There’s an art to events that straddle professional and personal relationships. Is it rewarding? Infinitely. Exhausting? Hell, yes. Worth it? Every time. This year they scheduled CCCC and the AWP Conference in Baltimore at the same time, I decided to attend both.
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This photo is from the first day of my #CCCC and #AWP conference odyssey, but I’ll post it as its closing image because it captures the feelings, friendships, and literal lights of the events!
#awp #awp26 #cccc #conference
Best way to close AWP was with a quick visit and chat with @janefriedman.com! As always, her advice was generous and spot on! #awp #awp26 #writer
Wonderful to see Pitt undergraduate women writers at AWP. If you start this early, the sky’s the limit! #awp #awp26 #writer
Bravo, Lana, for making something magical out of your first conference! #AWP sure can be daunting, but you sailed right through it!
#awp #awp26 #writer
“Put the manuscript down. Have a drink and go paint something after thinking about your book, what gets on the canvas? What music were you listening to while you were writing? What does your book connect with? You worked so hard on this book. Have fun.” — Katya Buresh Wiegmann
#awp #awp26 #writer
“As much as you can, think of comps as something you get to do to better communicate what the heart of your book is. Not as something you have to do. You use comps every day for your own tastes. The comps play a small role on whether you go purchase a book.” @manadurphy.bsky.social
#awp #awp26
“When we look at comps in a query, we ask ourselves: Does the author know who their ideal audience is? Do they know who their future peers might be? Do you know their own work? Can they talk about it?” — Amy Bishop-Wycisk
#awp #awp26 #writer #writingcommunity
“If I could give one piece of advice, try to get it right but don’t stall for two years saying you can’t query because the comps aren’t perfect.” — Elizabeth DeMeo
#awp #awp26 #writer #writingcommunity
“For comps, agents use music, TV shows, movies. They also use other media. The Frankenstein of comps: you take what you want from each of these examples and you create the world your book lives in. You’re trying to create the vibes of your book, the tone.” — Mina Hamedi #awp26 #writer @awpwriter.org
Writing takes a lot of creativity , but we can also use our imagination and ingenuity to figure out the business, promotion, and publishing side of our books. Thank you, Henriette Lazaridis, Anjali Mitter Duva, Kathleen Schmidt, Anne Trubek, and Jane Friedman, for sharing your brilliant insight!
Three women writers! Three locations! Perfect evening!
#awp #awp26 #writer #womenwriters #awpconference
Venezuelan writers at @awpwriter.org . Viva Venezuela! #awp #awp26 #writer #writingcommunity #Latina
Maren Curtis and I met as part of Melissa Silverstein’s Women and Hollywood’s Girls Club five years ago. After being in countless zoom meetings together, it was utterly delightful to finally inhabit the physical world side by side at AWP. @awpwriter.org #awp #awp26 #writer #writingcommunity
Always fabulous to meet a fellow Latina who works in publishing! #awp #awp26 #writer #writingcommunity #Latina
“My #books have a collage aspect to them. They seem like they have little overt narrative structure, but they have a deep structural narrative drive that I’ve learned from films. I’m constantly studying #film technique and structure.” — David Shields #awp #awp26 #writer #writingcommunity #panel
“You’re part of a team with #screenwriting. You’re not the face of the project in #film. There’s less ageism in some kind of films for screenwriters. You’re not running around promoting the film, the beautiful people on the poster are.” — Elizabeth Searle #awp #awp26 #writer #writingcommunity #panel
“You must understand the business portion if you want to be read by more than your mother. Be honest with yourself about your goals. You end up falling into three pots on what to do. Sell more pot, be read pot, I want to be famous pot.” — Terena Elizabeth Bell #awp #awp26 #writer #writingcommunity
“Book readers are skeptical of marketing. The ones trusted implicitly are family, friends, parasocial influencers. People don’t seem to consider whether they like to read the same thing as their mom does, but they think that their mom liked it and so will they.” -- Joe Biel @awpwriter.org #awp26
“Six months before you publish, start figuring out what your goals are. If you hire a publicist, you can bring everything you’ve learned about who your audience is. That’s really helpful to publicists.” — Natalie Obando #awp #awp26 #writer #publishingtips #panel
“I think about the audience and use the tool that will help you reach your particular audience for your book. Don’t do everything. Just do the things that will work. Don’t be afraid to try something for a little bit and see if it works and then pivot.” — @cristinadeptula.bsky.social #awp #awp26
Lana one of our social media team superstars is interning at @autumnhouse.org and she couldn’t have ended up in a more welcoming and generative space. This is why we need indie publishing in the world! Check them and their fantastic catalogue out! #awp #awp26 #autumnhousepress #writers #intern
This was one of the most fun nights out I’ve had in a while! Fabulous conversation, food, laughter, and profound insight into being women in academia. Thank you, Bahareh Alaei, Dawn Formo, Kimberly Robinson Neary, Lauren Springer, and Shannon Baker, for such a delightful evening! #4C26 #CCCC
Our #4C26 impromptu Cultural Rhetorics reunion was too quick, but delightful all the same! Maria Novotny, Marilee Brooks-Gillies, Trixie Long Smith, and Rachel Robinson are amazing human beings and I’m grateful they inhabit my academic world! #CCCC #TeamRhetoric @ncte.org
Why should you come to #CCCC? Because you can run into fabulous old friends whose work you admire to boot! Wonderful to get to spend a few happy minutes together, Jennifer Sano-Franchini, Donnie Johnson Sackey, and Ada Hubrig! We’ll make it longer next year! #4C26 #TeamRhetoric @ncte.org
Women rhetorician filmmakers unite! #4C26 Stay tuned for our musings on YouTube and its many possibilities and challenges at next year’s conference. #WomeninFilm #WomenWriters #CCCC #TeamRhetoric @ncte.org
Now that’s some girl power at #4C26! #CCCC #TeamRhetoric
@anetv.bsky.social
Yes, I talk with my hands. Here’s photographic evidence exquisitely captured by Bahareh Alaei! Thank you to everyone in the audience for our #4C26 panel for being so warm and insightful! And thank you to the Substack authors whose brilliant work and insight I featured on my presentation! @ncte.org
How many perspectives can you have on the ups and downs of having a #Substack? At least three! Colin Brooke, Annette Vee, and I presented three different yet complementary takes on our Substack publications at one of my favorite panels I’ve ever done! Thank you to Bahareh Alaei for the photos! #4C26
So much fun to meet Kiki Montufar, a fellow Latina who’s also interested in studying love and connection! Loved getting to have lunch with her and share stories! #4C26 #CCCC #TeamRhetoric @ncte.org
