ACFW Recap 3–Saturday Night & Sunday Morning

As I suspected, the details of everything that happened during the day at the conference has become sketchy—whether due to brain overload or the head-cold I brought home with me. One of the best classes I remember taking on Saturday was Chip MacGregor’s “Building a Brand” class. From now on, everyone is to refer to me as the Princess of Amish-Vampire-Bouncing-Grandma-Young-Adult-Inspirational-Romance Novels (just want to make sure I’m not leaving out any trends there).

But anyway, on to the pictures from the awards banquet. Everyone showed up in his or her finest (or favorite) outfit to learn the names of the Book of the Year, Genesis Contest, Mentor of the Year, Agent of the Year, and Editor of the Year, as well as who would be receiving the Member Service award.

Here I am before the banquet with my wonderful agent, Chip MacGregor—who really should have won Agent of the Year:

Last year, “Clan MacGregor” started a tradition of getting as many of Chip’s clients to sit at his table at the banquet. There were more of us there than would fit at one table, but we love sitting at his table because it’s definitely the classiest table at the event, as demonstrated by Jim Rubart and Chip:

Lori Mynheir and Susan Meissner think about getting in on the action as author Mark Mynheir (who taught the “Police Procedural” continuing session at the conference) looks on:

My forum buddy, suspense writer John Robinson, has the “hang” of it, as award-winning YA author Jenny B. Jones tries to keep her mirth under control in the background:

Hey, Susan Page Davis, I think you need to tell Brandt Dodson that the point is to let go of the spoon!

I couldn’t really get good pictures of the award winners, but this one came out okay. Here’s Sharon Lavy winning the Member Service award. Way to go, Sharon!

And of course, Banquet is the time when we want to get our pictures taken with our friends whom we only see dressed up once a year—I mean, whom we only see once a year and we want a photo of us when we’re dressed up . . .

Here I am with Harvest House editor, and friend, Kim Moore:

And with three of the four other ladies who attended from my local group: Tamara Alexander, J.M. Hochstetler, and Krista Phillips:

Oh, and that reminds me to give a huge congratulations to Tamera Leigh, another Middle Tennessee Christian Writers member, whose novel Splitting Harriet won Book of the Year in the Lits category. Way to go, Tamera!!!!!

Here’s another shot of me with dear friend and author Ronie Kendig, whose suspense/thriller novel was just contracted by Abingdon Press:

And I had to have my picture taken with Cinderella and Prince Charming—Tiff “Amber Miller” Stockton and Stuart Stockton. Of course, it would have helped if they weren’t trying to explain to someone else how to use their camera!

Let’s try that again:

DCCPs (that’s Dazzlingly Clever Critique Partners) Erica and Georgiana and I were going to try to get a new picture of us at the banquet, but lines of communication got crossed. We did, however, get a new picture of the three of us together:

that we could compare to last year’s photo so that we could see how far we’ve come:

Aren’t my crit partners gorgeous?

Before they all could get away, I had to get a picture of my Sunday morning breakfast companions—Connie Stevens, Stu & Tiff Stockton, Erica Vetsch, and Georgiana Daniels:

And finally, to close out the conference recap, here’s a little video I took Sunday morning at the end of worship time. Don’t worry about the fact the video is sideways, what’s important is the sound:

(If the video player doesn’t work here, you can view the video at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4346850505312081379&hl=en)