Writer's Conferences

Today, my mind is on writer’s conferences. Actually, my mind has been filled with thoughts of conferences for the past year and a half as I, and my other co-chairs, have been in the throes of planning one. Yes, it's just like herding cats...though cats are more cooperative!

 

This weekend I am running around at the Hilton in Pasadena for the California Crime Writers Conference, a biennial writer’s conference sponsored by Sisters in Crime Los Angeles and the Southern California Chapter of Mystery Writers of America. (By the way, don’t show up at the door hoping to get in. We are sold out! No room at the inn.) Being Vice President of SinC-LA automatically makes me a co-chair, and being President of SoCalMWA is an added bonus.

I can remember the first writer’s conference I attended. I wasn’t even writing mysteries yet. I was still a hopeful historical novelist, trying to get an agent. That was way back in 1993. It was held in San Diego and it was there I began learning about networking. Prior to that, I was a solitary writer, working away on my computer without really communicating with a soul about my writing. My son was three and I juggled my time with him, writing, and working on the weekends when his dad could be with him at home. I thought it would be a good place to not only learn a few things about the craft of writing, but the business of writing as well. And I knew I would be able to sit down and pitch my work to an agent or an editor. Those were heady days when all was new and I was just getting my writing legs. As it turned out, I did get my first agent from this conference and I’ve been on a learning curve ever since.

My first agent, Kimberley Cameron

I remember, at that first conference, that we were divided up into genres, and there were always a sparse few at the historical fiction table. We were the conference nerds, but that was okay. I spent all of my school years as some kind of nerd, too: a drama nerd, a literature nerd, an art nerd. But that was all right. It was good to talk and commiserate. I was learning a lot and quickly. From writing query letters to better researching techniques.

I went to this San Diego conference for years until I changed over to writing mysteries and got my publishing contract in 2007. If you do the math, you will see that there is fourteen years between that first conference and a contract. That’s a lot of time to write, a lot of manuscripts, and a LOT of rejections. And depression. Was this career choice really going to work? Would it be worth the time, effort, and money?

SJ Rozan speaking at 2011's CCWC

The first thing I really got from these conferences was inspiration. They served as giant pep rallys to encourage me and let me know that I was not alone! There were many others in the same boat as me. We weren’t in competition with one another, but cohorts in the same battle. I was able to connect with other medievalists online (which has continued to be a valuable resource) and other writers. Later, when I joined the mystery community and signed up for Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America, I found a true home and concrete information I could take to the bank. In fact, it wasn’t long after I switched to writing mysteries that I got that contract.

For the writer starting out, I do recommend writer’s conferences. If you write mysteries, may I recommend ours in Southern California? You’ve got some time to plan. It won’t be rolling around again till 2015, but you’d better be ready to sign up by mid 2014. We sold out this time. Next year we might sell out even quicker.  

And if you're at the conference this weekend, stop me before I whiz by and say hello!

Networking in Person

We hear so much about social networking that we almost forgot that there is also the real thing. You know, actually meeting people face to face. I belong to two organizations particularly good for that. One is Sisters in Crime and the other is Mystery Writers of America. I've been attending a lot of events for both organizations for years, and volunteering where I could (because that is an excellent way to get to know other members, to network in what can often be a clique-ish group.) Consequently, a couple of years ago I was elected president for Sisters in Crime Orange County, became vice president last year for Sisters in Crime Los Angeles, and was elected president this year for the Southern California chapter of Mystery Writers of America. I'm not saying you have to be on the board of these chapters to get anywhere, but these groups offer multiple chances to network with fellow authors and learn a thing or two about what readers want. 

If you're serious about making a career in writing mysteries then networking is essential. After all, you are going to run into these people again and again at conferences and other author events. I've helped up-and-comers and veterans have helped me. In fact, I can't think of a more welcoming group than people who write about ways to kill.

