Guild workshop closes out the weekend
The Alaska Writers Guild workshop closed out today with a Q&A panel featuring all the faculty. Among the high points of the weekend, I enjoyed publicist Paula Margulies’ talk on “Book Publicity on a Budget”—especially when I found myself getting an unexpected plug by attendees in the room when someone asked a question about website packages made especially for writers. (For those who asked, I have re-posted info about AlaskaWriters Web Packages.) Thanks!
I did not get to attend every session, due to being silly and double booking myself (or just talking too much). But of the sessions I did get to, other highlights included:
- The breadth and depth of information offered up by literary agent/rights lawyer Paul Levine, who addressed everything from how to write an effective query letter to the protections offered by registering for copyright. Some might have found him overly blunt, but I enjoyed him even when his inner Simon Cowell came out.
- Having the privilege to watch as an Alaska colleague pitched the same agent a book series—and HOOKED him. I understood immediately, because the pitch hooked me too—from a compelling central character to an author so calm and composed that I could already imagine her on Oprah. I won’t reveal anything more, except to say it was a thing of a beauty.
- Winning a really fun-sounding auction item: a sourdough breakfast/brunch for 6 put together by a couple of gourmands who live on Sand Lake.
- Participating in a little “acting out” with dramatist Andy Harmon, who walked a roomful of more than 100 through an exercise—part improv, part therapy—that called on writers to speak in the voices of “sub-personalities” to help better understand the stories, heroes and writers in us all.
- Meeting up with many people I’d previously only “met” via e-mail to AlaskaWriters.com—as well as colleagues and friends I not seen for many years.
Good to see you all. And kudos to AlaskaWriters member Jim Misko, an officer of the Alaska Writers Guild and prime mover behind both the guild and the event.
August 23, 2009
