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By: Bruce Luck,
on 2/7/2015
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Oh, to be in New York City right now. The annual SCBWI winter conference is in full swing and I would love to be there, too. Utah’s own James Dashner is giving the keynote on Sunday.
It is the kick off to the 2015 writing conference season. The SCBWI is the biggie, attracting a large national level
LTUE - Feb 12-14
Life, the Universe, and Everything. That about covers it. The conference moniker is borrowed from a Douglas Adams book with the same title. Running now for thirty years, LTUE bills itself as a “three-day academic symposium on all aspects of science fiction and fantasy.” Of course, it deals with “everything” so there’s bound to be something for most any writer. It meets at the Provo Marriott Hotel and Conference Center. For complete information, go to LTUE.net.
Writing for Charity - March 21
This one day event features presenters, many of whom are Utah authors, panel discussions and a chance to have your work discussed with an agent, either Ammi-Joan Paquette or Minju Chang. They have four options for registration, each with varying levels of exposure to the two agents in attendance. Oh, and your registration fees are charitable. Writers for Charity chooses different organizations to donate to with a goal of getting books into the hands of children. They’ll also meet in Provo and more information is available at WritingforCharity.blogspot.com.
LDStorymakers - May 15 & 16
Agents galore and more Utah writers presenting on various aspects of the craft. Martine Leavitt delivers the keynote. Prices vary depending on the degree of involvement you choose. This conference also happens in Provo and their site, LDStorymakers.com provides details.
WIFYR - June 15-19
My personal favorite is Carol Lynch William’s Writing and Illustrating For Young Readers. Like the others, this conference offers agents and Utah authors, and pricing varies. This is a week-long conference and differs from the others in that writers in the morning workshops are more active participants. Listening to a lecturer tends to be a more passive role. The workshops are interactive and intense. Their purpose is to critique and improve your manuscript. The afternoons have presenters and Jennifer Nielsen is the keynote speaker. This conference meets in Sandy and the WIFYR.com website offers details.
It’s winter in NYC, balmy in SLC. I would love to do SCBWI’s conference one of these days. But why spend the money on airfare and lodging when we’ve got some excellent opportunities for writers right here in Utah.
(This article also posted at http://writetimeluck.blogspot.com)
Okay, so maybe the photographer cut off half my face. It's still proof that I was there. This was one of my favorite panels, with a couple other great authors, a NYT bestselling author and a literary agent. Oh, and they proved that they cannot only write well, but speak well too. I don't think I've laughed so hard in a long time.
In addition to panels on topics from Young Adult literature to avoiding mistakes first-time authors make, I interviewed with several podcasts and shows, including Residual Hauntings, talking about "The Last Archangel". You can listen here:
http://residualhauntings.podomatic.com/entry/2013-02-17T21_55_15-08_00
I even won a free shirt from Epic Puzzles and Games in Lehi, UT because I correctly answered a question about zombies. I surprised even myself when I came up with the name "revanant".
I've also taken up the cause of the Author's Think Tank and their awesome new podcast "by authors, for authors" called Forever Writers. I wrote the lyrics at the beginning of the podcast, and will hopefully be a host on future installments. They will be posted soon here:
http://www.foreverwriters.com/
If you didn't go this year, I would definitely check it out next year. Visit http://www.ltue.org for more information. It usually happens in February and is a wonderful value for your money. If you are an author and present, you can even get in for free.
I will appear next at Write Here in Ephraim on March 4th at Snow College in Utah, and then at the LDStorymaker's Conference in mid May. See you there!
By: Bruce Luck,
on 2/9/2013
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The New York publishing houses have their eye on Utah children’s writers. Elissa Cruz, of the local SCBWI, said that publisher refer to us as the “Mormon Mafia.” Deren Hansen mentioned in his Wednesday post that Utah seems to have a disproportionate number of writers. It could be that we take our craft seriously as evidenced by the number of writing conferences in the state. Three good ones in particular are coming up soon.
Deren mentioned the LTUE next weekend. Years ago the brilliant Douglass Adams penned
Life, the Universe and Everything, from which LTUE takes its name. Life, The Universe, and Everything is a three-day symposium that examines the realms of science fiction and fantasy. Their sessions are full of all topics imaginable to writers of these genres. They offer several editors and agents and you can sign up for a pitch session with them. For more information, click on their site:
http://ltue.net/
In May the LDStorymakers meet. They, too, have some amazing sessions along with publishers and a pitch session. One of my critique group members is going and encouraging the rest of us to go. I’m having a hard time finding a reason not to attend. More information can be found here:
http://storymakersconference.myshopify.com/
My favorite writer’s conference is WIFYR in June. Carol Lynch Williams does such a service to the children’s writing community by providing top-notch authors and a week to sit in their workshops and glean tips of the craft. This is a weeklong event with afternoon sessions offering speakers detailing the multiple aspects of writing. Real writing growth comes from the morning workshops. Guided and pampered by an acclaimed author, participants meet in an intimate setting with other like-minded writers Monday through Friday. The author shares their take on character and story development, trends in the publishing industry, and tips on how to move your manuscript out of the sludge-pile and get it noticed. Agents and editors will be at WIFYR, as well. Registration will open soon. Go here to learn more:
http://www.wifyr.com/
Whatever your ability level, you can kick your writing up a notch by attending any of these wonderful Utah offerings.
by Deren Hansen
There is an established order to things: movies come out of Hollywood and books come out of New York. The coasts are where the interesting things happen and the middle states are what you fly over. And in an established order, you must go to the center if you want to succeed. No one will find you if you set up shop off the beaten path.
Except when they do. Sometimes if you build it, they do come.
Life, The Universe, and Everything (LTUE) 31 will meet on February 14 – 16, 2013 in Provo, Utah. The symposium organized thirty-one years ago by a BYU professor has grown into one of the largest writing conferences in the Intermountain West.
Provo? Utah? There’s nothing there but snow, salt, and a peculiar religious tradition, right?
Actually, Utah boasts a surprising — some would say disproportionate — number of writers. And LTUE is only one of nearly a dozen writing conferences held in Utah. It’s hard to say whether the number of writers grew because of the conferences, or the conferences because of the writers, but we have a vibrant, vital writing community out here in what many would say is the middle of nowhere.
Why?
Because no one took any notice of the fact that portions of Utah look remarkably like Tatooine or that their Western home was far away from the bright center of the publishing universe. Instead, they devoted themselves to what they loved: they wrote and they found like-minded people who wanted to get together periodically and talk about writing. They didn’t worry (too much) about what was going on elsewhere or, more importantly, what anyone else thought.