But you will have lots of chances to meet and greet readers, librarians, and booksellers as well. This is networking, too, in case you missed it. And there's no better way to hand sell books than to get in good with librarians and booksellers.

I can't tell you how many times newbie authors shrug off libraries. People only borrow books from libraries, they say. That's a lost sale! But nothing could be further from the truth. Remember, libraries have to BUY the books in their stacks. And if they have a lot of branches, it would be wonderfully swell if they bought at least one book for each branch. That's a good chunk of sales right there. And if you have several formats of your book--large print, foreign language, audio--that's even MORE sales. And let's face it. My books come out in hardcover at a $26 price point. Readers who aren't familiar with my work may not feel comfortable plunking down that much money, so they try it at the library first. Hopefully, they might like it enough to buy the other books in the series.


If you're invited to an author luncheon sort of event, don't just sit aloof at the head table and chat only with your bookseller or the organizers. Get out of your seat before festivities begin and work the group! This is like a wedding--your wedding--and you should be going to each table and chatting up the people at the table. These are your guests. Enjoy yourself. If you enjoy yourself, your audience will. And a happy audience likes to give your books a chance.

You just never know when or where a good networking opportunity will present itself; in the grocery line, at a swap meet, on vacation--anywhere you find yourself. I'm not saying to hard sell, but if the opportunity arises when someone asks what you do, have that bookmark ready to give away.

The Latest Crop of Aspiring Mystery Writers

Elizabeth Zelvin


In spite of the radical paradigm shift that has led many in the book business from authors to booksellers and librarians to wonder if books or even reading will survive—and fewer and fewer of those in the business making even a marginal living—plenty of people still want to write mysteries. Mystery Writers of America has launched its low-cost MWA University, bringing established writers with academic credentials and college-level teaching experience to cities around the country to teach aspects of their craft. Sisters in Crime’s online Guppies chapter, first established for the Great UnPublished, has a membership of more than 500 and acquires new members every month, with more and more publications (some self-published but the great majority still traditionally published) and award nominations every year.


I always enjoy reading the Fresh Blood column in MWA’s national newsletter, The Third Degree, which lists those who have joined the organization every month. The Affiliate Members section lists those who have not yet published a book according to MWA’s standards: an advance, royalties, a certain print run, and publishers who offer an editorial process and don’t limit themselves to writers who are members of their own family. I get a big kick over the wide variety of backgrounds from which the new affiliate members come to mystery writing.


Some professions recur frequently. There’s always another retired or recovering attorney to write a legal thriller, doctor cooking up a medical thriller, mental health professional working on anything from psychological suspense to suburban cozy, and cop planning a police procedural. Editors, technical writers, and nonfiction writers are no surprise either. But there’s always a sprinkling of professions that suggest that everyone wants to write a mystery. A sampling of recent new MWA affiliates includes the following vocations and day jobs: social media marketer, antiques dealer, headhunter, retired federal prosecutor, race car driver, US Army (retired), webmaster, seamstress,and, my favorite until I found out what it meant, “Oracle/DBA.” I imagined something arcane and sibylline. But when I consulted Google, this job title turned out to mean, disappointingly, the database administrator of an Oracle server.


What are these aspiring writers thinking? Are their dreams and expectations any different from those of us who started “wanting to be a writer” between ten and fifty years ago? Do they dream of getting reviewed in the NY Times and making money? Or do they expect to distribute their novels on the Internet? Do they know how much promotion they’ll have to do either way? Are they willing to revise and seek critique? Are they willing to keep going through rejection after rejection? Do they understand that the fact that some bestselling authors break a lot of rules and that not every popular book is well written have nothing to do with their chances of breaking in?


If they’re starting out by joining MWA or Sisters in Crime, at least they're making a good start, because becoming a published writer is almost impossible to do alone. Mystery writers have an advantage in that our community is rightly known for being particularly generous and helpful to each other and welcoming to beginners who are willing to do the work. Their dreams may even come true, if they can believe the simple precepts they’ll hear from more experienced authors. The three most important of these, in my opinion:


Read, read, read. Write, write, write.
Learn to kill your darlings.
Don’t quit your day job.

