Eastern Writers' Conference
June 20-21, 2008
The Art of Fiction

The Eastern Writers' Conference is an intimate writing conference with specialists in the areas of publication, writing and networking with other area writers. This year's focus is The Art of Fiction.

Schedule

Friday, June 20
7:00 – 9:00 pm
Keynote Speaker Alice Hoffman
Recital Hall, Central Campus

Alice Hoffman is one of America's most distinguished novelists. She has published 18 novels, two books of short fiction, and eight books for children and young adults. Highlights of her works include the following:

• The Third Angel – To be released later this spring.
• Here on Earth – A modern reworking of some of the themes of Emily Bronte's masterpiece Wuthering Heights and Oprah Book Club
• At Risk – Concerns a family dealing with AIDS and on the reading lists of colleges and universities and secondary schools.
• Practical Magic – Made into a Warner film starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman.

Saturday, June 21
8:30 am – 3:00 pm
CC112 & CC113, Central Campus

Morning session includes panel of agents and writers. Afternoon session includes workshops & open mic

Presentations include

First impressions count. Learn from a seasoned agent how to write a strong and focused query letter certain to catch an agent's eye. Form, content, and whether or not to email or snail mail your query will be discussed. One on one critique sessions will also be available for those who already have a query letter written and are looking for constructive feedback.
Presented by Ann Collette.

Cooking Up a Story. Author Margaret Press focuses on how to get going on a story when inspiration does NOT strike like a bolt of lightning. For many of us it just takes blood, sweat and tears, and is done one sentence at a time, until the engine finally kicks over.

Getting There: The (Uphill) Road to Getting Published. What are the lessons learned from a lifetime of seeking to get one’s writing published—and occasionally succeeding? If there are helpful resources out there, what are they? This workshop, based on one writer’s experience, considers the steps (and missteps) involved in getting into print.
Presented by Rod Kessler.

Fiction is neat; life is sloppy. We all know that, but if life is sloppy, then is it the role of Art to impose order on chaos so that we can understand ourselves through coherent narratives? How does that perspective affect the choices a writer makes for plot, character and meaning in fiction?
By Perry Glasser

New Media, blogs, wikis, and citizen journalists have in the blink of an historical eye changed forever the world of music and journalism, as well has substituting the "wisdom of crowds" for what was once credentialed expertise. Is there any reason to suppose that literary writing and literary publishing won't be next? How will the creative writer thrive in the digital world as writer, publisher and distributor?
Presented by Perry Glasser.

Presenter bios

Ann Collette has been an associate at the Helen Rees Literary Agency in Boston, MA, since 2000. Her fiction list includes literary, mystery, horror, suspense and thriller authors. Her background also includes 15 years as a freelance writer and editor; she finds her editorial skills are particularly helpful when working with new writers.

Perry Glasser has published more than 50 stories and memoirs in dozens of literary journals, as well as two collections of his work, Suspicious Origins and Singing on the Titanic. His latest collection, Dangerous Places, has been named the winner of the G.S. Chandra Prize; it will be published in 2009 by BkMk Press at the University of Missouri, Kanssas City. His work has appeared in several anthologies including Next Stop Hollywood and Our Mutual Room. He is a 3-time-winner of the PEN Syndicated Fiction Prize, has twice been a winner of the Boston Fiction Festival Competition, received the Sarah Russo Prize for Exile Literature in 2005, and has been a fellow at Ucross, Yaddo and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. He coordinates the Professional Writing Program at Salem State and cannot find a place to park. Ever.

Rod Kessler, former editor of Sextant and the author of more than ninety short stories, essays, reviews, and poems, won the Associated Writing Program’s award for short fiction in 1984 for his collection Off in Zimbabwe. This fall he will coordinate the creative writing program at Salem State College, a position he previously held from 1983 to 1990.

Margaret Press is the author of A Scream on the Water: A True Story of Murder in Salem. Her essay "Salem as Crime Scene" appeared in the 2004 award-winning anthology Salem: Place, Myth and Memory. She has also published a Salem-based mystery series (Requiem for a Postman, Elegy for a Thief). With her short story "Feral" (Windchill 2005) she launched a collection of parallel stories viewing a single murder from different points of view. "Wednesday's Child" (in Still Waters) is the second in that collection. Press, who grew up in California, currently works for a software company in Cambridge and has lived in Salem since 1987. She has taught writing crime fiction at North Shore Community College and Salem State College.

Cost is $15 for Friday evening only; $60 for Saturday only; and $75 for both.

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