Women in Publishing Summit 2022

Last week I attended the virtual Women in Publishing Summit for the second year and once again, it was amazing and inspiring! Thank you to Alexa and her team for knocking it out of the park.

Last year I attended as an aspiring author and spent a lot of time looking up acronyms in the publishing world. Over the past year, I have continued to review my pages and pages of notes and knew I had to attend again.

I had the privilege of being part of a session to help kick off the conference called, “Authors who pod together, stay together.” I found my writing community last year through this conference and we had the chance to talk about the importance of writing partners to hundreds of attendees.

This year I attended as an author, continuing to learn and grow but also as a facilitator. I had the privilege of leading a few session with incredible speakers and was absolutely honored. This time around I knew more of the acronyms, had several checks in boxes that I didn’t last year (for example a website and this blog) but was able to add more to my author to-do list. It will take me at least a month to watch the recorded sessions I missed, but I am thankful to have that opportunity to continue to learn more about the writing and publishing world.

The icing on the cake happened on Saturday night during the final virtual happy hour event. There was a group of us in a “children’s book breakout room.” We shared contact information, support, encouragement and learned about each others books or projects. At one point, I looked at the screen and four of the women in the session were the original four ladies from last year. We had met one year ago, EXACTLY, in that same final happy hour. I got a little teary as we reminisced the growth that has happened in the past 365 days.

A constant theme for authors seems to be that it can be a lonely road. I will forever be thankful for the Women In Publishing Summit and the ladies in my writing community. The best part? Our group continues to grow, continues to support one another and continues to produce wonderful literature.