ACFW Conference

Yesterday my Internet was down most of the day while Qwest did some requested upgrading on our speed. So . . .

The conference was held in Minneapolis this year. The weather was perfect fall weather with the leaves just starting to change. I went early to attend the early bird session with Margie Lawson. It was excellent as usual. All the workshops I attended were great. And I bought the entire conference on MP3 downloads. So I have access to all the workshops I wished I could attend and couldn't. This year I volunteered in the prayer room, since the ministry that goes on in there affected me directly last year. What a blessing to pray for others.

And of course, the highlight of these conferences for me is being with so many friends, old and new. As is my usual modus operandi, I forgot to take my camera. But others have been wonderful to share their pics with me. Extra special to me this year was being able to share the conference with my sister, Kathy. (At least she remembered her camera! LOL Most of the pictures below are from her camera.)

A first for ACFW this year was the multi-author booksigning at the Mall of America, hosted by Barnes & Noble. In the first picture, Angie Hunt, Karen Ball, James Scott Bell, and Brandilyn Collins are on the hotseat panel.









Here's one of Megan DiMaria signing in the main rotunda.










The line of authors stretched down one of the malls hallways all the way down to Bloomingdale's where my very good friend and critique partner Kim signed next to Rachel Hauck.









Here's Kim on the hotseat with Tammy Alexander and Nancy Moser.









Kathy and I hung out with Eileen Key, another very dear friend and critique partner (go Crit14!).







And Eileen with Terri Blackstock and Brandt Dodson.










Here are a couple more of the line stretching down the side hall. The last one features Kathy Kovach—good friend, critique partner (JOY Writers!), and ACFW Rocky Mountain Zone director.



Finally, after the booksigning was the annual ACFW awards banquet. I'll list the winners of this year's awards in another post. But for now, here are pictures of Kathy and me all dressed up and one with Kim that she took holding her camera out and snapping. (Not bad!!)



Now, I'm off to do some fall planting before getting back to work.