Well everybody, Write to Publish is over. Kellie and I worked on this event for about nine months, but it sometimes felt much longer. The amount of tiny details that needed to be thought of, written down, and planned for was completely insane. Do we have napkins? Enough of them? Will the attendees need spoons or just forks? We have fifty lanyards and forty plastic holders for the lanyards. Where will we get more? The list goes on and on … and on.

But, we did it! And I could not be more ecstatic about the results. Our workshop leaders were engaging and knowledgeable, and our panelists and moderators led fascinating conversations. The vendors were a great place to meet publishers, booksellers, and writing groups from the area, and the lunchtime readers were simply astounding. And for those of you who participated in Pitch to a Professional, I hope you learned a lot.

I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure I ate my entire yearly limit of Voodoo Doughnuts in a single day. I’m actually quite proud of that, even if my waistline is not so happy.

I want to thank all of our sponsors—those who donated food, raffle items, coupons, and everything else. We couldn’t have done any of this without you. I also want to thank all of our panelists, workshop leaders, vendors, pitch professionals, and keynote speaker Arthur Bradford. Write to Publish relies on each and every one of you to make the conference a success, and this year, you all definitely succeeded. And lastly, I want to thank everyone who attended the conference. Without you, we would all be just talking amongst ourselves, and where’s the fun in that?

Writers, publishers, booksellers, and book lovers all form a community. We rely on each other to make this industry work and to bring books of all types into the world. I hope you all felt at least some sense of community at Write to Publish this year. I know I did.