Great conference = great blogging

Lots of blogging going on from SCWC conferees and staffers alike, talking about their most recent conference adventures, what they learned, drank and took away from SD24. Here’s some of the latest…

Claudia Whitsitt on SD24

Gayle Carline’s SD24 De-brief

Nick Valentino’s conference wrap

Janet Tait Takeaways from the Southern California Writer’s Conference Part 1: Cross-Reading Leads to Better Metaphors and Takeaways from the Southern California Writer’s Conference, Part 2: Platform Building for Fiction Writers

Lesley Vance on What is Copyright?

Kirsten Imani Kasai special guest speaker follow-up

Bob Yehling’s Afterglow from the SCWC

J. R. Peregrine’s SCWC report

Jeremy Lee James’ “One Flew Over the Twitter’s Nest” workshop follow up

If you’re blogging about the conference, let us know so that others may too.

–msg

Anatomy of a bad query letter

From the Guide to Literary Agents blog is this little piece: “Anatomy of a Bad Query Letter: When a Good Idea Gets Buried and Good Intentions Go Wrong,” from Chuck. (I don’t know who Chuck is.)

Initially, my thinking was it’s waaay too deliberately contrived, simplistic and sophomoric an example to post here on the SCWC blog. On second glance, however, the query letter used as an example is one that time and time again I’ve actually come across, in one iteration or another, and in fact runs rather rampant in the industry from emerging writers not yet firmly grounded in the business.

Chuck did a good job critiquing it. A worthwhile read.

–msg

We love having readers (egomania?)

I wanted to take some time to consider a couple of comments from our readers since, well, we have them. Both readers and comments, I mean. Truly, we’re delighted to have them.

Our friend Gayle noted, in response to my not-so-subtle hint that I never know what I’m doing:

I really did think you were, like, totally in charge, knew what needed to be done, etc.

Truth told, I only came up with the idea, and that only because I was in a particularly snotty mood. I had been lecturing a friend on his own blog, which I felt he could utilize to much better results. And in telling him about the weblog of one of my favorite authors, and how the writer managed to strengthen his relationship with readers, I strayed into dangerous territory. I told him about being surprised at LA5 when I found out there was no email list for regular updates on speaker selection, workshop development, and general conference news. Of course, what are we, The Young and the Restless? (“Will Michael spurn Wes for Edwin, or will they compromise in time to attend the Friday Night Poetry Slam together?”)

Real cliffhanger, that.

Um … yeah, about that thing with the Comments

Perhaps this would be a good time to mention that we did fix the Comments feature on the SCWC blog. I mean, since I forgot to mention it last week. And especially since I am unsure how long the restriction was in place, suffice to say that I was thoroughly embarrassed when I figured out that I had asked people to give us their two cents’ worth on the passing of Arthur C. Clarke, and, well, you know ….

Or maybe you don’t.

At any rate, we’ve taken care of that little glitch, so drop a line and say hi. Really, we’d love to hear from you.

(Please?)

-bd