Sometimes the best way to succeed is to forget about the established order, pursue your fascination, and simply invite others to share what you’ve discovered.
For those of you in the area, I will be sharing two presentations at LTUE 31: “
Verisimilitude: How Illusions, Confidence Games, and Skillful Lying Can Improve Your Fiction,” (Thursday, February 14, 2013 at 1:00 pm) and “
Weaving a Complex Narrative: How to Write Like J.R.R. Tolkien in Three Easy Steps,” (Friday, February 15, 2013 at 11:00 am). I’ll also be holding forth on various panels about anachronisms, archetypes, and anthropology. (And if you’re a real glutton for punishment, stop me in the hallway.)
Deren Hansen is the author of the Dunlith Hill Writers Guides. Learn more at dunlithhill.com.
It has been more than a month since my computer worked well on a regular basis, and most of that time I was without a computer at home at all. It still isn’t working well–there are days when it will take 15 minutes just to type a paragraph—but at least it kind of works… ish. Dell sucks, is all I’ll say, and I promise never to buy anything else from them as long as I live.
At any rate, sorry for being out of touch, particularly those who were waiting for the handout from LTUE. If that was you, can you comment here so I can send it to you? Just be sure to put your email in the comment form, and I’ll be able to contact you.
Originally published at Stacy Whitman's Grimoire. You can comment here or there.
by Deren Hansen
Two weeks ago the thirtieth incarnation of
Life, the Universe, and Everything (LTUE), the BYU symposium on science fiction that has morphed into the largest (and least expensive) writing conference in Utah, convened. This year the conference was held at UVU to handle the crowd.
I always find conferences like this a bit frustrating at the structural level: at best you can only participate in about a third of what's going on. But what they don't mention in the brochure is that there's as much going on in the dealers’ room and in the halls and lobbies as in the sessions proper.
This year I had to officially give up trying to attend every session that sounded interesting because I participated as a presenter.
I learned several things from being the one at the front of the room:
- There are a surprisingly large number of people who don't simply tolerate but actually have an appetite for abstraction at 9:00 am.
- No green room is large enough when Larry Correia and Robert Defendi are holding forth on military history.
- Hydration is critical if you have to speak for more than a few minutes
- There are an awful lot of professional writers within the orbit of the Wasatch front (LTUE 30 had nearly 150 guest, panelists, and presenters)
- There are even more people who have the constitution and stamina to be pleasant on the third day of a conference that runs at least three sessions for twelve hours a day—with no meal breaks.
- Brandon Sanderson is a Martian.
I suppose that last bullet point requires a bit more explanation.
First, let me state, for the record, that Brandon is charming person—generous and gracious with fans and aspiring writers alike. In our few interactions, he's been the very model of how a writer should behave in public. If you've never seen Brandon at a signing or on a panel, you should go simply to learn from the way he handles himself in public.
Brandon was one of the people I hoped to meet at LTUE 30. Other than the excellent panel with Tracy Hickman, Dave Farland, L.E. Modesitt, Jr., and Brandon, I never saw him at the conference—which wasn't a surpirse: Brandon is a busy man. Brandon's Writing Excuses partners, Dan Wells, Howard Tayler, and Mary Robinett Kowal are also busy people (something I confirmed in brief conversations with Howard and Mary).
But as with the Tango, where it takes two, part of the reason I missed Brandon is because I was busy, too.
Largely because Brandon is practically a Utah county neighbor, I anticipated that we might someday strike up a professional relationship. At one signing, for example, I joked that I was there as part of a cunning plan to score a guest spot on his podcast in two years.
What I realized during the conference is that I'd made the same mistake as the owner of a local franchise who thinks he should pal around with the CEO of a major corporation because they both run a business.
Brandon and I currently have non-intersecting orbits. He already has his slate full of professional relationships. So do I.
During one of the battles of the Civil War, a subordinate rode up to General Grant, gave his report, and then asked if the general was worried about what the confederate general might do. "No," replied General Grant, "I'm worried about what I'm going to do."
I'll bet you didn't expect the second best piece of networking advice to come from the Civil War.
The corollary to last week’s post sharing the best networking advice ever is that the way
As those who went to LTUE can attest, it seems that I caught a bad cold either on the plane or on the moment my foot touched Utah soil, and I was a little bit out of it during the con. But even so, I had a great time, and got to catch up with a lot of old friends, meet new people, and even sit down with some writers I might work with someday. Hopefully I didn’t give them a cold while I was at it.
Normally I’d give a more complete run-down, but others might remember it more clearly than I could due to the fog of this cold, which I’m still getting over. I had the worst time remembering people’s names—I even blanked on the names of long-time friends. 
Sorry, guys! You know I really love you, but names aren’t my forte even when I’m thinking straight, and this week it was very hard to think straight.
I was able to think straight on my panels at least (though with moments of “you go ahead, I forgot what I was going to say”), and my Writing Cross-Culturally presentation was both well-attended (wow, standing room only!) and included attendees who had some great questions. For those who have come to this blog looking for the questions we discussed at the end of class, go to my SCBWI wrap-up, where I summarized those same questions. Also, if you didn’t get the handout and were looking for the links and resources I gave out in class, comment or email me with a request for it, and I can get you the Word document. Or perhaps I can just post it here, but later, once I’ve caught up on all I missed when I was out of the office.
Originally published at Stacy Whitman's Grimoire. You can comment here or there.
For you TANKBORN fans in Utah, not only is Karen Sandler joining me this Wednesday night at the BYU Linguistics Event before LTUE and attending LTUE itself, she’s signing at the mass signing this Friday night from 8:30 to 10 pm. For more details, check out the LTUE schedule. Well, kind of. It hasn’t been updated with the change (the signing was originally supposed to start at 8 pm) and I’m not sure what room it’s in. If you come to LTUE, though, I’m sure you’ll be able to figure it out from the printed handouts.
Originally published at Stacy Whitman's Grimoire. You can comment here or there.
Hey, I'm horrible at this. I think I've said that before. I don't even know if I did my second round in January. Work and life are just that busy unfortunately.
But, I want to remind everyone to go to www.ltue.org if you haven't yet and check out the awesome writers conference going on this week. I really can't wait. I went to the Friday and Saturday sessions last year and it was awesome. First time I heard Dan Wells speak, who is one of the best speakers ever (of course, I fear him at this point, so I may pass on his lessons on horror writing.) Plus, the dudetastic James Dashner will be the Guest of Honor. (Couldn't find a better adjective.)
