Takeaways from BYU Books for Young Readers Symposium

My soul has been fed. I seriously have the coolest Grandma! She took me to the amazing conference, BYU Books for Young Readers Symposium. While it is geared mainly at librarians, I found plenty of wonderful takeaways as a writer. It's amazing the difference I feel after soaking up the words of other creative people. I have heard before that you can't make art without consuming art and it's so true! I feel so much more creative and full after learning from other writers and admiring their works of art.

Tess Hilmo:
This woman is a local children's author and is seriously delightful. I want to be her friend!! Here are some of her words of wisdom:

• Dreams require honesty and vulnerability
• Dreams require support and encouragement from others.
• When the sadness is changing who you are, maybe it's time to move on.
• The things about dreams is . . . we ultimately find success, not in spite of our trials but because of them.
• Care more about getting it right than being right.
• Take a beautiful paragraph and practice writing it terribly so you can appreciate the difference as well as learn your bad writing habits. 

Check out one of her books, Cinnamon Moon.

Deborah Wiles:

• If you have a goal it can change your life--even if you never reach that goal.
• Time moves on and we capture what we can of it through our stories
• The only thing we can change is ourselves and there is no small change or choice.

Before I came to this conference I was not into reading biographies or anything historical but coming to this conference changed my mind. This novel, in particular, looks fascinating! It's a complete documentary type novel of the whole sixties! 

Melissa Sweet
I was completely spell-bound by this woman's art and her art studio . . . oh my! It is to die for. I need a picture of it to go up on my vision board because I would love to have a space like that to be creative in one day! In the mean time (I'm awaiting her response to my email for a picture of her studio) here are some other inspirational art studios.)
----->My Pinterest Art studio Board

• If I'm in my studio I'm working. Even if I'm reading, that's work. 
• You have four good hours for creative work. It's hard to do good creative work after that. 

You must check out her books. Her artwork is so amazing. She does these awesome collages with old book covers that are so cool.