried during Susan Patron's closing keynote, too. Of course, when my daughter asked if I was, I denied it.

SCBWI said...

Hearing her talk about almost giving up writing then getting that phone call from the Newbery committee saying she'd won...it really choked me up. It was as if the universe had found a way to say, to scream: "No--don't give up! Keep writing!"