So, go to LTUE, it's awesome. Plus, I'll be there. And I'm awesome, right? :-)
Short post, I know. Busy life still. And remember:
Alien abductions are involuntary.
Also, one more reminder: If you’re in Utah and have a chance to get to LTUE next week—only $20-25 to rub elbows with a bunch of professionals working in fantasy and science fiction right now and free for students—you should definitely come. I’ve been filling up my schedule left and right, and if you’re at BYU you might also want to know about the English dept event I’ll be at on Wednesday night (February 16):
BYU’s STET Student Editing Club presents . . .
Stacy Whitman, editor of fantasy and science fiction for children and young adults
- Editorial director of Tu Books, an imprint of Lee & Low Books, New York (publisher of multicultural fantasy and science fiction for children and young adults)
- Freelance editor
- Former editor at Mirrorstone, an imprint of Wizards of the Coast (publisher of children’s and YA fantasy)
- Former editor at Houghton Mifflin, Boston
- Former editor at Electrical Apparatus (a trade magazine), Chicago
- Graduate (M.A.) of Simmons College, Boston, in children’s literature, 2005
- Graduate (B.S.) of BYU, 2001
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
5:10 to 7:40 p.m.
3714 HBLL
I’ll be talking about publishing both for a writer’s perspective (because this is picture book author Rick Walton’s class, after all) and an editorial perspective (because the professor over the editing minor, Mel Thorne, who also happens to be my old boss, is bringing his students along too).
If you aren’t a BYU student or faculty, come to LTUE! Here’s my (hopefully) final schedule:
Thursday, February 17th, 2011
2:00 PM:
- Beyond Orcs and Elves: Diversity in Fantasy and Science Fiction for Young Readers (Stacy Whitman) Recent cover whitewashing controversies and the internet discussion tagged #RaceFail have brought to light how little diversity can be found in fantasy and science fiction for young readers. We’ll discuss the history of diversity in these books, including diversification through fantasy races that all share the same traits, and ways for authors to consider diversifying their own stories. We’ll also discuss writing cross-culturally, cultural awareness, issues of appropriation, and other things to consider as you write.
6:00 PM:
- Marketing and Publicity–what can you do? (Stacy Whitman, Bree DeSpain, James Dashner, Laura Card, Elana Johnson) Closet Costuming (Heather Monson, Jessica Haron, Sarah B. Seiter)
Friday, February 18th, 2011
Noon:
- Romance vs. Story with Romantic Elements: Injecting romance into saving the world (John Brown, Ami Chopine, Stacy Whitman, Lynn Kurland)
6:00 PM:
- How NOT to talk down to your YA audience (Michaelbrent Collings, Clint Johnson, Stacy Whitman, James Dashner, Frank L. Cole)
Saturday, February 19th, 2011
10:00 AM:
- What Exactly Does an Editor Do, Anyway? (Lisa Mangum, Suzanne Vincent, Stacy Whitman, Tristi Pinkston, Karen C. Evans, Dave Wolverton)
Noon:
- Anime/Manga–what it is; what’s good in SFF (Stacy Whitman, Jessica Harmon, Scott Parkin (M), Joe Monson, Charlotte Randle)
I feel like I’m missing a panel I was supposed to be on, but I think that’s it. But there’s always plenty of chat in the hallways between panels. I always go to these conventions looking for writers who know their stuff, and what better way to learn your business than to come listen to a bunch of experts like James Dashner, Jessica Day George, Bree Despain, Dan Wells, Tracy Hickman, and a long list of others talk about writing memorable villains, pitching to agents/editors, paying the bills via your dreams, religion in science fiction, what writers wish they had done if they could do it all over again, how to re
There's a great little science fiction/fantasy convention (well, they call it a "symposium") at BYU every year in February called Life, the Universe, and Everything. I've been going as a panelist for several years (I was an editor guest of honor a while back, too), and I highly recommend it for writers and fans who are relatively local---especially because it's FREE!
Brandon Sanderson, bestselling author of Mistborn and a bunch of other books, is a guest of honor this year, as is James C. Christenson (Thursday only). The program is filled with a bunch of great Utah-local writers and artists who are well-known nationally, most of whom don't have their names on the main page of the symposium website (they never put me on there, either, weirdly---this is the way it's been for years). Let's see: Mette Ivie Harrison, L.E. Modesitt, Jr., James Dashner, Brandon Mull, Howard Tayler, Jake Black, Clint Johnson (who writes as R.D. Henham), Dan Wells, Nathan Hale, Eric James Stone, and on and on. Weirdly, also, they have Jessica Day George on the website, but I don't see her in the schedule, so it makes me wonder if they just copy and paste last year's list in (it never seems to change).
Despite having a slightly out-of-date website, though, the symposium itself is a good experience, and writers get a LOT of good free advice, and get to meet a lot of their favorite published writers and working artists. So make sure you save the date---Feb. 11-13, 2010 in the Wilkinson Center at BYU (upstairs on the 3rd floor; there are usually signs).
Here's my tentative schedule, and the people who are on the panels with me:
Thursday, Feb 11
(This first one's a trick question:)
1 pm---Defining Childrens Literature: What are a childrens book, a middle grade reader, a YA novel and an adult novel? (Stacy Whitman, Lisa Mangum, Mette Ivie Harrison, Dan Willis)
4 pm---No More Dead Dogs (or moms): Why do mothers and dogs always die in children's literature? How do we pull at the heartstrings and give child characters independence without killing off dogs and moms? (Paul Genesse, Stacy Whitman, Clint Johnson, Julie Wright)
Friday, Feb. 12
Apparently I don't have anything on Friday. I'm confused on that. But I'll probably be around, working, chatting, etc.
Saturday, Feb. 13
10 am---What Exactly Does an Editor Do, Anyway? (L. E. Modesitt, Jr., Stacy Whitman, Susan Vincent, Lisa Mangum, Tristi Pinkston)
2 pm---Regional Publishers (Lisa Magnum, Stacy Whitman, Linda Brummett, Garry P. Mitchell, Tristi Pinkston, Dave Doering)
5 pm----Edgy YA vs. not-so-edgy (Stacy Whitman, Laura Bingham, Mette Harrison, Julie Wright)
Behind the cut. These are from my real SLR camera. Still more shots from my phone to come. (Meant to do it last night, but sorry, I fell asleep in the middle of the post!)
