As the San Diego weather vacillates between hot-enough-for-the-beach and dark-and-stormy, I’m putting my summer together. Workwise, it’ll be a fun one, with the SCBWI 2012 Summer Conference in L.A. Aug 3-6. I’ll present a breakout session on writing dialogue, an intensive on revising your MG/YA novel, an intensive on creating youthful narrative sensibility, and the annual Market Survey. I’ll post descriptions of my presentation below, but you can check out the full info on the SCBWI conference page.
- Breakout Session – How to Talk Like a Teen When You’re So Not One: Writing Dialogue in YA/MG Fiction
Teen readers want to hear directly from the teen characters in their books. The dialogue you write must be able to entertain your young readers, intrigue them, inform them, comfort them, and, depending on which characters are moving their lips, sound like them. By applying the techniques in this session, you can craft successful dialogue for young adult fiction. - Intensive - Going from Good to Great: Revising Your MG/YA Novel
This workshop teaches you how to analyze your YA/MG manuscript and arms you with techniques for revising the elements you find lacking. Participants must have completed a draft of a YA or MG novel. - Intensive – Writing for Teens? Then Think Like One
Whether your narrator is your young main character or an all-knowing omniscient being, there are ways to convince young readers that you understand them and their view of the world—and to hook’em good and hard in the process. This workshop teaches techniques for creating a narrative sensibility that reflects the way teens think, resulting in teen fiction that “clicks” with young readers.
9/11 is an ominous date, but this year I’ll be doing my part to cast a little sunshine on those numbers: I’ll be presenting “How Do You Know Your Manuscript Is Ready for Submission?” at the season-opening meeting of the San Diego chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators’ (SCBWI). Check it out on September 11, 2010, from 2-4pm, in the Hahn Nursing Hall on the University of San Diego campus. For details about the meeting and the chapter, visit 
You are? Well then, how about a cup of pink lemonade? San Diego is heading into another heat wave, after all, and there’s no sweeter way to cool off. Best of all, as you down that cold cup of pink sweetness, you will be sticking it to cancer, big time.