Reporting live from the Glorieta Christian Writers Conference, near Santa Fe, New Mexico:

Whenever I attend writers' conferences, I keep my eyes and ears open for adoption-related writers and the latest, greatest info about adoption.

I learned about the National Challenged Homeschoolers Associated Network (NATTHAN). I'll provide more information about this organization a future post, but essentially, the group is a network of homeschooling parents who have children with special needs. My sources tell me that they're very supportive of finding adoptive homes for children with challenges.

So far, I have run into two adoptive parents who contributed to my upcoming book, What's So Great About Adoption. One was Joyce Wallace, a fellow member of the Northwest Christian Writers Association. We met for the first time last month, and I had no idea she was attending this conference (New Mexico is kind of a long way from Seattle -- not many Washingtonians are here).

I've also had several opportunities to chat with Joe Bentz, who wrote a fiction book about adoption called Cradle of Dreams. His latest book is called When God Takes Too Long: Learning to Thrive During Life's Delays. Now that sounds like a book that future adoptive parents would appreciate! Joe is an English professor at Azuza Pacific University in Southern California and a really nice guy.

One thing I love about writers' conferences is that I get to meet lots of editors, agents and writers who I've previously known only through e-mail. I met Dawn Zemke, an editor from Today's Christian, a magazine I write for from time to time (I wrote a profile about best-selling author and adoptive mom, Karen Kingsbury, for their Sept./Oct issue).

I also got caught up with Ed Gilbreath, the editor-in-chief of the same magazine. Ed is a busy man this week -- everyone is pitching story ideas to him but he handles it with good humor and genuine delight.