At the risk of sounding like something out of “Forrest Gump” (“Life is like a box of chocolates”), life is like a skyscraper: You can’t really see it until you step back from it.
I had that sense at the Algonkian Writer Conference I attended Dec. 11-14 at the Ripley Greer Studios on the skirts of Manhattan’s Fashion District. The conference was designed to help writers from all over the country and all walks of life achieve one goal – to be able to pitch their stories to the agents/editors we met in the hopes that they would take them on.
I certainly think our workshop group of 11 professionals, who bonded almost instantly, achieved that goal in the sense that we perfected our pitch letters. What began as something unformed came into focus at the end of four days, thanks in large part to our insightful, sympathetic workshop leader, Susan Breen, who teaches at the Gotham Writers’ Workshop. (That she’s also the author of “The Fiction Class” means she not only talks the talk, she walks the walk.) In the process, I learned something about myself not only as a writer but as a magazine editor.
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