The Grind Writers Group (since 2006): SIWC

Showing posts with label SIWC. Show all posts

Wednesday, 8 April 2015

Old Friend From Not Far Away - Surrey International Writers' Conference 2015

From conference coordinator Kathy:

Hello!
Welcome to the first newsletter of our 2015 conference year. We have so much great information to share, this’ll be a long one. We hope you’ll be as excited as we are by all our news.

This year’s Surrey International Writers’ Conference will run October 23-25, 2015, with master classes on October 22, at the Sheraton Vancouver Guildford Hotel in Surrey, BC.

Registration will open on Wednesday, June 3. Mark your calendars!

Changes are afoot!
If you’ve ever been to SiWC before, you may be one of the many people wrote something like this on your evaluation form: “Wow! So much great content. I only wish I could see more of it!” This year, you’ll be able to. We’ll still be offering 70+ workshops and panels over the three days of the conference (plus pre-conference master classes, of course!), but thanks to some minor tweaks to our schedule, for the first time ever, we’ll be offering four workshop sessions on the Friday and Saturday instead of three. You’ll still have lots to choose from in each session, but you’ll be able to attend more sessions than ever before. Prepare for massive brain overload!

Mary Robinette Kowal explains the secrets
of short story-writing, 2014

More content but not more $
Even though we’re offering each attendee 25% more content this year, we’re delighted to tell you we will NOT be raising registration rates. This year’s prices will be identical to last year’s. You’ll just get more for your money!

Changes
With those changes in place, we went back to our evaluation forms and took a look at the other common requests. The new schedule will allow us to accommodate other attendee suggestions from over the years, including offering a quiet writing room in some time slots and even a chance for some of you to share your expertise with us. Stay tuned to our blog for information about that! (All our blog posts get mentioned on Twitter and Facebook, and of course on our website, so wherever you follow us, you’ll see them.)

Reduced hotel rates (but don’t wait too long to book)
In other news, our group rate is already available at the hotel and bookings are well underway. Check out the information here. Please use our group rate when you book; it’s important for us and the hotel to know how many people are staying for the conference, and it helps keep our prices down when you do. Book early! Our group rates are available until mid-September or until the hotel sells out, which is often much earlier than that.

Jack Whyte (l) and Diana Gabaldon (r)
with contest winner 2014.

Writing contest open
Our writing contest is now open to entries. This year, we’re concentrating on short fiction of all sorts, with our Storyteller’s Award.

Details on our contest page here.
Presenter bios coming soon
We’ll begin posting our presenter bios on the website in the coming weeks, and the workshop and master class schedule in the lead-up to registration opening, too. The presenter roster this year looks amazing, if we do say so ourselves. As always, we’ll offer workshops on a huge variety of topics for writers of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, memoir, online content and more. Whether you’re a brand new aspiring writer, a multi-published bestseller, or any kind of writer in between, SiWC has something for you. Our goal is to offer stellar professional development for writers at all stages of their careers. And of course, every year you can take advantage of our blue pencil and pitch appointments, which are always included in the cost of your registration.

Cory Doctorow, one of many
well-known presenters

Advertise in conference brochure
If you’re interested in buying ad space in our conference brochure this year for your book or your day job business, please contact kc dyer at kcdyer@siwc.ca for information and rate sheets. We offer everything from classified ads to full-page colour and lots of options in between.

Follow on Twitter
Looking for more SiWC info? Apart from our very occasional newsletters like this one, you can follow us on Twitter @siwctweets and check out our website and blog at www.siwc.ca.

If you’re on Twitter and would like a little writing support & encouragement, join the conversation using #thisdaywewrite. For conference-related tweets, we’re using #SiWC15 this year. Stay tuned on Twitter in coming weeks for hints about this year’s conference theme.

Questions?
Check out our website for answers, including our FAQ, but if you can’t find what you need, you can contact us through our contact form or email me at kathychung@siwc.ca.

Please get the word out about SiWC
Know writers who don’t know us? We so appreciate your referrals. Thank you to everyone who’s introduced SiWC to a friend so far. We hope to see many new faces and lots of old friends again this year.

