Young Writers' Conference

March 21, 2009

7th Annual Young Writers’ Conference
“What’s Your Story?”
Springville High School 2009


I was a guest presenter at the 7th Annual Springville Young Writers’ Conference on March 21, 2009. Over 450 kids and parents had were there. For $10 you got a t-shirt, a good lunch, and were able to attend classes given by professional writers and illustrators.

The big star was Brandon Mull, author of the Fablehaven books. Book four in the Fablehaven series is coming out on Tuesday March 24 at a huge book release party at Cottonwood High School in Salt Lake City. It’s going to be a massive event and at least 3,000 people are expected to attend! OMG! Check it out if you can. I had lunch with Brandon, I’ve met him before, and he’s a really good guy who deserves all of his success. Sometimes good things do happen to nice people.

Anyway, I’ve never given my autograph that many times before. I sold out of all my Golden Cords and a bunch of my short story books. Many of the kids were having us authors sign their t-shirts and their special autograph books. Everyone was having a good time.

The librarians, teachers and volunteers who organized this thing did a wonderful job. They deserve huge thanks for putting it together, and I will be volunteering for them again in the future. It’s good promotion for my books and I want to make a difference in the kids’ lives.

I’m almost out of promo material at this point. I need to restock! Hundreds of free bookmarks and posters flew off my table and in the classroom where I taught.

The best part of course, was meeting the students, parents and teachers. I gave two classes, one titled: Character and Plot, the other titled: World Building. I forgot to tell the kids to check the Writers’ Symposium Blog for all the excellent world building articles there. If you’re reading this, please spread the word. Link them to this blog!

The classes went really well and I was able to give the students a lot of my best material on writing. It was a mixed crowd, from 7-18 years old, but I didn’t hold back at all and gave them some advanced ideas. I put a lot into it and the completely full classrooms responded very well. It was fun for all of us and I will visit Springville again. What an energetic group of people!

The organizers, especially librarian Lanell Rabner need some special recognition for what they accomplished. Bringing in that many attendees and running such a cool conference is not easy.



Paul Genesse
Author of The Dragon Hunters
Releasing May 15, 2009

Book release party May 22 from 3-6 PM at the Radisson Hotel in downtown Salt Lake City.