Writing Industries Conference (east midlands)

[J-WO]

Why not spend this 6th of March in Loughborough? (Answers on a postcard please). Loughborough University to be exact, who are holding a Conference for aspiring writers and writers in general.

Keynote speaker will be Graham Joyce (Award winning fantasy author and all round top bloke) and there's a panel about breaking into genre fiction.

I still haven't learn't to link (which these days is akin to illiteracy, so pity me!) but the website is writingindustries.com.
Tickets are still available, though becoming scarce as pandas. They're also looking for volunteers.

 

[Mark Robson]

Was nice to meet you at Loughborough, J-WO. Hope to catch you around the bazaars again sometime.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Is there anyone who can post something on Joyce's speech?

 

[J-WO]

Joyce's speech was recorded and shall be podcasted somewhere- I know some of the people involved so I shall PM you the details, Knivesout.

Suffice to say it was a very good speech, exhorting us to take on new technologies in writing with aplomb. He began by saying that the book was an incredible piece of technology that- like a Tardis- is far larger on the inside than its humble outside would suggest and capable of taking us to the furthest reaches of inner and outer space.

'However,' Joyce said, 'they went and built a better Tardis'- one with incredibly greater storage and far faster in its ability to travel and to replicate. Books will never entirely disappear (In the same way stone tools still carried on when bronze appeared), but we have reached the end of the 'Print age'- and any modern writer has to accept this fact. Because the opportunities are immense.

Joyce said that for writers to earn a living in this new age, diversification was the key. Payment won't come from large sources, but from 'micro-streams' of finance. Writers cannot limit themselves in their interests--if you can write short stories, say, then you are capable of scriptwriting or non-fiction or whatever else. Generally, the only barrier to that outlook is our own selves, our opinion of ourselves as writers.

Graham also highlighted traditional publishers failure to truly adapt to the situation.

Anyhow, that was the gist of it, interlaced with his trademark humour that I won't even attempt to convey. I'm sorry if my description of it is a little garbled; it certainly doesn't do Graham justice!

As a keynote speech it was ideal, because the themes in it played through just about every panel at the conference that day (Not to mention a good deal of the chat going on at the bar).


Mark Robson- Great to meet you in the flesh. Without your presence in that endless cue to the canteen, I don't think I'd have made it!

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Thanks, J-WO, I'd appreciate it.