See you in October!
Kathy Chung
SiWC Conference Coordinator
www.siwc.ca * @siwctweets

The Surrey International Writers' Conference, held every October in British Columbia, is the most comprehensive conference of its kind in Canada. SiWC offers writers in all genres -- from beginners to experts -- the opportunity both to hone their craft and to expose their work to the international literary marketplace.

To receive email newsletter updates about the conference
or for more information please visit http://www.siwc.ca

Sunday, 9 November 2014

Sean Cranbury workshop: “New Ideas in Socal Media” (for Writers) at SIWC

Workshop at the Surrey International Writers' Conference (SIWC), October 2014.

Sean's background:

“These days I am a General Manager of the legendary Storm Crow Tavern in Vancouver’s Commercial Drive neighbourhood and moonlighting as a social media/communications consultant for literary and arts organizations.“

He hosts the CBC Radio show Books on the Radio. Was an indie bookseller for 20 years. He worked at the once-beloved Duthie Books downtown which, he notes, is now a lingerie store: “Well, that’s what sells.”

Many of the keynotes give at SIWC are available to hear in the archives at: booksontheradio.org

Other places online to find Seanish info:

bootcampvancouver
www.seancranbury.com
on Twitter (@seancranbury)
All his slides are on slideshare.net/cranbury – e.g. “Authors Owning Digital Space: A Master Class in Social Media for Writers” and many more
Twitter at: @seancranbury or @booksontheradio or @realvancouver_
Instagram at: @cranbury or (Real Vancouver Writers’ Series) @realvancouver
SoundCloud at: @booksontheradio

Sean put out an awful lot of information in an hour and a half. He could have pirouetted, impressing us with a lot of hip-sounding tech mumbojumbo. He chose not to. He could have rolled his eyes when one audience member asked him to explain what a hashtag was; instead he simply explained it in easy terms.

He gave us a fast-paced and informative presentation which he could hardly get out because the audience interrupted him with so many questions, about which he was genuinely magnanimous.

“You cannot break the Internet. The way you learn is by starting.”
“Use your own name [writers using social media]. These tools are ‘awareness generators.’ You want people to know who you are.”
Separate accounts for personal and work on Twitter, Facebook etc. “It all depends…” He has several for Sean Cranbury, Books on Radio, etc.
It’s a big transition we are all part of. We’ve gone from the long format to reading onscreen instead of on paper.
Engage! “The only way to increase your chances is to continually engage in those areas.” (social media)
Social media strategy. “Can’t be done in two months. Plant seeds now. Spend those early days just listening” [while you figure it out].

TWITTER

Who to follow on Twitter? “Follow all the people who are using the hashtag #SIWC14. That’s your community. People you have something in common with because you are here. Those are the people you want to emulate. There’s an art to it. You can learn by following good people.”
Egg stage @ Twitter. “Get rid of the egg. Upload a photo, anything. Nobody takes Eggs seriously on Twitter.
To be Followed or to Follow? “Good users have more followers than they are following. For example [SIWC long-time board member and previous conference chair, author] kc dyer follows about 70 people, but she’s being followed by 4,500.”
Twitter > important. “I think Twitter is important—it’s the cleaner stream. But have a Facebook fan page for your book.
“Twitter is a listening post. Follow your competition. It is a filter. Any info you’re getting is tuff that you’ve chosen [to give].”
“Follow comedians. It’s a very creative medium and comedians use Twitter very creatively.
What is a hashtag? Some in the audience didn’t now what a hashtag or Twitter stream was so we went back to the basics. “A hashtag is the number sign (#) with no space in between it and a word, an acronym about what is going on” – like #SIWC.
Hashtags as hangers. It’s a way to communicate with people on Twitter or Facebook. It acts as a kind of hanger and hangs that tweet with all the other tweets with that hashtag. For example, a tweet now: “I am at SIWC – just blew my pitch, no chance of ever getting published – hashtag #SIWC. Then we all commiserate.”
Creating hashtags. “A hashtag is only useful if people know about it, and care.”
Mention him with @seancranbury.
People to follow to learn about social media

Sarah Wendell
Chuck Wendig
(“I was on a social media panel with them – the best ever.”)

