APRIL MONTHLY MEETING: Bumps Along the Path: The Creative Journey of Writing for Children

For our April meeting we will be discussing how to manage a career in kidlit.

A major publishing contract out of the gate--almost. Quitting the day job. Going back to the day job. Two agents. Four writing groups. Detours to start a typewriter poetry business and a publishing company. An MFA. Dozens of conferences & hundreds of rejections. A writing coach. To-do lists, resolutions, & avoidance techniques. Writer friends who've made it big & those who haven't. Redefining "big." Imposter syndrome. A small shelf of published books with shiny awards. And an amazing community. Join Sean Petrie on a two-decade journey of what it's like to write for children in Austin. 

Sean Petrie is an author, poet, and professor. His books include Typewriter Rodeo, Pet Poems (also not just pets), the Jett Ryder series, Spinning Toward the Sun, and the newly-released Universe at the Tips of Your Toes: Real Poems Written for Real Kids. As a co-founder of Typewriter Rodeo, he's written over 20,000 poems at events all across the country, and does weekly radio poems on KUT-Austin. He also teaches legal writing at UT Law School, has an MFA in Writing for Kids from Vermont College, and owns way too many typewriters.