Category: Travel (Page 10 of 14)

SCBWI Eastern PA 2010 Conference Wrap Up

April 30, 2010 / Katie L. Carroll

A few weeks ago I attended the SCBWI Eastern PA conference at the Shawnee Inn, which is this great golf resort in the Poconos that reminds me of the resort in Dirty Dancing (and little bit of the one in The Shining, but that movie freaked me out so much, I like to pretend it doesn’t exist).

I first attended this conference in 2009. I had been looking for a small and close-to-home SCBWI conference and came across the Poconos one. I live in CT, so a Pennsylvania conference wasn’t necessarily the obvious choice, but a little research on google maps showed me that this conference was actually closer to my house than the SCBWI New England one. Who knew?

My awesome roommate, Kimberly Sabatini, introduced me to the the Eastern PA chapter and I felt like I had truly found kindred spirits in this group. My second year at the conference turned out to be just as awesome. I reconnected with all my old buddies from last year and got to know some new ones.

(Here’s Kim, Jodi, Jeff, and Shiloh hanging out on Saturday evening)

Some of my favorite moments from this year include talking soccer with Jeff (including hearing about his daughter’s team and attempting to explain the elusive offsides rule), discussing our Voices homework (which we all interpreted differently) with Jodi and Roxanne, hearing Kim’s stories about her boys, staying up late on Saturday night eating cookies and talking books in the lobby, checking out Elana’s iPad, discussing starting our own publishing company with Gayle, and winning a gift card to the spa.

Usually when I post about conferences, I share the speakers’ words of wisdom…and today’s post will be no different! So here they are (all those not in quotation marks paraphrased, of course, because my short hand sucks):

The formula to become rich and famous: Do one thing, do it well, and do it over and over. (Sandy Asher, who admits she does not follow this formula!)
The “feeding and caring of the furry muse” is very important. (Judy Schachner)
In a roller-coaster ride you know exactly where you’re going, end up where you began, and you can a buy a ticket to go on again and have almost the same exact experience; it’s thrilling, but it’s not a journey. A journey takes you where you’ve never been before; it’s pretty scary and the dangers are real. (Sandy Asher…guess which one we, as writers, should strive to take take readers on?)
All stories are based in truth somewhere. Pay attention to those stories and write them down. (Judy Schachner)
Voice is the most important part of a manuscript because editors cannot fix it. Voice is undeniable and is the emotional pull of the story. (Eve Adler, Associate Editor at Henry Holt Books for Young Readers)
“My search (for an agent) was quite fruitful, but not all the fruit was edible.” (Sandy Asher)
“One man’s junk is another woman’s book.” (Judy Schachner)
By the time I got old enough to ask the right questions, there was no one there to answer them. (Sandy Asher)

For more about the conference, check out Kim’s blog posts and the First Novels Club live blogging of the conference.

Mystic Views of the Mountain of St. Lucia

March 25, 2010 / Katie L. Carroll

If you’ve ever seen pictures or footage of St. Lucia (or if you watched the last season of The Bachelor), chances are you’ve seen the Piton Mountains. They consist of two distinct volcanic peaks in the southwest corner of the island. They’re a World Heritage Site and a symbol of St. Lucia. In a word, they’re gorgeous.

The local Piton beer (which is very tasty…I liken it to Corona, but more refreshing and with no need for a lime slice…perfect for a hot day) is named after the two peaks, the taller of which is called the Gros Piton and the smaller of which is called the Petit Piton. Based on the picture below, can you guess which is which?

If you guessed the one on the right is the Gros Piton, you’re wrong! A close look at the label on the Piton beer will tell you what the locals call the mountains…the Mystic Mountains. They call them this because of the phenomenon that is displayed in the above photo; every new view of the Piton Mountains gives you a different perspective of them.

That may seem like an obvious statement…duh, every new view of object will give you a different perspective of it, but the the Pitons take it to a whole new level. It’s like they move, grow, and shrink.