How do you now if anyone’s paying attention? You don’t.
Best times to post (“Put-out Days”)

-- “Friday afternoon, especially in publishing--everyone’s drinking.”
-- “Monday morning everyone is like ‘Oh, crap—actually working.’”
-- “Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday mornings are your optimal times…

the highest likelihood people are paying attention to those platforms.”
-- Tuesday morning 7-8AM of a regular week (no Monday holiday)
may be the optimum time to post, do your website, etc.

-- Monday morning—no. Friday afternoon—no.”

What is HootSuite? “A Vancouver-based social media management tool.” He uses TweetDeck.
“I am a platform agnostic: The internet is full of tribes [who like various social media platforms].

WEBSITES

Open Source. “Means ‘always being built’ [improved].”
Wordpress.com is open source. Create a website for free. “It’s not professional but a good place to learn. It’s Wordpress on training wheels.”
Domain. “The real estate you own on the Internet.”
Domain address. For a writer ideally it’s “your name dot com. You want something that defines your career, where you’re going. i.e., Not: title-of-my-first-book dot com. The question is: will that name still be relevant ten years from now? Think about it in terms of the long game.”

Read: Astra Taylor’s book: The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age. (Read a bit here). Her talk is on BooksOnRadio.
Netfirms he recommends for getting your domain and hosting your website. “Netfirms’s servers are in Canada (important; meaning your account is not accessible under foreign domestic laws as it is if hosted in the U.S.).”
“DreamHost is okay. GoDaddy may keep your domain if you leave."
Wordpress.word will host once you have a domain (servers in U.S.).
“Anything that says ‘gator’ – don’t touch. Never. Ever.”
.com or .ca? Advises getting a .com rather than a .ca. “You’re in the global marketplace” – and many in the U.S. for instance have never heard of a dot-ca [so they may mistrust it].
GoogleAnalytics. It’s the only way you know if people are reading your posts unless they are talking to you about it or re-tweeting – you can check but there’s really no way to know otherwise.
Your “About” page. Make it clear, concise and up to date. Update it frequently so it’s not stale news: “Cultivate the garden—take care of it.”
“People are not for marketing-to. As soon as you start marketing, I lose interest.”
Goodreads. “is good for the author but I wouldn’t put it as an essential. A good example of a book-specific social network [owned by Amazon].”

Up&coming social media sites:

SoundCloud. Audio-sharing community. $16/month for unlimited uploads. (The free version is only 4 hours a month.)
Ello. “It’s only going to be useful if people are there. And sooner or later they’re going to have to monetize it in some way” [meaning they may need to post ads, or use your information to get advertisers, etc.]
Doxing. Zoë Quinn is at the heart of “Gamergate,” a discussion online about the depiction of women in video games and how misogynistic it is. To dox, v.: “A person finds out your home address, your cellphone number, embarrassing photos, whatever – and they post it on Twitter” or blackmail you not to. >>> For example, when you register your domain you provide your name & address and it displays. But you c.an pay to have it hidden.
Parting words: “You don’t have to do anything on the Internet.

-- Margo Lamont

Kevin Chong on Writing Biography - at SIWC 2014

Workshop: “Mapping Another Life” (Writing Biography)

Kevin Chong, born in Hong Kong, educated (MFA in fiction writing) at the University of British Columbia, lives and works in Vancouver.

Kevin teaches writing creative fiction and writing creative nonfiction (beginner to advanced levels) at UBC and SFU (and gets an “A” on Rate-My-Professors with a chili-pepper on the 'hotness' rating).

He's the author of:

Nonfiction

Northern Dancer: The Legendary Horse that Inspired a Nation, 2014
My Year of The Race Horse, 2012
Neil Young Nation: a quest, an obsession, and a true story, 2005. (Crisscrossing the continent, Chong follows the route that led Neil Young to become a musical legend.)

Novels

Beauty Plus Pity, 2011
Baroque-a-Nova, 2001

A volunteer introducer reads the intro to Kevin’s workshop which says he’s “a showdog handler and jazz musician.” When she concludes, Kevin tells us it’s all lies.

“My first tip on writing biography is not to use Wikipedia,” he quips. Apparently a friend and he had some kind of gag that resulted in this information going into his Wikipedia biography and there it remains, untrue.

