Another great day at the 2014 Asian Festival of Children’s Content!

My session today was on children’s non-fiction, chaired by friend and reviewer Marjorie Coughlan (editor of soon-to-be-launched Mirrors Doors Windows), and paired with friend and history buff Mark Greenwood, author of beautiful books celebrating true stories from our incredible history.

I also went to two terrific sessions on YA (and no, dystopia isn’t dead; it’s only that publishers are sick of reading it :-)) and a very interesting hour called First Pages, where the bold and brave allowed a panel of experts (editor, agent and publisher) to comment on their first 100 words.

I found this session extremely empowering: pages I loved, the experts didn’t like at all. Pages they loved, I would have edited heavily.

So…it just goes to show: write what you love, people! Write what you love.

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