The Brooklyn Book Festival

Elizabeth Zelvin

I spent last Sunday at the Brooklyn Book Festival, an ambitious annual event that describes itself as follows:

The Brooklyn Book Festival is the largest free literary event in New York City presenting an array of literary stars and emerging authors who represent the exciting world of literature today. One of America’s premier book festivals, this hip, smart, diverse gathering attracts thousands of book lovers of all ages.

This year’s luminaries included Larry McMurtry, Terry McMillan, Jennifer Egan, John Sayles, Joyce Carol Oates, Walter Mosley, Jean Valentine, Jules Feiffer, and Pete Hamill. But I didn’t hear any of them speak. The New York chapters of both Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime had tables. Between the two, I was on my feet for several hours, schmoozing with both the passing book lovers and my fellow writers. I handed out at least a hundred bookmarks for Death Will Extend Your Vacation, my new book, which won’t be out till next spring. I even sold a decent number of my already published books.

Typically, given New York’s increasingly fickle weather (global warming doesn’t mean it’s always hot—it increases extremes), the day started out gray and blustery and gradually became one of those clear, sparkling fall afternoons for which New York is famous.

At the Sisters in Crime booth, the hot ticket item was Murder New York Style: Fresh Slices, an anthology of crime stories by chapter members, each set in a part of New York City (within the five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island) that probably doesn’t appear in any tourist guide. My story’s setting, the church basements of AA throughout the city, certainly doesn’t. Though a lifelong New Yorker, I had never heard of the Morbid Anatomy Library. One formerly well-kept secret, the High Line, is rapidly becoming a tourist attraction. Since its stunning renovation as a block-wide “mile-and-a-half-long elevated park, running through the West Side neighborhoods of the Meatpacking District, West Chelsea and Clinton/Hell's Kitchen,” it’s rapidly becoming a favorite of both locals and visitors. Every guest I’ve had from out of town or another country in the past year has been eager to see it. Anyhow, the settings have quite a range, and the anthology, which actually debuted at the Festival, sold briskly at a special event price.

Rock bottom bargains were the order of the day at the MWA table too, where my fellow authors included Rosemary Harris, Charles Salzberg, and Sheila York. There’s no doubt in my mind that thanks to Amazon, the amount people will pay for a book, especially a hardcover, has been permanently lowered. But as veteran self-promoting authors (and that means all of us) know, selling books is not necessarily the most important item on the agenda at a book event. We’re building readership every time we hand out a bookmark or encourage someone who says, “I’ll get it at the library” or “I’ll get it for my Kindle.” I had a chance to catch up with author Grace F. Edwards, who I wish still came regularly to MWA and SinC meetings. Rosemary had a productive chat on behalf of MWA with the author of the book publishing guide on About.com. Sheila got to meet a fan who squealed with delight to find that she could finally read the sequel to the first book in Sheila’s series, which she adored. That’s a peak experience for any author, on top of the pleasure of an afternoon in the sun, schmoozing with fellow writers and people who love books.

Larry McMurtry, Susan Isaacs, and me
I just learned this morning that my picture appears in illustrious company in an article about the Festival on About.com.

Women of Mystery: Peek Under the Writer's Veil

Elizabeth Zelvin

On August 7, I participated in a panel at the Mid-Manhattan Branch of the New York Public Library, moderated by Jane Cleland, president of the New York Chapter of Mystery Writers of America and Agatha-nominated author of Consigned to Death. About 75 mystery lovers turned out to hear a lively discussion and ask questions. The other panelists were Robin Hathaway, Mary Jane Clark, and Mary Anne Kelly. I had prepared answers to Jane’s questions, and while what I wrote was not exactly what I said in the give and take of the panel, I thought the dialogue between Jane and me might be of interest.

