Our return to Irvine was more than worth it. Great weather. Great hotel. Great staff. And, most important, exceptionally great writers. So much so that we even introduced a new award just to lend proper recognition of the talent in our midst. A couple other new things debuted at LA13. Despite the latest “Rogue” workshop going until 3:30 in the morning, freelance editor Jennifer Silva Redmond threatened to kick off a read & critique session beginning at 6 a.m. for anybody who might wish to participate. Sure enough, participate they did (that’s them in the photo), so maybe we’ll make it a regular part of future schedules. Also, we unveiled the following:
SCWC Principles of Publication
- Respect the reader
- Aim for excellence
- Settle only for exceptional
- Don’t denigrate other writers for failing to meet your standards
- Celebrate your success at each step of the journey
- Don’t bitch about how hard writing is
- Self-publishing is a viable option to be respected, when done responsibly
- Don’t suck
Back to the awards. When the caliber of quality storytelling is as high as what we got coming through the LA13 advance submission readers (many of the agents did well this time around), the read & critique and other craft/execution workshops, it becomes a rather tortuous joy debating which manuscript pages are to be singled out for official recognition, knowing so many are deserving. But awards are awards, and only a handful can be given. Here they are…
The SCWC*LA 13 Award Recipients
OUTSTANDING FICTION (Commercial Fiction)
Medium of Exchange
By Elizabeth Harris-Moritz of Palm Desert, CA
OUTSTANDING NONFICTION (Memoir)
Going Native: Letters from Micronesia
By Bridget Dole of Long Beach, CA
OUTSTANDING TOPIC STORY
Bear
By Elisabetta Panzica of Mission Viejo, CA
OUTSTANDING IMPROVEMENT
Linda Rhoades of Redlands, CA
OUTSTANDING PROMPT EXECUTION
Gregory Kompes of Las Vegas, NV
Congratulations, all! We’ll be back in Irvine next September. Thanks to our special guest speakers, Stephanie Diaz, Stephanie Kegan, Ara Grigorian, Neal Griffin, and Aline Ohanesian. Yet another big shout out to all our workshop leaders, advance submission readers and front desk staff. And to all the conferees, some who traveled from as far away as New Zealand, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Japan, Italy, Canada and Palm Springs(!)—thank you for placing your trust in the SCWC and continuing to be its life blood.
Finally, as many of you know, the SCWC community Facebook wall vanished last Friday, just as the conference was kicking in. Over 1400 members now need to re-join our new one, where there’s always vital writing resources and vibrant conversation. Please do so today and share the word with the writers in your extended community so we can get back to where we once belonged.
We’ll return to Irvine next September. In the meantime, discounted pre-registration for our 30th annual San Diego conference, taking Presidents’ Day Weekend, February 12-15, 2016, is now open. Register now, if only to keep somebody else from doing so!
–Michael Steven Gregory
Executive Director, SCWC
