CWHV November 2023 First Pages

We were thrilled to have Sean McCarthy, agent and owner of the Sean McCarthy Literary Agency: Meredith Mundy, Editorial Director of Abrams Appleseed and the Abrams Preschool Program; and Beth Terrill, Editor, NorthSouth Books give their professional advice on our CWHV First Pages Conference.

Comments ranged from nice alliteration, liked the use of onomatopoeia, too many shifts in perspective, voice feels didactic and many comments on rhyme and character. There were also comments about conflict, narrative action, transitions, wrong format for age and /or subject, concept and 100 more opinions.

We broke for a delicious Panera lunch.

After the First Pages were concluded, Sean ran a workshop on pacing. Below are the topics: Pacing, Meet the Characters, Anticipation and Escalation of Conflict, Character Driven Action, Crisis and Resolution, Lasting Memory and Transformation. Sean discussed all of these in more detail.

We closed out the afternoon with a Faculty Q &A with Sean, Meredith, and Beth.

We want to thank our attendees for their continued support of the Children’s Writers of the Hudson Valley and for our faculty, Sean McCarthy, Meredith Mundy, and Beth Terrill for spending the day teaching us how to make our first page stronger, clearer and more inviting. Last but no least, we want to thank our hard working committee members for another successful conference.

For photos, click conference pics and scroll down to November 2023.