Tag: The Writers’ Conference

Sneak Peek: The Writers’ Conference

Today we have a sneak peek from author Marian D. Schwartz’s literary fiction book, The Writers’ Conference.

After Laura Belmont finishes writing her first novel, she enrolls in The Clymer Workshop, one of the oldest writers’ conferences in the country, where she hopes to make a connection with one of the famous staff authors or a well-known literary agent. The atmosphere at the Workshop is unexpectedly intense. The male writers on the staff are more interested in having sex with Laura than in her manuscript. Staff members worry that their reputations may be at risk. As anxiety builds and hope dwindles, Laura thinks she’s made a mistake. Then something extraordinary happens that makes her change her mind.

The Writers’ Conference is available from Amazon.com, Amazon UK, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.

Here is an excerpt from The Writers’ Conference… Continue reading “Sneak Peek: The Writers’ Conference”

The Writers’ Conference

Guest post
by Marian D. Schwartz

The first week in January I received a brochure from an annual writers’ conference I attended over thirty years ago. Brochures from this conference have followed me from move to move, from the North to the South, and they have changed considerably since I first started receiving them. The staff fiction writers are no longer big “literary stars,” and the mention of editors and literary agents is done carefully, promising nothing other than their presence and some interaction with the people who are paying to attend.

The suggestion to enroll in the conference I had attended had come from a former professor, who had become my mentor. I had finished writing my first novel, Realities, less than two months before the conference was scheduled to start. I had also found an agent. By the end of my second day there, I had stopped taking notes at the lectures and had begun taking notes on what I was observing. I had never been in an atmosphere so intense, not even in graduate workshops I had audited when the professor/poets teaching them lost control of the discussion. Continue reading “The Writers’ Conference”