Christopher Newport Writing Conference
Blog posts regarding the CNU Writer’s Conference may be found below …
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2010 CNU Writer’s Conference Notes
Spent a fun day at the Christopher Newport Writer’s Convention . . . more to come tomorrow. So far it’s been the usual mixed bag: one speaker really pissed me off (which is unusual and, unfortunately, prompted me to break at least one of my own Rules for Networking at Conventions–see previous post, below), one bored me, one intrigued me, and so on. The people attending were fun to meet, and I loved the author readings (which of course I participated in!) — some damn fine readers and writers out there! Kudos to all with the courage to stand up in front of a crowd . . . I know my knees were shaking for ten minutes after I sat back down! Looking forward to tomorrow . . . .
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Wow, what a big change. No, not in the conference — that’s pretty much the way it always has been, some good, some bad, some blah. No, this change was in ME. For the first time, I walked out of a writing conference feeling that I’d held my own, that I’d smiled enough, talked to people appropriately, and gathered lots of valuable information. Believe me, this is huge: in previous years I left rather depressed and feeling like a failure.
And I finally figured out WHY: this particular conference, while it is a good conference, is not geared towards science fiction, fantasy, or horror. (Unless it’s children’s or YA style.) This is a conference for poets, for mystery writers, for children’s books and literary fiction, for people who want to write (and get paid) like Tom Clancy and John Grisham. It’s a conference where a book of historical fiction or regional ghost stories can find a warm audience, and where only one person I met the whole weekend knew the names Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.
No wonder I always went home from this conference, in the past, thinking I couldn’t ever get anywhere! While everyone was wonderfully friendly, and I had a great time, I got nothing specifically helpful to my chosen genre out of the event, and I never will. Once I let go of that expectation, everything went smoothly, and I met lots of awesome people, such as Temple Cone, a first rate poet and teacher, who held a workshop on Writing With Allusion that really helped me open up my perceptions of poetry writing. (He also has a great web site: http://www.templecone.com.) Another workshop I loved was “Marketing to Book Groups,” run by Katherine Schultz and Gretchen Gillen; they offered a wealth of excellent tips on how newly published writers can expand their audience by just showing up and talking to book groups. They do not have a web site as such, but a bit more information about their work can be found in a Daily Press article here: http://tinyurl.com/yhnqht2
Another fun person was Ann Shalaski, whom I’ve known for years; she is an amazing poet, and a beautiful person inside and out. While she does not have a web site just yet, information on her and upcoming appearances may be found here: http://www.word4wordpoets.org/shalaski/ . I strongly recommend going to any reading of hers you can; she is a terrific reader and well worth listening to. I was also happy to catch up with Becky Mushko, whose newest children’s novel, “Ferradiddledumday,” I couldn’t resist buying; it’s an Appalachian retelling of Rumpelstiltskin, and written with her usual distinctive voice. She has a great web site at: http://www.beckymushko.com/, complete with writing samples.
Other people of note included Karen Johnston, whose Civil War Mystery novel, “The Witness Tree and the Shadow of the Noose” I bought for my grandkids; she’s an amazing person, reader, and writer. Information on the book may be found here: http://kemjohnston.com/index_files/page0006.htm. Then there was Tina Morris, whose poetry reading literally made me cry; she has a ton of her work up on her site, and it’s all worth reading: http://www.tinammorris.com. Likewise, Sandy Green’s poetry is excellent stuff: http://www.sandygreen.webs.com.
There were many many many more people, but many had no business cards, web sites, or blogs; disappointing, really, as I love collecting information on other creative types! But I still came away with a handful of terrific contacts, and a sincere interest in attending next year’s conference.
To all of you I met: thank you! I loved meeting you. For those I didn’t get to speak to: I wish I had . . . please do drop me a line anyway! I want to hear from you. And for those who didn’t even attend the conference: dang it, show up next year! You won’t regret it — if you come in with the right attitude.
