FLORIDA DAZE, WRITERS CONFERENCE & MICHAEL CHABON

Quiet on the blog front for oh-so-many reasons. Jon and I took a week plus to travel to Florida and check on his mom's property there. Between watching the sunrise over the river, feeding the turtles in the marina, and taking walks on balmy mornings, we oversaw the installation of new carpeting and a kitchen floor and spent hours in Bed, Bath & Beyond buying kitchen necessities like shelf paper, cutting boards and zesters. The home has no Internet access and we found ourselves reading more, going to bed earlier and calming down quite a bit. I can't remember when I've been so relaxed!

We got home in time to vote and now we're both ratcheted up to cope with the real world.

Last weekend we enjoyed attending the Montgomery County Community College Annual Writers Conference in Blue Bell, PA. The keynote speaker Friday night was Michael Chabon, Pulitzer Prize winning author of novels including The Yiddish Policemen's Union and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. I have never heard a more inspirational, powerful, or entertaining speech in my entire life. Chabon, who claims to truly enjoy the Q&A format, asked himself questions, a most clever way to tell us what he wanted to tell us. His comments ranged from the value of an MFA program (for him, it meant everything) to where he gets ideas (the easiest thing about writing--they are everywhere!). I felt myself tearing up during his speech as he talked about the magic and agony of writing. If you ever get the opportunity to hear him, don't pass it up.

I sat on the agent's panel where the audience of writers lined up to ask questions of me and six other agents. The questions don't change too much in my experience, although sometimes they are quite bizarre. There seemed to be much interest in self-publishing and many of the questions related to that: I've self-published a novel--will publishers still be interested? (Yes and no. It depends on you, the topic of the book and how many copies have sold.) I want to write a very nichey book on real estate fraud. Should I self publish? (Yes.) Other questions included one about a cookbook memoir, a very hot topic now, even without star-quality.

The first question to the panel was rather blunt: You all say you get 100s of queries a week--why are you here? It seemed obvious to me that the author was sick and tired of being whined at by busy agents and wanted to know how we had the gall to take time off from reading queries to immerse ourselves in the rich literary stew of the writers conference. One of the agents answered in kind: "You need to know most queries are crap!" The rest of us added that you can only read queries for so many hours a day--you need to take frequent breaks to recharge and get your head on straight. A writers conference gives agents the perfect opportunity to talk shop, hear new ideas and maybe find new clients.

After the agent panal Jon and I and the other agents interviewed authors in the typical writers conference "speed dating" format.

The MCCC Writers Conference is a classy affair, always held in November. I encourage you to think about attending next year.

WRITERS CONFERENCE WEEKEND

I sat on the agents' panel at the Montgomery County Community College Writers Conference in Blue Bell, PA last weekend. The entire affair was classy and smoothly run. As usual at these events, I don't know who benefited more, the agents or the authors.

After giving brief comments about ourselves and our book "wish lists," we agents answered questions from the audience. The questions were excellent. Here are a few samples:

• Do you need to be a celebrity to sell a memoir? Answer: No. But you need to be a powerful writer with a memorable and life changing story. (One of the agents quipped that it would be very cool if you'd given birth to an alien baby.)
• Is "chick lit" dead? Answer: No. Now it's called women's fiction.
• Is it OK to send a query for a novel that is not completed yet? Answer: NO.
• Is it OK to send a query that includes several projects? Answer: No, no, no.
• What about poetry? Answer: Oh, dear. Most agents love poetry. Trouble is, there is not enough money to go around, so there are few, if any, agents representing the genre.
• Is it best to email or snail mail queries? Answer: It depends on the agent. Find out which format they prefer before sending. There is not a standard answer to this question. It's up to each individual agent.

After the panel discussion, Jon and I had 5-minute "dates" with authors. The authors were splendid--knowledgeable, passionate, innovative and funny. This part of the conference was especially well-managed by the MCCC staff.

All-in-all, it was a great writers conference. Montgomery County Community College is the ideal venue for this event with ample parking, beautiful campus, and great facilities. The writers conference is held every year at this time, so if Philadelphia is nearby, or if you would like to travel to Pennsylvania in the fall, consider going next November.

BOOKS & GARDENS

If you have a garden and a library you have everything you need. -- Cicero

How true that is, especially now when the hummingbirds are here, the zinnias are at their best and the delphiniums are about to bloom again. I'm reading The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I won't classify it as an easy read, but one I recommend, if you have an interest in the Dominican Republic, immigrant life in Patterson, NJ, or just appreciate tight, good prose and dialogue. If you understand a smattering of Spanish, that will help.

On the personal front: Jon's dad continues to languish under 24-hour nursing care in his home in Chicago. Jon's sister is there for the next week and Jon will return next week. Meanwhile, he's manfully trying to shrink his reading pile and deal with other agency business.

