Writers Workshop 2nd & 3rd Day

Wow!

I know I am quite late with this posting but the last few days have been a whirlwind of activity which I am just now winding down from.

On Friday night we had the awards ceremony which was just spectacular and yesterday we had the book signing with all the winners and a lot of the judges at Borders in Pasadena - but more of that later. We are still sorting through all the photos from these 2 memorable events but will have them ready for posting tomorrow.
Right now I am going to catch up on what happened on Tuesday and Wednesday with lots of great shots from those 2 days.

Well, on Tuesday we had the 2nd day for the writers and we had the workshop for the illustrators starting as well, so it was a packed day as was Wednesday.

I'll start with the writer's workshop which continued on Tuesday with Tim Powers and K.D. Wentworth gathering the writer's in the lobby of the hotel in Pasadena to send them off for their next task which was to find a complete stranger and strike up a conversation with them with the idea to find out whatever they can about them and use what they learned about this stranger in the story they are to write. Here is Tim and K.D. sending off the writers:




And here we have Stephen Kotowych from Toronto eating lunch with his stranger. I am not sure if Stephen invited the stranger to lunch or the other way around.





They also went to the local library to do research on the subject they have decided to write about based on the object they received on Monday. If they aren't able to come up with any story ideas based on the object they are encouraged to read up on something, anything; perhaps penguins or albatrosses. It's really up to them. Here they are gathered in front of the library.





From left to right, we have: Andrea Kail, Jeff Carlson, Kim Zimring, Douglas Texter, Stephen Gaskell, Aliette de Bodard, John Burridge, Tony Pi, Stephen Kotowych, K.D. Wentworth, Joseph Jordan, Tim Powers, Damon Kaswell and Edward Sevcik.


Stephen Gaskell from England has his object - a red and white striped star of all things - right next to him as a reminder. Looks like he is straining to make a connection with something or other.




Andrea Kail in the library, doing serious research for a story that is starting to take shape.





After completing their research and talking to a stranger the actual challenge begins. They now have 24 hours to write a story which they are to turn in by Wednesday before dinner and these stories will be read by their fellow writers, so nobody wants to turn in some schlock piece. The writers are laboring hard burning the midnight oil to develop their characters and come up with a plausible plot line that somehow ties in with the object they received and the stranger they interviewed earlier.

Check out these 2 shots of Aliette from Paris, France and Stephen Kotowych from Toronto:










The writing of the stories was completed on the 3rd day and at the end of the 3rd day the writers and illustrators got presentations from Galaxy Press on how to set up bookstore signing events to sell the book, how to sell the book online through blogging and distribution of online content and they further learned how to do media interviews for print, radio and TV. Check the next blog posting for further details on how that went!

Peter Breyer
GALAXY PRESS