Of conference and winning and thankfulness

The Omega Writers Conference is always a highlight of my year!  
It's a small, but growing, conference aimed at encouraging, supporting and equipping Australasian Christian writers. I've attended it off and on for a number of years now moving from participant to presenter and have enjoyed getting to know Christian writers from all over Australia and New Zealand. 
The conference itself moves around, so although it had been in Sydney for the last two years this year it traveled to Adelaide and was hosted in part by Tabor College.  I was thrilled by this because one of the speakers scheduled was the award winning Rosanne Hawke. 
So I booked my tickets, paid my registration, made some plans to visit a couple of friends along the way and headed to Adelaide!

The conference was wonderful. US writer Alex Marestaing was the keynote speaker and, as we've come to expect of him, delivered engaging and powerful sessions relevant to writers at all stages. 
It was great to be able to spend the weekend talking books, encouraging one another, learning more and taking a break from everyday routines. 

Saturday evening was the CALEB Awards Night. This year, my novel Camp Max was in the running as a finalist in the Children's Literature Category.

​The 2018 CALEB Prize winners:

• Carolyn Miller won the Fiction category for her The Ellusive Miss Ellison. 
• Jen Gibbs won the Non-fiction category for She. 
• Susan Bruce won the Unpublished Fiction category for her new novel. 
• And Camp Max won the Children's Literature category. 

When Camp Max was announced as the Overall Grand Prize winner, I was completely overwhelmed. Just think, a little children's novel could win the Grand Prize! I was thrilled, humbled and incredibly thankful. 
I know none of my books would exist without the support of those around me - especially my family and friends who continue to encourage me to keep writing. And this book in particular wouldn't have existed if my publisher, Wombat Books, hadn't believed it would work!

So yes, it was a great conference. And I'm home again now; back to the everyday routine but with the thrum of thankfulness to God wrapped around my heart.