Jeff Sherratt’s The Brimstone Murders became the bestselling book of all time for Echelon Press in 2008. Come October, Detour to Murder, the fourth installment of his popular Jimmy O’Brien mystery series, is out from freshly launched ZOVA Books and we’re happy to have him (as well as some of the folk behind the new house). ZOVA’s also inked a deal for a new thriller by our own Mike Sirota, called Fire Dance, to be published next year.
Deadlines are approaching and to poorly paraphrase Doug Adams, nobody enjoys the sound of a deadline whooshing past more than a writer. Thing is, you don’t want to miss these two important deadlines: Sept. 1 to take advantage of Early “Bard” Registration savings; Sept. 5 — the absolute drop-dead-deadline to get your advance submission material to the SCWC. Many of the readers remain open, so if you’re considering choosing any now is the time to make is so.
Speaking of advance submissions, we’re getting a lot of questions about what should be in the cover letter to your respective reader(s). Think of the cover letter as you would a good query letter. Be concise, communicative and courteous.
Here are a couple of terrific examples:
While Drusilla Campbell‘s NovelCram immersion track remains open at this time, Jean Jenkins‘ two-part “Best Foot Forward: Polishing to Impress” workshop is limited to only 12 participants. Geared specifically to empower genre fiction writers with the essential tools to distinguish their work from the 99% of submissions routinely floundering out there, there are only four spots remaining as of today. Pre-conference commitment to this workshop is mandatory. Here’s the details.
The posted schedule. Don’t even attempt to print it, else you’ll waste a ream of paper. With the new layout of the site this has caused understandable grief among some. We understand. In the next week or so there will be a printable .pdf of the working schedule posted for download.
Don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS feed to keep up on all the latest updates. LA8 is shaping up to be another fantastic SCWC writers’ weekend, so be there or be — um — where?
Now here’s your latest Writer Replay, in which Russell confides in his newly found muse.