Gloria Skurzinski, writer of nearly 60 books for young people, mostly science and science fiction--see her site (linked through the picture) for a full list! Her husband, Ed Skurzinski--a real-life rocket scientist who once worked for NASA--accompanied Gloria to the conference and was fun to pick his brain about all sorts of topics.
Gloria with Bob Defendi, a winner of Writers of the Future. (I'm getting lazy with the links, sorry. Anybody know if Bob has a site?)
Howard Tayler hard at work. (
Remember my characature? That was this Howard.)
James Dashner, a local children's fantasy author, discussing something with a fan, with Howard still working away in the background.
Me (in a sweater that I've decided will never get photographed again, despite how comfortable it is) talking with attendees after a panel. Some very nice people come to LTUE.
Whoops, nearly forgot to add the cut. Sorry for any of you who got it before I caught it.
Have a great weekend!
Via ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
yedijoda, pictures of my old haunt , BYU. (I lived in Utah for 4 1/2 years, and finished my undergrad at BYU.) Apparently LJ featured provophoto on the front page today, and she caught it. I rarely go look at the LJ front page, so I'm glad she did, because this guy has some great shots. I'd love to have a digital camera to play with that kind of stuff. I mean, I can do a lot of that stuff with my film camera, but lately I'm just not patient enough for my film camera and I kind of feel like I'd be able to improve my shots if I could see them as I'm taking them.
At any rate, if you want a good idea of what Provo, Utah looks like, this LJ is a great place to see.
(This is where LTUE happened, actually, the conference I've been yammering about all week.)
Thought I'd share a few pictures from the conference, too. These are just the ones taken from my cute little cameraphone, as the pictures taken on my real camera have yet to be developed. Ah, that's something I should be doing today.
Wednesday night, Feb. 14--Pre-con dinner with guests of honor and special guests
I can't name everyone in the picture, because I had to absorb so many names (if you're in these pictures, please comment with your name so I can remember!), but that's Nancy Fulda in the foreground (
nancyfulda) and Howard Tayler in the center wearing black (
howardtayler). To Howard's left (the right of him in the picture) is Mark Daymont.
Our hosts, Aleta and James Clegg.
Symposium staff Peyton and Josh. Josh was the guest liaison, very helpful guy. Peyton has been on the staff for a couple years, too, I think.
A moment of fun. Josh's wife in the foreground.
Peyton and her husband. On the left, Mark Daymont, a 5th grade teacher who is involved with the Christa McAuliffe Space Center in Pleasant Grove where we did a Star Trek spaceship simulator earlier that day. Very fun, and I can see how fascinating it would be for the kids it serves. They're doing a great thing there.
Um... yeah. Attempt at self-portrait. Why do my attempts at self-portraiture often come off looking like I'm sickly? I suppose it doesn't help that I
was a bit on the sick side that week, battling a sinus infection that I'm still trying to get rid of. Add the fact that I'd traveled all day and wasn't wearing makeup... Yeah.
Me and
nancyfulda.
More pictures of the rest of the weekend later--that's enough for one post.
Continued from Part 7
(We're getting near the end, don't worry! This was only a one-hour talk.)
Now, we're on to Tiffany's second draft. With this particular draft, Tiffany focused on improving the initial buildup.
Wow, what a difference. The questions I asked sparked ideas in Tiffany I would never have thought to suggest.
The editor’s job isn’t to tell you what to put in the story. Her job is to ask questions that spark something from the writer’s own mind, bringing out the ideas the writer had in there all along. (Remind me to tell you later a story about Ursula Nordstrom and Maurice Sendak that won't fit in this post.)
That’s where the collaboration hits the sweet spot, where ideas beget ideas begetting solutions.
So let’s look at a visual of how the first chapter changed from the first draft to the second draft (click on the thumbnail for the full pic):
I used Merge Documents in Word to show the changes from the first draft to the second. Everything in blue is something she deleted or moved to another place. Everything in red is an insertion (mostly out of her head, brand-new, though there are some insertions from other places).
blue = deletions
red = insertions
Isn’t that amazing? Those are some huge chunks of changes. Mostly from just a few questions that I asked, and the questions my questions led her to ask (there was quite an email flurry going on in the revision phase).
She even came up with great solutions to many character problems that had been individually frustrating, but when she came up with connections to give them, such as Father Joe becoming the history teacher, it all smoothed out.
This revision led to more questions on my part, especially questions that sprung from some of the cool stuff she came up with in this draft.
How can we give the first chapter a better hook?
Is the opening dream giving away too much?
Can we bring up a particular scene to give the first chapter a cliffhanger? How can we let readers know they’re in for a mysterious, magical thriller?
Insert a particular scene later where it can add to the mystery and build-up?
Tighten the new material to flow more smoothly?
Then she turned in the next draft (just like the other thumbnails).
See how things changed drastically again? I am still constantly amazed at the creativity and spontaneity of ideas that comes out just in response to a few questions—and not to mention the ideas niggling in the author’s mind all the while I have the manuscript for revision!
So the first chapter, especially, continues to evolve. She implemented some of my suggestions, and the chapter we have in the final version is very much like the one she came up with for this version.
For example, I asked Tiffany to bring up a particular scene, to establish the mystery, suspense, and magic of the story and give the first chapter a cliffhanger. Look at the result:
I love that last line, "
If only I had the key, she thought. But she knew where it was--six feet under the soil of Alexandria, circling her mother's wrotting wrist."
A lot of the changes resulted from just a few key questions and suggestions. Really, Tiffany did all the work—I just had to ask the right questions.
That’s why drafting is so important—being willing to go back again and again to a book, if necessary.
Still more questions!
Detail-level questions
Should the letters be in a particular order? How can these be used to best advantage?
What is the motivation for minor characters?
How might we give the reader better context? Dates?
Can we clarify who the Fey are? Distinctions?
Who is the anonymous character in the sewing circle scene? (give her a name)
Here's a quick flip through the next couple drafts, showing how they changed, getting down to more details as the process progresses.
4th to 5th draft:
5th to 6th draft:
(The green is formatting changes.)
How did it change from first draft to last?
And that's just the first bit, so you can imagine how the whole book changed over time.
That’s it, folks. The editor is here to help you mold the book to be the best it can be. The writer does all the writing work—but the questions the editor asks should aid that process to challenge you to go above and beyond what your first draft was.