I've become acquainted with Michele Acker who invited me to be interviewed on her new blog, "The Write Brigade." Michele and other authors manage this interesting site and provide valuable support and information for writers. Drop in and see how you like it. My interview with Michele will appear on September 12 and I'll visit again on the 13th and 14th to answer questions.

And, if you are interested in attending a writers conference, consider the MCCC Writers Conference to be held in November on the campus of Montgomery County Community College in (Bluebell, PA) suburban Philadelphia. It will be held November 6-7 with Maxine Hong Kingston, author of The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, delivering the keynote address. I'll sit on an agent panel on the 7th and be available for author interviews that day. It would be wonderful to meet some of you!

Back to queries, back to partials, and, if I'm lucky, a manuscript!

QUERIES 101

First, let me thank Deb Schubert again for giving us such an insightful view of her experiences at two writing conferences. This kind of information is invaluable for writers, agents and editors.

I'm knee-deep in emailed queries this morning. It's my own fault. I have not been as diligent as necessary. I've endured several more queries about the "abused woman composer." I sure would like to know the back story there. I'm working through queries sent in May and should be into June by the end of the week. Progress is being made.

I'm still receiving queries for the following genres. PLEASE DON'T SEND THESE TO ME:

• Fantasy. If they are not contemporary, I'm not interested.
• Science fiction. Send them to jon@ktpublicrelations.com, not me.
• Attachments. If they are not requested, I won't open them and will delete the entire email.
• Loooooong queries in tiny print with no paragraphs. Ugh.
• Thrillers (with lots of car chases, espionage, and explosions). Ugh. Send them to Jon. (See above.) He's a real guy and often enjoys this stuff.

Sorry to keep harping on this kind of thing, but it makes the entire process much smoother if we all understand each other.

AUTHOR SHARES IMPRESSIONS OF WRITERS CONFERENCES

Note from Kae: Deb Schubert is an author (and now friend) who is shopping for an agent and a publisher for her women's fiction and a cozy mystery series. Thanks so much for this, Deb!

THOUGHTS ON BEA AND BACKSPACE CONFERENCES, NEW YORK CITY, MAY ‘09
By Debra L. Schubert

First of all, Kae, I’d like to thank you for inviting me to fill you in on BEA and the Backspace Writer’s Conference from a writer’s perspective.

I was fortunate enough to attend both of these conferences during the last week of May in NYC. BEA – The Book Expo of America – was actually a five-day conference, but the first day, Wednesday, May 27th was the writer’s conference portion of the event. (The following four days were mainly for agents, editors, and booksellers.)

The day started out with an opening keynote speech by author Karin Slaughter. Karin is a petite blonde spitfire. Her genre is crime, but it may as well be comedy – she’s the Ellen Degeneres of the publishing world. She spoke of how she owned a sign company, although her true passion was writing. After ten years of seeking representation, she became an overnight success. Since then, she’s written several number one international bestsellers and doesn’t miss selling signs one single bit.

After that, I attended a workshop on “How to Write Great Characters” by author N.M. Kelby (author of the Whale Season and Murder at the Bad Girls Bar and Grill) and an agent panel featuring Janet Reid, Barbara Poelle, Michelle Andelman and Ted Weinstein regarding what agents are looking for in queries and sample pages. This included brave souls from the audience going on stage and pitching their stories. The afternoon was the Big Event – the terrifyingly wonderful (or just plain terrifying) PITCH SLAM! This is like speed dating for writers and agents. Sixty-six agents were in attendance and you could pitch your story to as many agents as you could fit in to the two-hour time slot. There were no sign-up sheets. You just got in line in front of the agent you wanted to pitch to and waited your turn. My genres are women’s fiction and cozy mystery, but I was pitching only my women’s fiction novel. I met with six agents and all six asked for sample pages (one even asked for the full ms!). It was a miracle that my stomach made it out of the enormous Jacob Javitz Convention Center along with the rest of me. To tell you the truth, at the time I wished it hadn’t. I was a bundle of nervous energy, as I’m sure most of the writers were.

