Yesterday evening, I went to the James River Writers’ Show! I’d been to the JRW annual conference several times, but this was my first Writing Show. Excellent fun.
There was a social first, and another one halfway through. These are great at writers’ conferences because you have a built-in conversation-starter: “What do you write?” And the variety of the answers is fascinating. I talked with a fellow who does technical writing for businesses but is trying to get into creative nonfiction, a retired librarian who’s writing a novel for a class at VCU, a man from Turkey who writes stories from “the old country” in both English and Turkish, a woman who writes sci-fi and horror, and another woman who writes alternate-world fantasy.
This month’s show had a broad enough topic to interest everyone, and I think the panel addressed it admirably. Of course, there’s only so much you can say in an hour and a half, but they addressed Creative Writing MFAs, publishing novels and short stories, writers’ conferences and retreats, and more. I especially appreciated some specifics they mentioned, like the websites NewPages and Duotrope, which let you search for fiction and poetry publications. Very useful.
I also got to say hi to Professor Robbins and meet some of the other people who run James River Writers. It’s a great group. If you’re a writer and anywhere near Richmond, you might check it out.
May 1, 2009 at 9:42 pm
You hadn’t known about Duotrope? Oh, gosh, I would have told you. That’s how I’ve found all the markets I’ve sold stuff to (and all the cool markets that continue to reject me but with which I hope to place my work someday).
May 8, 2009 at 1:22 am
It’s an awesome search engine! So, is there anything else you’ve been assuming I knew about? 🙂