With a standalone, the editor will see your manuscript at a much more polished state than what you saw here, due to the time constraints of series publishing.
But the principle is the same. The editor is there to be a partner in making your book into the best book you can write. Making a good book great, through collaboration.
I have one last relationship cliche for you.
There are no happy ever afters—even married folk have to do the dishes, take out the trash, and all those mundane things (keep your day job)
Just because you're published doesn't mean your work is over. You have to promote your book too.
Go to conferences
Do local promotion—library, school visits, actively talking to booksellers before the book comes out and let them know you’re a local author, be willing to do what it takes to get out there and promote your book
Keep a blog or LJ.
HAVE A WEBSITE—and make it as good and informative as you can make it
network with other writers—sense of community, and gets the word out to other book-loving people
And keep writing! Make your second book and your third book even better than your first. Tiffany has already written book 2 and is now working on writing book 3 and revising book 2.
Oh, I lied. That's something they didn't hear in the presentation! ...because I have been thinking about it ever since.
There are happy ever afters, too.
Because when you're doing what you love, that is a happy ever after, despite--and because of--all the work you continue to do.
Thanks for listening. Hope this has been helpful. Any questions? (Really, I mean it. Ask your questions and I can address them in a later post.)
Continued from Part 6
Yesterday, we left off with the outline stage of In the Serpent's Coils. Let's continue with the rest of the revision process. Like I said yesterday, Tiffany went through 6 different drafts with me from first sample on 8/29/05 to turning in final draft to me on 7/31/06. So, over the course of a year—and this includes writing time, due to the nature of this kind of series work—she went from sample chapter and outline to full, fleshed-out manuscript.
For your own books, it might take more than a year from starting your first draft to finishing a final draft ready for submitting to a publisher. Holly Black spent five years working on Tithe before it was published, and Susanna Clarke, famous for Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell worked on that for 10 years before it was published.
However long it takes you, just don’t be afraid of the revision process, and don’t be afraid to get a trusted set of eyes to give you the kind of feedback that will improve it. Ask yourself the hard questions as you revise, and get someone to ask you the hard questions when you feel you’re too close to the work to see any problems.
Then, when you’re working with an editor, this process continues, and that editor will be the person asking even more questions.
Let’s look at the first chapter of the first draft, and see how it’s changed (click on the thumbnail for the full image).
As you can see, she starts the chapter off at a completely different place than in her sample. I really liked this, because I got a chance to get to know Corrine before we bundled her off to reform school.
I don’t believe I said to Tiffany that we needed more at the beginning for build-up to the scene with the uncle, but Tiffany’s instincts hit on that before I ever had to tell her.
Corrine going through the desk wasn’t right in the first chapter. She needed the motivation to be going through the desk, we needed to set up what was going on in the plot.
A good two or three chapters were added to the beginning of the book to establish who Corrine is, what she’s going through, who her uncle is, and why he doesn’t want her in his study.
All very important to getting her out the door to Falston, where the real mystery begins—and all indispensable to the story, because each of these scenes sets up the mystery Corrine must investigate and the danger that’s stalking her.
However, it still wasn’t quite finished. Questions I asked at this point:
Mostly big-picture, but some details
How can we increase the sense of mystery?
Why are the letters so intriguing to Corrine? (be more specific)
What is Corrine’s motivation? (perhaps she’s a “detective”/snoop, curious girl who can’t stop investigating) How can we establish her personality better?
What is Corrine’s talent (magically)?
How can we flesh out the characterization of minor characters?
How many students at the school?
How did reform schools work in that time period?
How can we condense/expand to give a better sense of the passage of time?
Overall, we still needed more buildup to make her wonderful ending really pay off. So we concentrated on that for
the next draft.
Continued from Part 5
(For anyone coming to this late, this is a talk from Life, the Universe, and Everything, a symposium/convention hosted at BYU in Provo, Utah, every February.)
Now we get to the most interesting part! You’ve found a publisher who is interested in your book. You get an offer! Now what?
Working with an editor is a relationship, like a marriage
Now we get to the title of my talk. Working with an editor is a relationship that thrives on collaboration. It’s your chance in a lonely industry to work with someone likeminded, who knows the business and who has an independent perspective on your book.
Your editor knows what will fit the market, and has a new perspective to flaws that perhaps you don’t see. You’ve been staring at this manuscript for a year or more. You might have glazed over a missing scene, filling the gaps in your mind and not even realizing that an outside reader would wonder at a leap in logic. Perhaps a subplot isn’t making sense.
What do you do?
Well, that’s what editors are for. A friend recently pointed out to me
this interview of Philip Pullman and Tamora Pierce.
Philip Pullman: This is where editors come in. Their function is to snatch the book from you and run away quickly!
Tamora Pierce: Yes, and then to come back and say, "Okay, here's what you were doing." And you're sitting there: Wow. I'm smarter than I thought.
An editor is the person who asks questions you might not have thought to ask yourself—or that you thought you’d asked, but then helps you realize you hadn’t answered them as completely as you could have.
Just as in dating, marriage cliches apply to the relationship between editor and author. I’ll just gloss over most of them really quick here:
- A good partner brings out the best in you
- Trust your editor, and she’ll trust you
- A good relationship is all about compromise
- Honesty is the best policy (or, hell hath no fury like an editor scorned)
Those mostly go well without explanation. But I want to say one thing on one, and then we'll focus in depth on another. Mostly, all of those encompass communication--both on the big things and the little.
A good relationship is about compromise
I would go even farther, with my MFHD training, and say that a good relationship is actually about consensus, coming to a solution that’s emotionally acceptable for all involved. Compromise usually means that one person wins and the other person loses, while consensus implies that both people win.
Try ideas your editor suggests, and learn to pick your battles. If you know how to communicate well with your editor, if you’ve established a relationship of trust with her and can communicate your needs and listen to her concerns, you should be able to find a solution acceptable to both of you.
A good partner brings out the best in you
This is the crux of the editor-author relationship, I think. The collaboration that occurs during this process should bring out the very best in you as an author.
Specific examples
So let’s look at the collaboration between one editor (me) and one author (Tiffany Trent/tltrent) and talk about the work that went into In the Serpent’s Coils, the first volume of the Hallowmere series. In this ten-book dark fantasy series for teen girls, six girls from around the world are drawn together to rescue their missing schoolmates and prevent catastrophy in an epic battle between dark Fey worlds and the mortal world.
