{"id":7899,"date":"2012-11-06T06:50:50","date_gmt":"2012-11-06T11:50:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/?p=7899"},"modified":"2018-10-18T06:10:17","modified_gmt":"2018-10-18T10:10:17","slug":"highlights-from-the-cat-writers-association-2012-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/highlights-from-the-cat-writers-association-2012-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"Highlights From the Cat Writers’ Association 2012 Conference"},"content":{"rendered":"
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How a Cat Writer’s Conference begins… it’s all in unpacking the boxes for the kitty swag!!<\/p><\/div>\n

I apologize for the break in blogging, but I have just returned from the Cat Writers\u2019 Conference in Los Angeles and will admit to a serious bout of jet lag. Now that I have collected myself (relatively speaking), I must say that it was well worth the trip and that I am overwhelmed by the talent of the members, the generosity of the sponsors, the quality of the seminars, and the amazing job done by those involved who coordinated the event.<\/p>\n

The Cat Writers\u2019 Association is a compilation of not just writers, but artists, photographers, poets, journalists, fiction writers, non-fiction writers, bloggers, editors, publishers, and everything in-between that has to do with the subject, love, and passion for cats. Celebrating its 20 year anniversary, I felt like it was a trip down the red carpet as we were educated, entertained, wined and dined, and socialized to the hilt for three days!<\/p>\n

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To properly stuff cat swag bags, it is essential to have cat loving ladies to help out – seen here is Janea Kelley of Paws and Effect and Angie Bailey of Catladyland!<\/p><\/div>\n

The event started on Thursday night with the traditional meet and greet with our newest members,”The Kittens,”  and a bag swag stuffing marathon!! For such a bunch of talented people, this was actually an exercise in fun chaos as we tried to figure out how to efficiently stuff these bags and I will admit we have a lot of room for improvement\u2026. Needless to say, however, the cats in wait at home could care less about the behind the scenes of how these magical bags are created, all they care about is connecting to the catnip, tasty treats, and toys!!<\/p>\n

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Voila!! Many laughs later, the bags are done!!<\/p><\/div>\n

Friday was a day of meeting editors and publishers (if you so desired) and informative seminars on such topics as how to self-publish, learning WordPress, writing book proposal and queries, followed by a night of mingling and networking with old friends such as Angie Bailey from Catladyland<\/a>, Janiss Garza from Sparkle The Designer Cat<\/a>, Janea Kelley from Paws and Effect<\/a>, Stephanie Harwin from Catsparella<\/a>, Susan Logan from Cat Fancy<\/a>, and making new ones  with Kristin Dewey from Cokie the Cat<\/a>, Vicky Walker and Keith Bowers from Catster<\/a>, and Marilyn Krieger of  The Cat Coach.<\/a><\/p>\n

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Marilyn Krieger of The Cat Coach demonstrates clicker training with this gorgeous marbled Bengal.<\/p><\/div>\n

All that alone would have been worth the trip, but then on Saturday, Marilyn Krieger did a seminar on clicker training for behavioral issues in your cat and my whole day was made when I got the privilege of being graced with the company of Nanuk, one of the Bengals in the demonstration. It is no secret how much I love the Bengal breed and no matter how much I enjoy these types of conferences, I miss my kitties desperately, especially my Bengal, Zoey. So, when Nanuk was done with his demonstration and wandered over to sit with me for the remainder of Marilyn\u2019s talk, I was in absolute kitty heaven petting this spectacular cat (who, by the way, was about twice the size of my petite Zoey).<\/p>\n

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A conference highlight for me – getting to bond with Nanuk, one of the cats from the clicker demonstration.<\/p><\/div>\n

As if that wasn’t enough, we were then treated to a talk from Jackson Galaxy <\/a>of Animal Planet\u2019s My Cat From Hell as he discussed the process of writing his book, Cat Daddy. He is just what I expected \u2013 a grounded guy with a fantastic sense of humor who has a very natural and compelling way about him when he speaks. What did we learn that I did not already know from reading Cat Daddy? Well, number one, human to human, it is NOT appropriate to go up to someone (especially someone you do not know) and stand up really close to them and give them the trademark \u201cI love you slow blink\u201d that you do with a cat.  The other thing, don\u2019t buy his book for a seven year old (actually, that was not news to me, but it was funny to hear Jackson say it!)<\/p>\n

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Jumping in for a hug and photo op with Jackson Galaxy before he enthralls us all by talking about his Cat Daddy book.<\/p><\/div>\n

It was wonderful to then be with Jackson and other authors as we held a book signing party and got to know one another better. The night ended with an awards ceremony dinner and I am thrilled that my dear friend, Angie Baily won a Muse for her piece “Cosmic Love.”  Not in attendance, but also friends and winners were Layla Morgan Wilde of Cat Wisdom 101 <\/a>for her “Portrait of Gris Gris,” Ingrid King for her Conscious Cat <\/a>website, Robin Olson for her Covered in Cat Hair<\/a> website, and Bernadette Kazmarksi of the Creative Cat <\/a>for numerous entries.<\/p>\n

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It was so much fun to share a book signing with Jackson Galaxy!!<\/p><\/div>\n

I am still riding the high of being part of such a wonderful group of people and hope that those of you who are thinking of joining will do so. Please click here <\/a>to read all about the association and what it entails to qualify as a member. To follow are a few snapshot memories to share with you – hope you enjoy!<\/p>\n

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My leopard shoes with heels that actually match Zee & Zoey’s logo!!<\/p><\/div>\n

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Sandy Robbins, Angie Bailey, Deb Barnes, Janea Kelley, and Stephanie Harwin.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Janiss Garza with her fiance, Brian.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Angie Bailey, Janea Kelley, Carole Stevens Bibisi, and Stephanie Harwin.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Minutes after I got home from the conference, Jazz is loving all the swag!<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I apologize for the break in blogging, but I have just returned from the Cat Writers\u2019 Conference in Los Angeles and will admit to a serious bout of jet lag. Now that I have collected myself (relatively speaking), I must say that it was well worth the trip and that I am overwhelmed by the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,19],"tags":[156,176,1274,1266],"class_list":["post-7899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspiration-healing","category-the-chronicles-of-zee-and-zoey-book-reviews-press-releases-and-news","tag-book-signing","tag-cat-writers-conference","tag-jackson-galaxy","tag-the-chronicles-of-zee-and-zoey"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/leopardlady.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7899"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18985,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7899\/revisions\/18985"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}