Discovery Night!

Tonight, I got a glimpse into the work of three new-to-us writers at the Susan P. Bloom Discovery Awards. The event is really a great concept: writers who've never been published before submit samples of their manuscripts for children, and the winners present their work and have the manuscripts read by editors from several publishing houses. Kudos to the PEN New England Children's Book Committee (whose historic name-change from Children's Book Caucus we witnessed tonight) for showing talented "pre-published" writers some love. And kudos to Bette Anne Rieth, Linda Zajac, and Heather Jessen for their manuscripts; I hope to snag copies some day.