From the back cover: Ever since her parents died, Corrine’s dreams have been filled with fairies warning her of impending peril. When she’s sent to live at Falston Manor, she thinks she’s escaped the danger stalking her. Instead the dreams grow stronger, just as girls begin disappearing from school.
Then Corrine discovers letters of forbidden love by a medieval monk who writes of his entanglement with a race of vampiric Fey—the same Fey who haunt Corrine’s dreams. Who are these creatures and what do they want? Corrine knows only one thing for sure: another girl will disappear soon, and that girl just might be her.
This book will be released this fall, so that means from conception in the summer of 2005 to publication it’s just over two years. More, if you count the time that Tiffany worked on her original idea that led to her being chosen to write Hallowmere, but you’d have to ask her how long she’d been mulling the idea around.
In series publishing, I as the editor get a chance to see the creative process at a much earlier stage. It’s very exciting to be there from the initial concept. So I think that as I take you on the journey of developing a series and one volume in that series, you’ll be able to think about how you might apply the things I talk about to your own manuscript at any stage of the process, both in your self-editing process as well as in how you work with an editor.
Back when I first started working for Mirrorstone, I was given a task: to find a series for teen girls. I’m a big fan of the work of Holly Black (
blackholly ) and Libba Bray (
libba_bray)—if you aren’t familiar with
Tithe or
A Great and Terrible Beauty, you should be!—and I was interested in seeing something like that, only set in the U.S. and perhaps historical, definitely dark, involving the Fey world (fairies). I wanted it to be creepy and suspenseful, but not gross hack-and-slash horror. I wanted it to be dark, but not gory. So with this and a list of other ideas in mind, I contacted several authors and asked them to pitch a story to me.
It was actually a local author,
Shannon Hale, who led me to Tiffany. I asked Shannon if she had any friends who wrote the kind of teen dark fantasy I was interested in acquiring. As a matter of fact, she had a friend who wrote just what I was looking for!
So Tiffany Trent, Shannon’s friend from grad school, "auditioned" alongside many other capable authors. Each author sent me a proposal that included a series outline, an outline of the first proposed book, and a sample chapter. (It should be noted that of the authors who auditioned, each had also completed at least one novel, whether published or not, as well--so they had shown they could write a full novel, in addition to their proposal.)
Here's the first two pages of Tiffany's sample chapter. (click on the image for a better look)
Let’s look at some of the things that attracted me to this sample:
- the writing was evocative, very good at using imagery
- she created a clear sense of mystery from the beginning
- the letter was a great way of bringing a different time period story into the mix, and I’d been very intrigued by her proposal of letters because I’d been recently intrigued by Possession
- the main character gets into immediate trouble, and you want to know what’s going on and why her uncle is so upset
- Tiffany’s writing was lyrical—a really well-established voice
But her sample wasn’t perfect, and her outline needed clarification. I actually asked her to flesh out the outline before making a final decision.
Questions at this stage:
Very big-picture, plot-oriented
Is this the right place to start the book? (actually, I'm not sure that I asked this one, but you'll see in later drafts that she asked it herself)
How can we build the relationships between the characters?
What are the rules of this magic system?
What point of the story is the climax?
Hallowmere was then born.
And the work was just beginning. Tiffany went through 6 different drafts from first sample on 8/29/05 to turning in final draft to me on 7/31/06. So, over the course of a year—and this includes writing time, due to the nature of this kind of series work—she went from sample chapter and outline to full, fleshed-out manuscript.
As this post has already gotten disproportionately long, we'll look at that process further in depth
next time.
Continued from Part 4
One last cliche for you, and then I can share the meat of the talk tomorrow--what happens once you get that contract.
It’s not you, it’s me
If you’ve followed the submission guidelines and your book is the right genre that the publisher is looking for, intended for the right audience, and all of those basics, you’re already doing better than most of the slush pile. If you’re starting to get feedback on rejections, it’s easy to get your hopes up and think “This could be the one!” and it can be even harder to realize that the writing still needs work.
Sometimes the story and the writing can be perfectly fine, though—brilliant, even—and you still get rejected. What do you do then? If your boyfriend breaks up with you, do you try to convince him to take you back, or do you use it as a learning experience for the next time?
Well, I can say from experience that it’s really, really hard to just walk away from what seemed to you like a perfectly good relationship, or even a possible relationship.
It can be just as heartbreaking for a writer to feel that kind of rejection from a house they’ve done their research on, over a manuscript they’ve labored over and are sure it’s good—the editor has no objections except to say “It’s not for me.”
The comfort in that situation is that it truly isn’t personal. It’s not you, and it’s probably not even the story. Any number of factors could be at work in the rejection in a dating relationship—they are already dating someone, or they have too much baggage and aren’t ready for a relationship.
In publishing terms, they couldn’t make a P&L work to be able to offer any kind of money, or they could have a forthcoming book already on the list covering too similar a topic. Again, any number of reasons.
And the most heartbreaking of all—perhaps there’s nothing standing in the way except personal taste or the whims of the market. Maybe no one in the house is into Greek mythology, or cats with ESP, or whatever your story is about, and don’t feel they could champion it with their whole hearts.
Chalk it up to what could have been and focus on finding someone new.
You want this to happen. Really, you do. Because that means it leaves you open to finding the right match. Your editor is your book’s champion in the house. If she’s not excited about it, you can guarantee that few people in the chain of selling your book will be either—marketing, sales, publicity, all depend upon the editor’s infecting them with the same excitement she feels for the book when she’s acquiring it.
Tomorrow: Working with an editor is a relationship--like a marriage
Continued from Part 3
Don’t play games
This goes back to “be yourself.” Simple and professional is the name of the game. There are no tricks to getting published. It’s all about the writing. Write well, write a good story, and if it’s also marketable you’ll find the right publisher eventually.
You might have heard authors saying “this trick worked for me,” or “this is the secret to getting published”—often including tricks that ignore the publisher’s submission guidelines. What they’re saying is simply "this worked for me." It won’t necessarily work for you, and it especially won’t work if you’re doing something that implies you don’t trust the publisher you’re submitting to.
In dating, would you use tricks to keep someone interested in you? Would it work, long-term, if they’re not a good match? It’s the same with publishers. If your work is not a good fit for them, for whatever reason, it will show.
I’ve had a few submissions in the past where the author had a certain "platform" (useful in nonfiction, not as much in fiction)—the ability to market the book to a built-in audience. For example, one had a connection in Hollywood.
