Just two weeks ago I was down in Portland for the week attending the 7th Annual PNW Children's Book Conference, part of the PSU Haystack Summer Program.

Marla Frazee was the entire reason I attended and she was amazing! And not only was Marla amazing but the REST of the faculty were fantastic and inspiring. I highly recommend this conference to anyone interested in learning more about writing or illustrating for children.

The conference was Monday through Friday and I've never been to one that long. There was so much to learn and time to learn it, although I was never bored. Time to get to know the faculty and your fellow attendees. I learned so much about the art of picture making for books from Marla and Elsa and so much about writing from Kirby, Steve, Linda, Susan, Susan, Nancy, Ann and David that it has impacted all of the illustrations and stories I'm currently working on for the better.

I'd like to bake them ALL a chocolate chip zucchini cake. I recommend searching these great people out and studying their books or the books they've edited. I recommend Haystack wholeheartedly and wish I could go back tomorrow!

One of the assignments of Haystack (for illustrators) was to take a paragraph long writing prompt supplied by the writing track attendees and illustrate it. MY prompt was written by the amazing Emily Whitman who has graciously permitted me to reprint her text below. All text below by Emily Whitman, copyright 2006.

Marla had us start out with doing a character study of the main character, front and back.

Then, if your paragraph mentioned any other characters we'd work on a secondary character study.

And then, if time permitted, we'd try to work out a sequence of illustrations from the paragraph.

This was so much fun. I'd move to Pasadena just to take Marla's class.

All this enthusiasm and gushing might be due to: Haystack rocked; I love to draw; it was great to lose track of time and get creative at this week away from home and all responsibilities (other than to be receptive);
AND
I gave notice at my day job before leaving for the conference!

Giving notice was exhilarating--I know that just a few weeks from now everything I've learned at Haystack I'll finally have the time to spend days and days on implementing in my stories and art.

Jaime