Western Reserve Writers Conference 2022
Introduction
I attended the 37th annual Western Reserve Writers Conference on March 26, 2022. They held the Conference at the South Euclid-Lyndhurst branch of the Cuyahoga County Public Library at the William N. Skirball writer’s center at the branch. It was a one-day event with an introduction, a keynote speaker, three breakout sessions, and one first-page critique panel.
This is the link to the Cuyahoga County Library.
https://www.cuyahogalibrary.org/
This is the link to the writer’s center at the library branch.
https://www.cuyahogalibrary.org/Services/William-N-Skirball-Writers-Center.aspx
Summary
Saturday, March 26th at 9:30 AM
Welcome and Conference Overview
Deanna R. Adams is the conference coordinator and Laurie Kincer is the librarian in charge of the writer’s center.
Laurie explained how they set up the library, where the three meeting rooms were located, and about the door prizes available at 4 PM. Deanna introduced the keynote speaker, Erin Hosier.
They held the welcome and conference overview in the meeting room A/B/C with about 90 attendees.
Saturday, March 26th at 9:40 AM
Keynote Speaker: The Who, What, When, Where, and Why of Literary Agents.
The keynote speaker was Erin Hosier. She is a veteran agent and author.
Erin specializes in representing non-fiction biographies, memoirs, and contemporary fiction. She gave an example of one of the books that she sold from submission to publication. Self Care by Leigh Stein is a contemporary fiction novel. It was pitched to 25 editors in March 2019. 23 responded and they held an auction three weeks later. The winner was Penguin books which published the novel on June 30, 2020.
In a Query Letter, it is important to get the comp titles correct and make them recently published.
She went over the steps for a book proposal for non-fiction works.
An editor accepted her proposal for her memoir, Don’t Let me Down: A Memoir. It took her seven years to write it.
She gets about 50 proposals a month and accepts about five per year.
They held the talk in the meeting room A/B/C with about 90 attendees.
Saturday, March 26th at 10:30 AM
Breakout Session: What Authors Should Know About the Law: Publishing Law 101.
The presenter was Jacqueline Lipton. She is a literary attorney and literary agent.
Jacqui wanted to write a book about explaining legal matters simply for writers because that book was not on the market.
She went over copywriting basics.
Trademarks are a tricky concept. She explained it this way. Trademarks (commercial) versus patent (ideas) versus Copywrite (also ideas).
Goodreads link to Jacqui’s book: Law and Authors: A Legal Handbook for Writers
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51852533-law-and-authors
Jacqui is the founder of the Raven Quill Agency found at this web address.
They held the talk in the meeting room A/B/C with about 40 attendees.
Saturday, March 26th at 3:00 PM
Breakout Session: Writing and Submitting Short Stories.
The presenter was Marie Vibbert. She has sold over 70 short stories and her debut novel, Galactic Hellcats.
What is a short story? She describes it this way. It is a complete story of about one thousand to eight thousand words. A short story is enjoyable and impacts the reader emotionally. It has at least four ideas covering character, place, a problem, and a theme.
Her advice is to know and read in your genre. Every genre has its own conventions which you learn by reading. She writes science fiction almost exclusively. Fantasy doesn’t work for her.
Beginnings are crucial. Figure out the beginning of the story to fit with the ending.
So, you have a draft. What now? Here are three ways to find markets to sell.
For Science Fiction stories, you can submit them to any of the SFWA qualifying markets.
https://www.sfwa.org/?s=market+report
Qualified markets pay a professional rate.
Use the submission grinder to track your submissions.
https://thegrinder.diabolicalplots.com/ Use an open call in a Facebook Group.
This is the link to the Goodreads page for Galactic Hellcats.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53388150-galactic-hellcats
They held the talk at the Homework Center with about 30 attendees.
Recommendation – Conclusion
The Western Reserve Writers Conference 2022 returned well. I attended the conference in 2019, but they canceled the conference in 2020 and 2021 because of COVID-19. I’m glad they held the conference, and it seems as well attended as before the pandemic. My Star of the Con was Marie Vibbert. She had some brilliant advice for aspiring short story writers. I saw her speak at the virtual conference, Cleveland Inkubator 2021 and her presentation was great then too.
Links
I attended the 36th annual Western Reserve Writers Conference on April 27, 2019. They held the Conference at the South Euclid-Lyndhurst branch of the Cuyahoga County Public Library at the William N. Skirball writer’s center at the branch. It was a one-day event with an introduction, a keynote speaker, three breakout sessions, and one first-page critique panel. I attended the introduction, a keynote speaker, and two breakout sessions. I thought The Western Reserve Writers Conference was well run, diverse in the presentations offered, and informative. My Star of the Con was Bree Barton. Her presentation was fun, the exercises were useful, and I liked her personality.
I attended the 34th annual Western Reserve Writers Conference on September 23, 2017. I could not attend last year. This is a link to my review of the 2017 conference.