But the story didn’t work. The writing was bad, the plot barely existent, and the concept wasn’t really very original. Despite the “trick” of having a built-in audience, the story didn’t hold up and I had to reject it.
Focus on the craft, focus on writing an amazing story. That will win out a good editor far beyond any gimmicks.
You are not the exception
If I say I don’t date smokers because I’m allergic to smoke, do you think I’ll make an exception just this once because this amazing guy happens to be a smoker?
Well, I won’t. I happen to like breathing.
It’s the same with publishers. You not only want to find a publisher, you want to find the right fit with a publisher.
I can’t stress enough how important it is to get familiar with their submission guidelines and catalog. Go to the bookstore and find books in the same genre/storytelling vein as the book you’re shopping around and target your submissions to them. Don’t just depend on the Writer’s Market or something like that—go to the publisher’s website and read their guidelines there, too.
With a new imprint like Mirrorstone—heck with any imprint, but especially with a new imprint, coming to conferences to listen to editors say what they’re looking for, searching the web for industry news and editor interviews, will also give you a better idea what they’re looking for.
I cannot tell you HOW MANY PICTUREBOOKS I received in the slush pile even after we specifically noted in our submission guidelines—including every writer resource that asked us—that we don’t publish picturebooks. Even now, after those guidelines have been in force for years, our assistant editor tells me that the slush pile is a good 30-50% picturebooks on any given day.
If they don’t publish something, your manuscript, no matter how perfect, isn’t going to be an exception.
I even wrote back to one person once, whose picturebook was pretty interesting. I said, “We don’t publish picture books, but we do publish fantasy for children and young adults. You’re welcome to submit if you write that kind of thing.”
She responded with, “Thank you for the reply, but fantasy is the one genre I don’t write.”
Why in the world then did she submit to Mirrorstone? Fantasy is the ONLY genre we publish!
Continued from Part 2
Play the field
You’ve heard this one before, right? When you’re first getting out there in the dating world, you can’t just zoom in on one person. You have to get to know a lot of people, figure out who has what you’re looking for. Who matches you.
It’s the same in publishing. You have to do your research. Find out which publishers publish the kind of books you write.
The more you target your submissions, the more likely you are to get past the slush pile. And once you have a query or a manuscript out there, get to work on your next book!
I know authors who have as many as four or more books they’ve finished and are shopping around, while working on the next one. I’m more impressed by an author who has finished more than one book before getting published—it lets me know they’re an independent hard worker. You should listen to what my friend Brandon Sanderson says in some of his panels here—he sold his sixth book while writing his 13th.
He’s (she’s) just a slow mover
Just like in dating, you have to decide if you have the patience to deal with slow movers in publishing. Well, you should know that most publishers are slow movers. Some who have submitted to me know that I’m probably way up there in slow responses, but I know I’m not the only editor out there with a slow turnaround time. I often have a lot of pressing deadlines, and I work for a very small new imprint.
That means that between me and my senior editor plus part of the time of an assistant editor (thankfully I don’t have to be the first reader on the slush anymore!), we do:
all the editorial work,
plus we help out with shows, promotions, launches,
we support our marketing staff,
we have meetings to plan out things with the art staff, schedule, acquisitions, etc
coordinate freelance copyeditors and proofers,
and all that—and we’re also looking for new authors at the same time. You can probably imagine that our schedules tend to get quite hectic, and that means we’re awfully slow movers.
In dating, being a slow mover might mean they’re not interested. But it might be that a slow mover is simply someone who does things slowly. In publishing, it truly does mean that we’re just slow movers! We take a while to decide, either way.
But it also means that you shouldn’t wait around for an ultra-slow mover to make a decision. As I’ve already talked about, you should have other irons on the fire—both in your writing projects (developing your talents, improving yourself, I suppose) and in your search for a publisher (continuing to date other people casually until someone decides to commit to a relationship).
Make sure that if you decide to “date around,” though, that the publisher accepts simultaneous submissions. I do. Many don’t. Watch the submission guidelines to be sure, and be sure to be clear that your submission is a simultaneous one.
If you work in a niche market, those opportunities may come as few and far between as my dating opportunities, but they’re out there, and you should be keeping yourself busy and going forward rather than twiddling your thumbs.
And if it’s been a while, don’t be afraid to follow up. If you had a great date with someone, it’s perfectly acceptable to wait a proper amount of time and then follow up with a quick email or call saying that you had a great time and seeing how they’re doing.
With editors, if you haven’t heard from someone after a month or two after their response time has passed (usually posted on their submission guidelines), it’s acceptable to send a quick email or postcard/letter just checking on the status of the manuscript. However, unlike dating, DO NOT CALL.
Editors are busy, and especially if she’s not concentrating on slush that day, your call will only put her on the spot and make her more likely to reject a manuscript she’d been on the fence about. Professional courtesy should always be at play here, on both authors’ and publishers’ parts.
If you commit to a relationship w/ someone, make sure you let everyone else know. If you have an offer on the table, let the other publishers considering your piece know before you make a commitment, though, because that might speed up their consideration.
However, ONLY do that if there really is an offer on the table.
Next post, Don't play games and You are not the exception
Well, I'm on a roll right now, and Law and Order is on the boring side, so I have time for one more cliche post tonight. Here you go--I think I'll actually post a couple.
Continued from Part 1
Put your best foot forward
Sending out a submission that isn’t as perfect as you can make it is like showing up for a date to the opera in torn jeans, smelling like you finished mucking stables. Clean up for your night on the town. Make sure your submission is as perfect as you can make it before sending it on. If you’re not the best at catching grammatical and spelling errors (and even if you think you are! it’s easy to miss them when you’ve read the cover letter or manuscript over and over), have a friend you can trust with things grammatical look it over for you and point out any errors.
Join a writing group or get a couple trusted alpha readers to help you make sure you’ve ironed out any problems with plot, characterization, mood, etc. before you start submitting.
You’re here finding out what I look for, which is perfect. Keep coming to events like this, and when you meet an editor who you feel would be right for your book, make sure your book is ready before sending it on. For people local to Utah, there are several other conferences you should be aware of:
CONDuit
SCBWI conference in March at UVSC every year
Writing for Young Readers at BYU every summer
(For readers not in Utah, look up your local events at http://www.scbwi.org or at your local college--often there will be similar events that will be extremely helpful.)
I personally am looking for great fantasy adventure stories told in evocative writing by authors who know the difference between middle grade and YA, etc.