Background to Northern Dancer

--how in Northern Dancer his tack was to write about the people who loved the horse:

· E.P. Taylor (owner);

· The Argentinian trainer. Quite a character: asked what he wanted after he died, he said he wanted to be “turned into a woman’s saddle so I can be between the two things I loved the most.”

· Jockey Bill Hartack

--and about how Canada was in 1964 (Kevin was born in 1975). The only people he talked to were some riders and that was by phone.

“I remember Canada being much more insecure than it is now. We didn’t feel we could beat the best. Then Northern Dancer showed we could beat the best.”

Kevin’s own experience in horse-racing before he wrote ND: he’d written one book about it before, about how he bought a horse at Hastings Racetrack which had some Northern Dancer blood.

Kevin talked about the many things you need to consider before you start the actual writing.

About biography subjects:

· Does he/she have to be famous?

· Does he/she have to be human? Can write bios of inanimate objects, e.g., Salt; or The Suit,a book by JJ Lee that wove in stories about his father, a tailor. There are sometimes called “cultural histories.”

· Does the subject have to be one person (companies> corporate histories)?

Ways you can write about a life:

· Memoir – can be writing about segments/periods in your life – i.e. just divorced and took a trip to Italy; your lifelong interest in soccer; an interest in your life – e.g. The 100 Mi. Diet

· Autobiography – Writing about your own life, the world that you came from. You try not to skip any of the events of your life (but they may be separate books).

· Biography (“I consider bio to be cradle to dotage”)

· Co-authored Autobiography – examples: Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg’s; Justin Trudeau’s

Considerations about the book, approaches to the subject, etc.

· How will your book be different?

· Initial Research >Writing a proposal. “Before you travel to Paris – has anyone else written a book on your subject? Check on the internet.”

· Is the person still alive? Do they want to work with you? Or if recently deceased, is there anyone else working on an authorized biography?

· Tip: approach your subject with a thesis or a statement or a question – so the bio does not become a recitation of dry facts. “He was born… died…..”

· His thesis for Northern Dancer - that ND “changed the way Canadians felt about themselves in 1964. Northern Dancer was a hero when the country really needed one.” (i.e. we were between having been a colony of Britain and becoming a kind of economic colony of the U.S.)

· If you’re writing your own life, you might want to talk to key figures in it. Your spouse and “If you’re brave, your former spouse. “Their actual sense of what happened might be different from yours.”

Subject - Living person:

· Interviews - let them pick the place, their comfort area; bring a list of questions but be flexible.

· Famous person – “go sideways a bit.”

· Don’t be afraid of awkward pauses – they may fill them with something interesting.

· Good to have a recorder. Yet the technique of, at some point, turning the recorder off: “People become more animated. but you are still taking notes.”

· For famous or other people – you want to speak to anyone who knows about them – people who knew them as kids. About the middle age years ,talk to their children).

· Talk to their enemies.

· Other sources: news clips – magazine profiles (how they felt in 1963 vs. say 2014). Then can ask them about why they felt a certain way back when they did.

· Old photos – present them to the subject – sparks new memories.

Subject - deceased person:

· Library and archival research; travel to [pertinent] locales.

· Interviews – Experts on that person work or on the era or place that person lived; regional content. It may tell you about their influence, influence of their work, etc.

· Kevin made a trip to Ottawa for Northern Dancer. Had to get permission to access the archives. Became sticky because the person designated by EP Taylor to give acces had died – so Kevi had to prove to the archives that Taylor’s grandsons had the authority to grant him access.

Why you?
Why are you the one who needs to tell the story? Could be important.

Other considerations:

· Question from audience: Have there been themes or motives for what Kevin’s written about? Answer: I wanted to know more about a subject. So I don’t start off as an expert - e.g., the Neil Young book: “I needed to write my own personal biographical story about being a fan of his.”

· His first book was on a racehorse: “I wanted to learn more about horse racing and folded in my own anxiety about a young adult who had accomplished what I wanted to do in life. I was hoping other YAs, who had crossed things off on their list, could identify what he was going through.”

Structure

· Suppose someone’s accomplishments were in midlife, you might not have the chronology go from 20 yrs. to 80 yrs. in the same intensity.

