Hey everyone -- there's a new kid in town!

This is Kathy Chung, and she'll be taking over as conference coordinator...well, as of right now. She's in charge [along with our Board of Directors, School District staff and a fantastic selection of volunteers] of getting the SiWC 2010 show on the road.

I'll be moving [along with my tights] to a position on the Board, so you'll see me at SiWC 2010, but just not in quite the same role.

Kathy's been coming to the conference almost as long as I have -- since 2001, I believe. And she's been Contest Assistant for the past three years, so she has a really good grip on how our systems run. She's a writer and a teacher and a mother...and she's excited about joining the group of crazies who put on this event every year.

She'll be blogging here, soon, but until she gets set up to do that, here are a few thoughts she'd like to share:

Great day today at Word on the Street. Had a blast making the rounds, talking about the conference and meeting the glowing literati of the Vancouver area. Tons of our presenters were on the street, performing, schmoozing, having a ball.

It was the first official 'shadow' outing for my successor, Kathy Chung. Kathy will be keeping a close eye on the workings of the conference this year, as she'll be taking over as conference coordinator in 2010. We'll be profiling her on this blog very soon.

The Book Broads [Angela Crocker, Kim Plumly and Peggy Richardson] interviewed Kathy and me for a video post on their blog. We'll post a link to it here when it goes live. We talked about all the great stuff we have planned for the conference this year -- it's going to be a winner! The Book Broads will all be volunteering at the conference -- make sure to say hi when you see them this year!

Other SiWC 2009 presenters at WOTS included:  Annabel Lyon, who was just this week included on the Giller Prize longlist for her new novel The Golden Mean, was interviewed by former presenter favourite Stephen Galloway.