Cleland: Are you a feminist? What does the term mean to you?
Zelvin: Absolutely. I think women are wonderful. I don’t believe they are inferior to men or incapable of achieving as much, though they’re different in some ways, and I don’t think their main purpose is to serve and support men.

Cleland: Are your characters feminists? How is that relevant to the writing?
Zelvin: Yes, they are, both men and women. Even though gender is a factor in who they are as individuals, the characters and the narrative itself takes different things for granted than you’d find in an old-fashioned nonfeminist book. For example, the male characters don’t comment about the length of the women’s legs or fall in love with them for being able to eat like a truckdriver without gaining a pound. Nobody makes jokes about women drivers or women liking shopping. There are a lot of subtle putdowns in unconsciously sexist books that you won’t find in mine—even though the male characters occasionally say, “Women!” and the female characters occasionally say, “Men!”

Cleland: If we peeked under your veil, what would we find? What's something about you that leads you to write as you do? What does your unique voice derive from?
Zelvin: Age and experience! I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was 7, and I expected to publish my first novel about 40 years earlier than I actually will. But I have a number of earlier manuscripts in the drawer, including three mysteries, and in retrospect, there’s no way I could have written Death Will Get You Sober, which I’m very proud of, without every moment of my journey up to this point. I’ve been saying for years that my vision of maturity includes a couple of archetypes that I aspire to: the Wise Woman and the Outrageous Older Woman. I think my voice shows the influence of both of those aspects of who I am today.

Cleland: Do women kill for different motives than men do?
Zelvin: Sometimes yes, sometimes no. While I’m reluctant to generalize, I’d say the type of anger behind some murders is affected by gender. Some women kill out of frustration and feelings of powerlessness—we’ve all seen them in the headlines--while some men kill out of impulsive, aggressive rage.

Cleland: Do women detect using different skill sets or strategies?
Zelvin: The temptation is to say yes, that men use reason and women use intuition, but I think it’s a dangerous generalization, and I haven’t set up that dichotomy with my male and female sleuths. From the perspective of feminist psychology, women’s emotional development does take place through connection and relationships, while men’s is a process of separation, so that women do tend to be more expressive—use relational skills--and men more instrumental—use more cognitive skills. But of course not every individual fits completely into that or any model.

Cleland: Is it hard writing male characters? What about writing strong women?
Zelvin: I ended up with a male protagonist by accident. I started out with two alternating first-person voices. I was very proud of my male protagonist’s voice because he was nothing like me. I think the autobiographical first novel is like the starter marriage—if you reach a certain age without doing it, you can skip right over it. Yet I couldn’t make my female voice too much like me, so I tried to take her over the top, and she turned out funny but a little too preachy, which is why she ended up a sidekick. I think my protagonist Bruce’s voice owes as much to his being a recovering alcoholic in early sobriety as it does to his being a guy, although he’s definitely a guy’s guy in some ways. What he’s not is a superhero or man of action, the way many male characters in crime fiction are. The men I know in real life don't punch anyone in the jaw either.

Cleland: Can you describe your writing process?
Zelvin: I have to be alone—I could never write in Starbucks like some writers I know. It works best when I can get up and go straight to the computer, start writing without talking to my husband or anyone else or even checking my email. I can’t always do this, but that’s when the work gets done. I’ve been out in the country most of the summer working on my new manuscript. Some days I can do it, and other days I have to put something else first—my husband, my granddaughters, my clients, or some other task with a deadline. Or pain in the neck maintenance tasks, like paying bills or straightening out some screwup with the bank or a plumbing or electrical crisis or going to the dentist. I have a few mantras: “I’ll write for an hour if it takes all day” is one of them. SJ Rozan says do two pages a day every day no matter what, so I tell myself I can do two pages. But I don’t really feel as if I’ve had a real writing day unless I hit 1000 words, which is four or five pages since I write a lot of dialogue. Diana Gabaldon writes 1000 words a day, and her historical time-travel series, the Outlander books, are big, fat, wonderful books, much longer than most mysteries.

