Not live-blogging from Wyoming Writers, Inc., conference in Casper -- but pretty darn close.
Open mic reading at the Ramada Riverside wrapped up about an hour ago. Poems by Pat Frolander of Sundance and Bob Townsend of Atlantic City (Wyo., not N.J.). Atlantic City up by South Pass boasts a full-time population of 26 and Bob says that 7 of them are in a writers' group. Not bad, percentage-wise. Bob and his wife Barbara run a B&B and now have a bar called the Two-Bit Cowboy Saloon, Someone at our table asked him if the "Two-Bit" part of the title referred to "Cowboy" or "Saloon." "Cowboy," Bob said, without hesitation. He holds a monthly Second Saturday Scotch Sipping at 6 at the saloon. It's very popular.
Barb read a nice essay comparing cooking her first homemade tomato sauce to good writing. Rose Hill performed a call-and-response piece with WWInc. Prez Jeanne Rogers. The subject was Inuit culture. They were followed by a segment of a memoir by Nancy Smith recalling her Japanese-Hawaiian husband's experiences on Dec. 7, 1941, in Honolulu. She really had the pidgin dialogue down right.
Before the open mic, the conference panelists read from their work or talked about their publishing jobs. Ted Kooser led off with his usual stirring poems about everyday lives of people in Nebraska. Ordinary folks in extraordinary poems. One was about his trip to his 90-year-old Aunt Pearl's house to let her know that her childhood playmate, Kooser's mother, had just passed away. Pearl admitted to Ted that she was seeing people walking around her house conducting an inventory of her worldly goods. Nothing Poltergeist-like. Just people she didn't know walking around and inspecting the place. Ted says there's a term for it -- loony body syndrome. He added: "I wish I didn't know that." Poets like to make up their own terms for unusual occurrences.
Meredith Kaffel talked about her job at the Charlotte Sheedy Literary Agency in NYC. She was the youngest person on the panel, which makes me wonder who's reading the manuscripts I send off to NYC (as if I didn't know). But Meredith has gone from Sheedy's assistant to her partner in four years. She obviously loves her work and brings passion to it. Publishing is changing dramatically, even though the major NYC houses seem to think it's still 1959 instead of 2009. She called it an "evolving" industry. And like the evolution of a species, it's taking forever to birth its newest incarnation.
One way the industry is changing among the new generations is that they treat the Internet as their friend and not as a hissing rattler dropped into their lap. Agents look for clients on the web and even read some of the online mags. "Don't think we don't take online publications as seriously as we do the print publications -- because we do," Meredith said. I get this feeling that the whippersnappers in the publishing world look upon their elders in the same way that my teen daughter looks at me when I ask a stupid technology question. While we see ourselves as hip and groovy to have blogs and chatter on Facebook, they see us old codgers with quill pens and stale brains.
But I digress. Meredith had lots of helpful tips about working with agents. She will conducting one-on-one agent meetings tomorrow and Sunday morning. I'm set to make a pitch about my next book of short stories. She said she likes short stories, but admitted the market for collections was a little soft. Still, you have to be in the game.
The other three faculty members also made presentations. Amanda Cabot read the beginning of her new Christian romance novel, "Paper Roses," and said she's conducting a workshop about "great beginnings" on Saturday.
Not too late to sign up for the conference. Registration in the Ramada Riverside lobby begins at 8 a.m. and sessions start at 9. See you there.