Make sure you first focus on your craft, perfecting both your storytelling and your wordcrafting, before you start submitting.
You have to kiss a lot of frogs to meet your prince
Don't give up after your first rejection. Or your second or your third or your twenty-fifth. How many stories are out there of authors who made the rounds of publishers, whose book was finally published by that 26th or 50th publisher? Madeleine L’Engle’s Wrinkle in Time was rejected by 20-something publishers. Dr. Seuss, too. Keep going and don’t let yourself get discouraged. It’s about finding the right fit.
Tomorrow: Play the field, They're just a slow mover
Seeing as how my LTUE talk is all put together, it doesn't require any thought for me to at least give you a little beginning of the talk. I can't post the PowerPoint, because wow, that would take up a lot of space, but I can reproduce the points I made and hope you can make the connections. Really, nothing I say is new, but the dating analogy works really well (which is why I've heard so many editors use it, I'm sure), so hopefully you'll find it useful. Too bad you'll miss the pretty slides of all our covers from my introduction. Go to http://mirrorstonebooks.com to make up for that. :)
So, here goes...
Collaboration: The Editor's Role
in Making Your Book the Best Book You Could Ever Write
So you came here today expecting to hear a talk on working with an editor, right? What you didn’t know is that you’re going to get a lecture on dating. This is BYU, after all! How could I resist?
No, actually, despite my bachelor’s in MFHD—that’s marriage, family, and human development for those of you who aren’t BYU students—I’m really going to talk about collaboration with an editor. But I’ve come to find that dating can really become a great metaphor for a writer’s search for publication. So I’m going to use the idea of dating as a framework for my talk, and I think you’ll see there are some great insights we can gain, both as writers and editors, in learning how to “date” with a healthy attitude.
If you want to date, what do you do? Do you just start sending out emails to every guy or girl in your classes? Do you start asking out everyone you meet indiscriminately, barely pausing to ask their name? Of course not. You see someone in class that’s said something interesting, you join a club and meet people with similar interests, you see someone cute across the room at a friend’s party and you start a conversation. Getting published is the same way.
You have to treat it like you’re seeking a professional relationship—because you are. You are looking for a job; writing and getting that writing published is a job as much as it is an art.
Getting published is like dating
I'm going to use some dating cliches and apply them to the process of getting published. I'll post one today, then the next one tomorrow, etc. That way it'll break down to blog post length.
Today's cliche: Be yourself
What kind of books do you love to read? What kind of stories do you love to tell? “If you do what you love, the money will follow,” as the saying goes. Don’t choose to write the “next Da Vinci code” or “the next Harry Potter” because it happens to be hot right now. Even if your manuscript got accepted today, it would be another two years or so before you’d see it on the shelves, and by then the trend will be over and people will be excited for some other hot new thing. Write what you love. Because it will show.
That also applies to originality. I was reading an agent’s blog the other day (full credit, it was agentobscura, I think--I've tried to link that several times to her LJ but it keeps messing with me, so I give up--who has been talking about this subject a lot recently), and she talked about how sometimes authors write the book they know their editor will accept rather than the masterpiece they’ve been wanting to write for years. There’s something to be said for marketability, but you have to allow your inspiration to lead your perspiration, because it’s your individual voice and originality that stands out when an editor is looking for the next big thing.
Next post: Put your best foot forward
Here are some upcoming topics that I've been meaning to blog about but haven't due to time constraints (or the fact that I never thought of them until this weekend). This is your place to comment and tell me other things you'd like to see here on my LJ.
Planned soon:
A recap of my LTUE talk, Collaboration: The Editor's Role in Making Your Book the Best Book You Could Ever Write (unofficial subtitle: Getting Published Is Like Dating). Possibly including video; expecting a DVD from the symposium committee soon.
Recommendations of writing books
A full list of all the great children's lit sites out there on the web, including blogs I read, authors to watch, informative publishing resources, etc.
Updated links to things like Cynthia Leitich Smith's new LJ, which I don't have right on hand and am feeling too sinusy to look up right now (but go look for Tantalize, which is out in stores)
A review of Wicked Lovely and anything else I've read lately
Pictures from LTUE with recaps of fun events such as going to the Christa McAuliffe Space Center and running a simulation of Star Trek's Voyager, all those great dinners with writing groups--including asking for people to identify themselves because so many names and faces were introduced to me this weekend that I'm unlikely to match them up well myself, RiffTrax Saturday night with friends from Timewaster's Guide, and other various LTUE related stuff
Planned someday:
Thoughts on things that LTUE discussions sparked (though it tends to be leaving my brain as I type, and I'm not feeling completely up for remembering right now)
Whatever other things you want to hear about.
I'm sure there was something else, but the lucidity is gone again. I'm seriously considering going home early and sleeping the rest of the day. Apparently the barometric pressure is much greater here at sea level than it was up in the mountains in Utah. Though the altitude wasn't kind on my lungs (I felt like the infection was becoming bronchitis, but it turns out I can breathe just fine here at home), it did remove some of the pressure on my sinuses that now seems to have come back.
I forgot to mention that I-Sci-Fi, a live internet broadcast that has talked with pretty much every science fiction and fantasy author out there, did a show at LTUE last week. You can find the podcast of the interview with me here, in Part 2 of 2 (I'm not sure how to link each episode directly, so for future reference it's episode 296b). Also interviewed that evening (and probably more entertaining than me trying to remember the name of a Capistan something or other engine) were Julie Wright, Brandon Sanderson, Gloria and Ed Skurzynski, and Julie E. Czerneda. Other LTUE guests interviewed at other times have included Bob Defendi (a Writers of the Future winner) and Howard Tayler.
I got a great thank-you gift from the con committee, that I just had to share pictures of.
It included a great tote bag (I'm all about the great tote bags!)...
a funny bumper sticker that I haven't quite decided where I'll put it...
Also, a BYU mug for my love of hot chocolate, and to prove I've been in Utah, a box of lime Jello. Carrots not included. :)
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Thanks Daren, I loved LTUE. This was my first year there and I can guarantee it won't be my last. I loved it!
Bob Defendi was in my old writers group. He has a way of filling a room, and I don't just mean physically.
What I want to know is, how useful is this conference for those of us who don't usually write sci-fi?
I write fantasy and for me it was still amazing. But then, fantasy is very similar to sci fi.
There were a few other genre specific panals there and some general writing panals that even writers of nonfiction could enjoy.