She Reviews

First of all, I’d like to thank everyone who prayed for me while I was at She Speaks. I could feel all the prayers as I glowed with a confidence that usually stays hidden in atmospheres such as conferences. It’s going to be hard to squeeze this amazing experience into a brief blog entry, but I’ll try! Here it goes…

On Thursday at 3:00 in the morning, we hopped in the mini van and, after traveling 13 hours with my family from Ohio to North Carolina, we finally arrived at the hotel where my family would stay. The next day, I headed over to Embassy Suites Concord Convention Center, where I stayed with my awesome roommates, Kaley, Emma, Eden, Rachael, and Rachel, and the coolest chaperone ever, Vern.

My first Breakout Session was “Top Tips from a Veteran Publisher” with Sandy Vander Zicht. It was very informative. I learned that I need to eliminate the unnecessary words that I tend to put in to my writing. Then I joined the RadRevolution for a pajama party and watch A Walk To Remember, with our own personal censoring, courtesy of a RadRevolution team member.

Saturday, I attended “The Pathway to Publication” with Susanne Scheppmann. Susanne told us about rejection, and said once you get rejected you know you’re a writer, because at least you tried! Someone once told me that writing rejections come before acceptance, so the more rejections I receive, the closer I am to publication! “Magazine Writing 101” with Glynnis Whitwer helped me learn how to launch my writing career by getting my name out there. In “How to Write a Book”, Lysa TerKeurst used the analogy of a pineapple to help us look at something intimidating (like a blank document with a blinking cursor) and make it manageable by slicing it into bite size pieces. I quite enjoyed “Book Proposals that Get Noticed” with Mary DeMuth. She is so funny! She taught us how to write a winning book proposal while keeping the lecture interesting by sprinkling it with humor.

Highlights of this experience for me include:

• Having supper with my writing mentor, Shannon Primicerio. She gave me a lot of great advice to get me through my first writer’s conference. Thanks Shannon!


• Listening to Jennifer Rothschild speak at a General Session. She has an incredible story and I leaned a lot from her.


• Hanging out with Shannon and Annie Downs,


• Getting my winning devotion critiqued by Suzanne Eller,


• Meeting Bonita, who wrote about me in her blog,


• Meeting Emily from Chatting at the Sky, who, in her enthusiasm when I told her I read her blog, took a picture of me.

She Speaks was so amazing! I hope I can come back next year.