Sometimes they look really close together, like you could jump from one to the other, and other times they look really far apart (they are really about a mile apart). Then you’ll round a corner and the one that had previously been on the right is now on the left. It’s really quite extraordinary they way they morph.

Partying In St. Lucia With The Big Bamboo

March 14, 2010 / Katie L. Carroll

While in St. Lucia, the hubby and I did the Soufriere By Land and Sea adventure through Sunlink Tours. We traveled down the east side of St. Lucia by open jeep from Castries to Soufriere and back north by party catamaran. Al was our fearless driver and Thomas was our funny and knowledgeable guide (see below about bamboo for a taste of his trivia).

Here’s our jeep. Al is all the way to right (and yup, that’s the elusive hubby on the left). I’m very sad to note that I never did get a picture of Thomas. He was so busy making sure all of us tourists were taken care of that the only time he really sat down was when we were riding in the jeep.

The highlights included:

Getting pummeled by a waterfall, which was quite refreshing (yes, be kind…that’s me in a bathing suit!)

Driving into a volcano, complete with sulphur springs that smell like–you guessed it–rotten eggs

Being entertained by the Captain (that’s him jamming behind the wheel) as he sang along with Bob Marley and “Big Bamboo.”

Every time I hear the word bamboo, it just brings me right back to St. Lucia. Did you know that bamboo was the national tree of St. Lucia? That is until they found out bamboo isn’t a tree at all. Now bamboo is the national plant of the island and calabash is the national tree. All the Americans on the tour agreed that our country would have changed the status of the bamboo to a tree just to avoid having to admit being wrong!

Remembering One Paradise While Headed to Another

February 27, 2010 / Katie L. Carroll

Time to make you all a little jealous: the hubby and I are off to St. Lucia tomorrow morning. We’re staying at Rendezvous, an all-inclusive with a swim-up bar and everything.

In honor of getting out of snowy New England, here’s some pictures from the last time I took an island vacation, which was to the incomparable French Polynesia.

A Tour Through the Largest Shopping Mall on the East Coast

October 19, 2009 / Katie L. Carroll

I recently attended the Eastern PA SCBWI Fall Philly Conference. My hotel room was in King of Prussia, PA right next to largest shopping mall on the East Coast. This mall is so big that it has been separated into two different buildings, each of which is the size of a regular mall. The inside of the mall is gorgeous (way more posh and much cleaner than the mall near my house…sorry I forgot my camera, so there’s no pics), and I even saw a mall cop on a segway. No worries…he was wearing a helmet!

Now I’m not a big shopper, but I wanted to check out the bookstore, which was (of course) as far as it could possibly be from where I entered. I walked all the way through the first building (and I accidentally took the long way), into the second building, and all the way to the far end of the second building. Phew! I like to think I’m in pretty good shape, but I was tired after all that walking.

So on my long walk I passed by a Teavana, which is now where I get all my tea (Black Dragon Pearl tea not only has a really cool name, but it also tastes awesome). I texted my husband about seeing a Teavana (they only have two locations in CT…and none of them are that close to my house…boo). Then texted him about seeing a Pottery Barn because we just bought couches from there and the closest Pottery Barn to our house is about 30 minutes away. (Can you tell from all that texting that I was a bit lonely–maybe a little bored too–all by myself in that big mall?)

As I walked more and more, I jokingly texted the hubby that there were so many stores in the mall that there was probably at least one of every possible store. A little while later, I spotted the Teavana on the floor below me. I though Oh no! How did I walk around the whole mall and miss the one store I was looking for? Then I realized I was in a totally different building from the first Teavana, and this was a whole other Teavana. Wow! There really is at least one of everything in that mall!

I did finally find the Borders and bought a few books to be signed by authors I would be meeting at the conference the next day (more on that to come).

One last thing before I go…Mary Cole of Andrea Brown Literary Agency is hosting a query contest over at her Kidlit website. Good luck to those who enter!