The Backspace Conference was a three-day event held at the Radisson Martinique Hotel. The first day was Agent-Author day where your query and first two pages were critiqued. Different groups of agents rotated through and listened to your work. They’d stop you when the pitch or pages no longer worked for them and gave their opinions. This was also fairly brutal. However, that’s the whole reason writers attend conferences – to receive honest critiques and hopefully click with an agent. The second and third days were filled with wonderful workshops including a role-playing exercise in which different publishing industry parts such as editor, marketing manager, publicist, etc. were taken on. Led by Agent Jeff Kleinman, it was fun and informative. I learned you need to have as much of a platform as possible, even for fiction. Another panel I attended was entitled, “The Agent-Author Relationship” led by two agents and two of their published clients. This relationship really is like a marriage on a lot of levels. First of all, you have to “fall in love” with each other, or at least the agent needs to fall in love with your work and as a writer you must feel he/she is the “right” person to go to bat for you. It’s also, hopefully, a LTR, one that lasts throughout your whole career. It was interesting to see how the personalities of the agents and authors on the panel “matched.” Another interesting panel discussion was with Agents Matthew Mahoney, Alexandra Machinist, and Colleen Lindsay. It was entitled, “What Literary Agents Want and Why It’s So Hard to Find Representation.” They spoke about keeping their eyes on the current market, being aware of what editors are looking for, and writing great queries and, of course, a great book.

With the exception of the Agent/Author Day at Backspace, my overall impressions of both conferences were that they were extremely worthwhile and I would highly recommend them to any serious writer with a completed manuscript. The problem with Agent/Author Day was that we were supposed to be able to pitch to at least two groups of agents, but only got to pitch to one. Given the cost of the day (approx. $200), I would say this was not worth the money. The people running the conference are aware of the problem, so hopefully it will be corrected by next year. However, the 2-day workshop portion of the Backspace Writer’s Conference was invaluable as was BEA.

If you have any questions, please feel free to stop by my blog and ask away. Again, I’d like to thank Kae for the opportunity to share my thoughts on these wonderful conferences.

AN INSIDE TRACK TO WRITERS CONFERENCES

BookExpo America (BEA) is just around the corner. It's sure to be a hot time for agents, authors, editors, publicists, sales people, marketing pros, book distributors, buyers, and everyone else associated with the world of book publishing. This year BEA is being held in New York City and in the days leading up to the actual BEA weekend there will be two excellent writers' conferences: BEA Writers Conference is co-sponsored by Writers Digest and the BEA; Backspace Writers Conference is "the new kid" among writers conferences, but is developing a sterling reputation.

One of our readers, Debbie Schubert, is fortunate enough to be attending BOTH of these events and has agreed to be our eyes and ears. Check back after BEA to read about Debbie's impressions of these prestigious conferences. She's going to guest blog here.

I'd be interested in hearing from others out there who have attended or are planning to attend various writers conferences (not just BEA-related). Send me a quick email with details? kae@ktpublicrelations.com

LOTS OF IDEAS IN IDAHO

We're back from a lovely week in Boise, Idaho. Let me tell you a bit about Boise. It is one of the nicest cities in the country, a secret the Boise residents don't want me to reveal. But I just can't help myself. Why is it so great?

• Climate: I was born and raised just outside of Denver, Colorado and have NEVER gotten used to the humidity and skunkiness of the Northeast. (Skunkiness is defined as grey, hot days with lots of haze, heat and humidity.) Summer in Boise features blue skies, sun, dry air and cool nights--just like my hometown.
• Emphasis on the outdoors: There's a greenbelt that runs from miles and miles all along the Boise River. You can walk. You can run. You can bike. You CAN'T drive a car! Parks and festivals abound. Bike lanes are common. What a place to raise a family. What a great place to live as gas prices continue to soar.
• Lots of coffee shops that AREN'T Starbucks: Each one is unique and...you can walk there!
• Nice people: It's true. On the surface at least, people in Idaho are nicer than people in the Northeast. From waitresses to rental cars, we were overwhelmed with kindness, manners and thoughtfulness. They are even nice at the airport!

I'm sure I just scratched the surface. Boise offers a lot more.

The purpose for our visit to Boise was to spend time with my brother and his family. While we were there we gave a workshop for authors at the Garden City Library just outside the city limits. (The library is brand new and gorgeous.) About 30 authors attended our presentation and afterwards we met with as many as time would permit to discuss their individual projects.

I was impressed with the quality of the writers we met. If you read this blog regularly, you can guess what we talked about--the business of writing and the quality of the work. The authors asked interesting and intelligent questions such as: How much money do publishers pay as advances? (It depends.....) How popular is narrative nonfiction? (Very.) Is it OK to query several agents at one time? (Sure. Just don't put all their email addresses in the "send" field.) Do we use an author-agent contract? (Yes.) How do we negotiate the author-publisher contract? (With great respect and humility and an eye on the bottom line, public relations, and marketing.)

My personal favorites that evening? The young lady who considers herself a modern pirate and the gentleman who sees the world through the experience of making omelets. Jon's personal favorite is an author whose partial we had already requested. She, her children and her mother drove 5 hours from Salt Lake City to meet us. With this kind of effort on the part of authors, we just hope we were helpful.

Look out New York--the Boise authors are headed your way!