Editor Agent panelists Craig Pyette and Patricia Ocampo

Post panel conversation between Toronto editor Craig Pyette and agent Patricia Ocampo: she is being distracted by another question.

Craig Pyette, senior editor at Knopf Random House, gave a workshop on getting published. He demonstrated effective opening paragraphs of some well known novels and discussed finding appropriate "comps." This term refers to books that are similar to yours, which are helpful in identifying your audience. An ideal comp needs to be substantially similar to your own work, and no more than ten years old.

Patricia Ocampo is with Penguin Random House Canada where she works as part of a team that acquires, prepares and publicizes children's books.

Part of the charm of this conference was the fact that it was small. That meant we had many chances for conversations with the workshop presenters. I had the good fortune to chat with Craig and Patricia over dinner, One thing I learned that evening was that Patricia grew up in Surrey and went to the same elementary school as my daughter!