Literary Conference

Hey All!

So this weekend I attended Slice Literary Conference in Brooklyn. To be honest, it was one of my first literary conferences. I attended plenty of writing workshops, but never a conference which held panel discussions with agents, editors and authors. It was a great experience and I learned MUCH about the publishing world. Here are the top three pieces of advice the professionals gave us:

1) Be involved in social media: Whether it's a blog (such as this), a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a Tumblr, etc., it's important to have an active Internet presence. In this way a writer can build a readership or at least a following prior to publishing their novel.

2) Envision your own goal or idea of success: There was a specific panel about what "success" means to writers, but I found that this message was brought up throughout the entire conference. Success is truly subjective and it always helps that writers set goals for themselves and do all they can to accomplish them. Don't look to the agent or the editor to make your dream happen. Instead, view them as helpful appendages and continue striving for your vision of success. For instance, my dream would be to complete and publish the novel I am currently working on. In order to do this I will need the assistance from professionals, but I won't strictly depend on them to tell me how I need to be successful and I let anyone force changes to (meaning HUGE transformations, not edits) my work or my goals.

3) Be willing to adapt: In each panel, everyone discussed the editing process. Some beginning writers fail to realize that the editing process prior to publication is in fact quite constant. If you have an agent, they will more than likely send you edits before approaching editors. In turn, once an editor picks up your novel for publication they will also send edits. This could be anything from further character development to complete overhauls of structure. Writers must accept that these edits are in the interest of them as well as the books they care so much about. Not everything must or should be changed, but to be open minded about suggestions and changes is very important when getting ready to publish a novel or book of any kind.

Here are a few pictures of what the attendees were given by Slice:

The first day attendees were given this great canvas bag.

 

Inside was a hard cover copy of Patricia Engel's new novel, which I am very excited to read! I never thought that I would be given a free brand new novel just because I attended a literary conference. I attended a two week long summer intensive workshop at NYU and the coordinators had us buy the books of the authors to be instructing us (even after paying the thousands of dollars to attend)!

 

 

Along with the novel, Slice gave us a free copy of their literary journal as well as a copy of Poets & Writers magazine. I am quite excited to read Slice's issue, since I'm sure it contains many talented writers. I am familiar with Poets & Writers, having subscribed before, so it will be nice to delve into their articles about authors and updates about the publishing industry.

If you're a writer of any kind I definitely suggest finding groups, conferences, workshops to attend that will allow you to meet people, gain knowledge and hone your work. Every time I attend workshops or conferences my writing improves and my drive to be a legitimate author increases.