I attended The Writers Digest Conference for 2016 in Manhattan this past weekend, and I had a wonderful time, and I learned a great deal of information about writing and publishing.
First I would like to give my deepest thanks to my extraordinary mother-in-law and father-in-law. They are wonderful people, whom I love, and I am grateful for their hosting me for the weekend. They live on Staten Island, and I made the commute to uptown Manhattan by bus, ferry, and bus. The part of the commute I loved was the ferry ride, which is still free. I love any kind of boat or ship, so I felt as excited as a child to ride the ferry.
The conference was both fun and educational. I was able to meet many other writers, attend valuable sessions that gave important information on a variety of subjects that writers need to know, and the agent pitch slam went very well. During the pitch slam, each author has 3 minutes to pitch his/her book and take questions from the agent. If the agent is interested, he/she gives you a card and instructs what to send them. I pitched my YA book: The Ameriad: The Monastery of Knowledge to seven agents, and six requested I send them a variety of information. While nothing is ever certain, I still consider that to be successful.
Finally, I want to mention that author David Baldacci gave the main keynote address, and he was exciting, informative, honest, humble, and amusing. He showed a very human side and was a very warm and gracious person. I have read most of his books, and I think they are among the very best thrillers written. As a person, from the little interaction I had with him, he struck me to be a warm and genuine human being.
This was a very successful experience, and I recommend it highly to any authors who can attend in the future.
Nice! And I hope everyone is noticing how hard you are working to make yourself an “overnight success”! This is how it’s done…
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Thank you!!!
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That is awesome. Well done, glad you could enjoy it. Good to keep on learning and refreshing memory and ideas.
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Thank you, and continued learning is crucial to success.
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That’s true as can be. I find it the same, there is always something extra to learn.
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And, I hope, that we always continue to learn in as many ways as we can.
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It sounds like a really helpful event – and very well done on the pitch slam, as that’s a very high feedback rate:)). Fingers crossed you get further interest! I’ve not read any of David Baldacci’s books, but it’s always very gratifying (and a huge relief) when a favourite author turns out to be a thoroughly nice human being. I go to Fantasycon every year and have been fortunate enough to meet up with a number of my favourite authors, or see them in action on panels and only rarely found them to be anything other than approachable and friendly.
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Thank you. I have also found most people, in fact, almost everyone I have met, in the publishing world to be warm and generous people.
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This is exciting news. What a great conference, and clearly you did very well in your agent pitch slam (you are modest so I will say it). I would love to have been a fly on the wall, but I can look forward to buying and reading your YA book. So very happy for you!
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Thank you very much!!
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You are welcome!
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The value of writer’s conferences can’t be understated. Thanks for sharing the experience, Charles. I’m a little jealous – just a teensy bit.
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You are welcome, and you should attend conferences if you can.
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Writing conferences have a way of inspiring us to keep on writing. The workshops are often a lot of fun and usually leave us with a few nuggets of new information and renewed writing energy.
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Yes, I agree. I found useful information from all the sessions I attended.
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What a wonderful experience and next year, I am going, for sure! (As long as I can go by train). 🙂
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I am pretty sure that you can take a train–what a wonderful way to travel that is!
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Sounds like such a great experience! I would love to go in the future.
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If you can do it, you should definitely attend writing conferences.
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Sounds like your pitch was successful. Good luck. I enjoy reading Baldacci’s books. Lucky you for being there to hear him.
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Thank you, and it was wonderful to hear him speak.
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