· First in Northern Dancer, he used an unconventional order, then his editor’s suggestion, told it chronologically – thought it was clearer

· Tip: “A lot of biographies start off with a scene from the middle of the life – then go to the early days. We want to get a sense of hwy this person is important/interesting/etc. (example – he used the EP Taylor anecdote right off about going into the mid-Atlantic lifeboat in his pajamas).(c)

· Tense (thinkinga bout which to use – present, past). He did Northern Dancer in the present tense.

· Voice - finding your authorial voice – Objective or journalistic or opinionated? Considerations: Closeness to your subject. What’s the approach that best serves the story?

--Margo Lamont

Sunday, 16 June 2013

68 writing workshops - at the Surrey Int'l Writers' Conference Oct 2013

The Surrey International Writers' Conference (SIWC) has just posted the workshops for this year’s conference (Oct 25–27). We are very lucky to have this so close. It’s an exceptional opportunity for fledgling or emerging writers to be with their peers and get expert current market knowledge and advice from published authors, agents, and editors. Registration is already underway.

One year, 800 writers gathered under one roof, so it’s a unique combination of professional development, writing immersion, and super-schmooze.
For those of you who’ve never been, here are a few other highlights. The workshops schedule for this year is at the end.

Writing workshops - 68 different workshops this year! Workshops are 1½ hours. So you can do 4 workshops a day.

SIWC Idol - this occurs on the Saturday evening (each night there are events that go to 9-10pm). The IDOL is special because you can take 3 pages of your work and put it in anonymously and if it’s drawn, Jack Whyte of the golden Shakespearean actor voice, reads it out to the audience AND to a panel of 5 or 6 agents and editors. Jack keeps reading until the panel puts up their hands to say stop. If he keeps going, then frequently one of the panel will ask the author to go and find them after the Idol is finished – to talk further about submissions. So it’s a chance to get “discovered.” And the best part is, if it gets panned, nobody knows it’s yours. The editor/agents tell you what makes them stop reading each entry – and you learn a lot from that as well.

Blue Pencil sessions - with a registration you get a Blue Pencil and a Pitch session. You can read about how many and such. The BP sessions put you in front of well-known working editors or published authors: you give them 3 pages of your work and they give you personal feedback.

Pitch sessions - you get these with registration and with these you get 10 mins to pitch your project to (often a NYC) agent; or editor or producer. If they like your work, they’ll usually ask you to send 50 pages and your query letter and bio. So it’s a chance to cut through all the red tape and get yourself in front of an agent, and possibly get representation.

Famous writers attending - Anne Perry the mystery writer; Diana Gabaldon, Jack Whyte and Robert Dugoni will all be there this year. And more.
Trade show – best selection ever of books on writing. And also editing services, publishers, writing organizations and so forth.

Evenings - have the Owl events going on to 9 or 10 pm – often something like a Mystery Threatre with Jack, Diana, and Anne acting out some drama. And there are Master Classes on the Thursday evening before the conference starts: http://www.siwc.ca/schedule/masterclass. The RWA (Romance Writers’ of America usually has a no-host bar drinks party.

Meals and Keynotes - Each meal has a keynote address by a well-known author or literary personage. At one lunch the Writing Contest awards are given out. At another they usually have genre-themed tables (‘mystery’ – ‘thrillers’ - ‘romance’ – ‘nonfiction’ – ‘travel’) so you can schmooze and meet others who write in your genre(s).

Volunteering - if registration is beyond your budget, you can volunteer at the conference. You get to attend some workshops in exchange for what you do. Great jobs are (1) workshop introducer (you read a pre-written 30 second intro, and that’s it); and (2) Workshop Monitor (you keep the doors from clanking as people come & and go). But there are many more jobs. Info on the website.

Staying at the conference hotel – as I said, events continue to 9 or 10 pm each night so some people choose to stay at the hotel and make it a little holiday weekend as well. The hotel offers special rates which are quite reasonable if you share – and the conference sometimes has a provide-roommate function if you get in touch early enough. Warning: the special-price bloc of rooms goes very fast.

WORKSHOPS
Clicking on the link will give you some details – and once there you can click on the presenter’s name and find out what their experience and background is.