Cleland: What's the most difficult part of writing? What's the most fun?
Zelvin: Oh, how I hate the first draft. My mantra is “just keep telling the story,” but until I’ve done it, I’m always afraid I won’t be able to make it to the end with everything all wound up. I’ve been very encouraged by hearing some highly successful writers say it’s the same for them, including Carolyn Hart, Nancy Pickard, and Rhys Bowen, all of whom I've interviewed for Poe's Deadly Daughters. The most fun? Having written! And okay, those moments when I’m really cooking, when it’s just coming through me. Writers in past centuries used to call it the Muse, and the spiritual expression for the same thing is “being a channel.” And when I write something clever or funny, that’s fun too.

Cleland: Under that veil--what do you think of promoting your work? Are you good at it? Do you like that responsibility?
Zelvin: I used to be very shy, and I’ve always hated sales. I had a brief but nightmarish career selling life insurance back in 1980. But so far I’m really enjoying promoting my book, because it’s all different kinds of networking. Feminist psychology says women are relational, and I love spinning a web of connections both online and face to face. I have a friend who defines schmoozing as “networking shamelessly,” and I do love to schmooze. It’s in my New York Jewish daughter-of-two-lawyers genes.

Who Writes Mysteries?

Elizabeth Zelvin

Mystery Writers of America issues a national newsletter, The 3rd Degree, ten times a year. I usually read all of it from front to back (no covers), searching for tips about the craft and business of writing and the names of people I know in the chapter and conference news. Until recently, I scanned the fine print for the names of publishers big and small that might be open to first-novel submissions. But my favorite feature, catchily titled Fresh Blood, is the list of new members, and more particularly, not the active members--published crime fiction writers who have just joined MWA--but the affiliate members—writers whose work has yet to click with that elusive editor (one is all you need!) but who dream of becoming published mystery writers and, in many cases, have reams of well-worked manuscript to prove it.

Writing a mystery, like opening a restaurant or winning the lottery, is one of those great dreams that flourish perennially in the collective unconscious. MWA identifies affiliates by chapter (NY, SOCAL etc.) and occupation as stated, presumably, on the membership application. The most recent issue listed the usual suspects—journalist, technical editor, English professor, copywriter, retired police officer, attorney, screenwriter. A few other professions—including mine, psychotherapist, and marketing consultant—crop up regularly. In addition, this month a caterer, a truck driver, a retired airline pilot, and a yoga instructor were knocking on the gates of crime fiction authorship. Last month’s batch included a musician, a beadmaker, a flight attendant, a race car rental entrepreneur, the COO of a hedge fund, and a licensed evangelist missionary.

Why do I write? I only know I’ve been a writer since I first read Emily of New Moon by Canadian author L.M. Montgomery, better known for Anne of Green Gables, at the age of 7 or 8. Emily wrote because she had to, as did Jo in Little Women, whose acquaintance I made a few years later. It was a drive, not a choice, for them and I suppose for me. Why mysteries? Because that’s the reading I most enjoy. A good mystery satisfies my sense of structure, plot, and character and allows the writer (me or the authors whose books I read) enormous freedom to mount any hobby we fancy and, in Stephen Leacock’s great phrase, gallop away in all directions. My psychotherapist “hat” suggests the themes of recovery and personal growth that I’ve woven into my forthcoming Death Will Get You Sober and its projected sequels. The musician may write about music, the beadmaker about beads—or not. I think the bottom line is that the writer’s life experience enriches what is written. I certainly didn’t plan to publish my first novel in my 60s—my 20s was more what I had in mind. But I am absolutely certain that I couldn’t have written the work that will appear next year—of which I’m very proud—without having first been all those other things: not only therapist, in my case, but teacher and poet and performer and daughter and mother and friend and wife and lover and traveler—a first-time mystery author, but a well-seasoned storyteller and human being.