First off, we’re moving! Just minutes from the airport, a venue we’ve had our eyes on since returning to in-person events, one much better suited to the SCWC’s needs and long-term objectives, DoubleTree by Hilton San Diego – Hotel Circle will be our new home. Much like the pre-COVID property we remained at for 16 or so years (since closed), this one is similar to our Irvine hotel in that it’s not so large other events interfere with our writers’ weekend immersion. Took a little time to pull together so late in the game, but lodging is open now and discounted pre-registration has been extended. Regular updates begin shortly.
Along with a slew of new workshops, SD38 will feature revered SCWC workshop leaders Jennifer Sylva Redmond and Judy Reeves in a roundtable discussion with bestselling author/SCWC co-director Janis Thomas Friday evening. Both have lauded, long-awaited memoirs recently out, Honeymoon at Sea: How I Found Myself Living on a Small Boat and When Your Heart Says Go: My Year of Traveling Beyond Loss and Loneliness, respectively. Beyond being infinitely informative, with that trio you can trust that the discussion will be fun.
Speaking of Janis Thomas, her newly expanded 8-workshop stand-alone Novel Boot Camp returns February. Limited to only 10 participants, pre-registration is required. At the SCWC, craft is king. Exceptional craft is what distinguishes a writer. And as Janis has long demonstrated, she is queen. >>Details
Following the staff’s post-mortem of our recent September event, in effort to assess what pressing issues most need to be addressed come February, we’re making a tweak to the workshop tiers format that’s served us consistently over the past 62 SCWC events. Many issues we’ve observed factored in: publishing modalities, corporate houses cutting back & re-aligning to celebrity/notoriety anxieties, premature publication, A.I. angst, hybrid press schemes, etc. – essentially, what too many writers don’t know what they don’t know when it comes to this business. Irvine was only two months ago, yet things have evolved since then on a few fronts. Even if for only legacy affirmation, the fact remains that writing commercially viable work is a business. Whether traditional, boutique, university or self-published, it’s a business that requires an agile skillset to succeed. So, here’s the SCWC daytime workshops tier structure newly defined…
- Read & Critique: Troubleshooting problematic aspects of craft that undermine authorial authority, derail or confuse the reader. Fixing what’s not working as presumed.
- Story: Big picture. Broadstrokes. Spitballing. Structure. Solutions & prospects.
- Craft: Nitty gritty. Voice. Execution. Plot. Purpose.
- Business & Alternative: Pretty much everything we prioritize as needing to be addressed now. This minute. This very moment.
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This is what you’re in store for at the SCWC. If you’re not up to it, we get it. Drift. If you’re serious, however, we’re here for you. Writing’s tough. It’s personal. But at the end of the day it is a business. One you can succeed in, if only you aspire and are prepared to put in the hard labor required to do so.
The SCWC is about the writers in the room and words on the page, not the people behind the podium. Any conference that thinks otherwise is a sham. And there’s a lot of them out there.
Good “Muse”
Next update, I’ll delve into all the latest SCWC success releases. Given the lag with the hotel issue, however, this time I want to focus on one SCWCer. Her name is Candace Buford. She sent us an email:
- I went to this conference a few years ago and learned so much–particularly from Marla Miller and Pitch Witches. The pitch I crafted with Marla and the opening pages we revised helped me get my agent! I am now a full time author, writing primarily YA and MG for HarperCollins, Scholastic, Simon & Schuster, and Disney Books. My newest book (SUSIE KING TAYLOR, Aladdin/Simon & Schuster) comes out on September 26. I also had a release earlier this summer (GOOD AS GOLD, Disney 6/6/23)…
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Not the first time, of course, for the conference. But every individual time that a writer succeeds in part because of the conference is the best time.
I hope you’ll trust and allow us to be your best time, come February. Register now.
–Michael Steven GregoryExecutive Director, SCWC
