More adventures in publishing – Washington revisited

August 3, 2015

It’s a busy sports month with American Pharoah rolling to victory in the Haskell Invitational; Ryan Lochte hoping to regain swimming glory at the FINA World Championships; Rafael Nadal returning to his winning clay court ways at the Hamburg Open as the Rogers Cup gets underway in Toronto; and Tom Brady moving for a decision on his suspension before the NFL season begins.

But today I want to touch on my first real out-of-town trip with my debut novel, “Water Music” – to the OutWrite Book Festival at The DC Center in Washington D.C. ...

Adventures in publishing, continued – the Rainbow Book Fair

April 20, 2015

After participating in the 7th annual Rainbow Book Fair in Manhattan April 18, I now understand the meaning of the phrase “flush with success,” not just because I sold a lot of books and made a lot of contacts, but because I had an altogether enriching experience.

Fashionably “flushed” was the state of many of the faces as it was the first warm day of spring, and the Holiday Inn Midtown, site of the fair, was in the midst of making the change from winter heating to summer air-conditioning – no easy task for modern buildings. Fair co-founder Daniel Kitchen explained that the event is usually slated for cooler March. (Rumor has it that it was bumped to April this year for a previously slated bar mitzvah.) Kitchen suggested that March is a better moment for the fair, but this author, no fan of winter, was perfectly content to spend a beautiful Saturday in her favorite month of April indoors talking books.

It helped that I was accompanied by my dear friends Mary Azzuriti and Wendy Pandolfi – my “bookends” as Mary called herself and Wendy – dressed in yellow sweaters and blue pants to complement my tennis ball yellow-green and navy outfit. Colors, naturally, reflected the colors of this blog and my book series “The Games Men Play” and its debut novel “Water Music,” about four gay athletes – two swimmers, two tennis players – and the way their professional rivalries color their personal relationships with one another.

These hues become the team colors of the New York Templars in the second novel I’m now refining, “The Penalty for Holding,” about a gay, biracial quarterback’s quest for identity, acceptance, success and love amid the brutal beauty of the NFL. Chartreuse and deep blue then become the colors of Linwood Farms, which owns Criterion, the racehorse trying to win the Triple Crown in the planned third novel, “Criterion,” told in part from the horse’s viewpoint. (The fourth book returns us to the heroes of “Water Music” – older, sadder, wiser as they confront life’s greatest rival, death.) ...

More adventures in publishing

December 17, 2014

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.

Adventures in publishing, again

October 27, 2014

Another successful event for my new book “Water Music,” at The Loft: LGBT Community Services Center in White Plains Thursday night. What provocative conversation that ranged from sports to domestic violence and was every bit as stimulating the discussion at The Lionheart Gallery in Pound Ridge this past May.

There are few things as satisfying as connecting with people deeply. Well, that and meltaway coffee cake from Enrico’s Pastry Shop in Hartsdale.

Then on Saturday, I attended another publishing workshop sponsored by the Sarah Lawrence College Writing Institute. Editor Caitlin Alexander and agent Cynthia Munson led a session on writing a query letter to an agent or publisher that contained a lot of tips from formatting (don’t forget to double space your manuscript) to pitch conferences (the December New York Pitch Conference presented by the Algonkian Writer Conferences and New York Publishing).

Perhaps the biggest thing I learned is that for the query to work – in other words, for your letter to entice an agent and publisher to consider your manuscript – you have to have a catchy hook, which involves a succinct, specific description of your book as well as comparative titles. ...