Writing Industries Conference 2010

The Writing Industries Conference in the East Midlands started in 2008 I believe and is run by the Literature Network once every two years with the idea of allowing regional writers, publishers, agents and others (like me) to make connections, share wisdom and remind themselves that as isolated as they often are in their writing, they are still part of a local community.

I believe the speeches and panels are all being podcast so do check them out.

It's very much a conference rather than a convention. People arrive, register, chat for a bit then it's the keynote speech and a series of panels, workshops and 1-2-1's (booked in advance I believe) keeping us all busy for the day, with chance to mingle again at lunch.

I picked out a couple of panels and a workshop that particularly appealed to me and overlapped loosely with my role as a book blogger rather than a writer.

I took the train rather than driving and i'm glad since while waiting for the bus I got chatting with Farhana Shaikh a young asian writer from Leicester who is the founding editor of online mag The Asian Writer. If i'd driven I still wouldn't know how active the asian writing community is in Leicester.

The keynote speaker was Graham Joyce and his talk was billed as the end of the print age, but the focus was more on the need of writers in the modern age to consider their options, their possible income streams and get out of the get advance, write masterpiece mindset. He talked about the role of the internet and technology for writers now and disillusioned anyone expecting to spend their days wearing a smoking jacket and smoking cheroots. Graham is working on Doom 4 the video game so i'm now really excited about that too.

The first set of parallel panels were "how to sell your script and see it produced", "community journalism and blogging" and "spoken word 1000 working poets".
Naturally I chose Community Journalism and blogging.
On the panel were Susi O'Neill who is the founder of Creative Nottingham. She is also a digital consultant. James Walker and Al Needham both work on Nottingham's Left Lion mag, but with a different focus, James is their lit editor and Al is an editor but is also one of the uk's top sex writers. John Coster is from my own city of Leicester and runs Citizen's eye which is a community news hub that shamefully I was oblivious too and am now very excited about.
The panel was fascinating, the way the community magazines run, the support they garner and the sheer volume of fantastic stuff going on in our City's once you scratch below the surface. They gave the East Midlands region a whole new sparkle in my mind and I am looking forward to really exploring. The strong message that came out of the panel (partly due to the questions asked) was you can focus on good writing and your community or you can focus on making money, the two may not be entirely mutually exclusive in the long run, there are benefits to community writing to gain experience or raise your profile, it becomes your portfolio, but often what the community needs from you and what sells huge numbers are not the same thing.

The next run of panels to choose from were "The state of commercial publishing" , "writing in the digital era", and "how do writers become teachers". There are no prizes for guessing that I went for writing in the digital era.
The panel was Steve Ince, a game writer designer (Broken Sword etc), Alex Pryce who is a poet living and studying in Leicester at present and also runs the brilliant PoetCasting. Graham Joyce, who really should need no further introduction as a five time British Fantasy Award winner and Richard Birkin of Mudlark and Pixel - Lab who also runs the self publishing imprint Time Travel Opps for all his own stuff.
The panel was largely focused on the internet as communication and branding, a means for finding an audience and interacting with them. A key point seemed to be that with the assumption now that you can get things for free online it can work in the favour of both published and new authors to offer something to their readers and make use of these new opportunities. There was some discussion of the potential for self publishing and the new technologies coming around for creating, Newspaper Club and Budding were discussed, that's exciting stuff folks. The group also talked about the ability to try new things and be less constricted by the traditions of publishing. Once again the question was asked, how can we make money. The panels view, there are relatively few good ways to make money from online content, but you can at least be noticed, picked up by people you can make money from, maybe all you do is build a small fan base, but to paraphrase Richard, "anyone who quits work to become a writer is an idiot". The publishing industry doesn't have the money it once did and few writers can afford to write full time.

After a short break for lunch, there were more panel throughout the afternoon. I didn't attend any of the afternoon panels although there were some interesting looking ones. I did however attend a workshop on "Working with an Audience" by Rob Gee (aided by Mark Gwynne Jones) stand up comedic poet. This was popular and very entertaining. Sadly quite short. We did a fun a little improv exercise and chatted about the issues of performing live. Not something I really have to do, but Rob was brilliant at Short Fuse in January and I hate having to talk in front of people so I still got quite a lot out of it. The time flew by. I called an end to my day at that point but I expect over the next few days a number of articles will appear on the WIC site so you can find out about the rest of it.

The other panels run were: "Writing for children and young adults", "breaking into SF, fantasy and horror", and "how does public funding support writing" the last sessions being on "everything you ever wanted to ask an agent", "trad vs para romance", "poetry and community". There were also workshops on "Writing for video games" and "about the writer's guild" and 1-2-1 sessions available with visiting agent "Jane Finigan".

My only tips for people planning on attending these kinds of events other than a wholehearted "Go" is make sure you have a bottle of water and a cereal bar on you because the queue for lunch was hellish and sitting for long periods in a variety of lecture theatres will dry you out.

It was a fantastic day and a really positive thing for the region. There were a handful of stalls and a relaxed comfortable atmoshphere. Congratulations to everyone involved in organising the event.