Conference season

Oh, to be in New York City right now. The annual SCBWI winter conference is in full swing and I would love to be there, too. Utah’s own James Dashner is giving the keynote on Sunday.

It is the kick off to the 2015 writing conference season. The SCBWI is the biggie, attracting a large national level

LTUE - Feb 12-14

Life, the Universe, and Everything. That about covers it. The conference moniker is borrowed from a Douglas Adams book with the same title. Running now for thirty years, LTUE bills itself as a “three-day academic symposium on all aspects of science fiction and fantasy.” Of course, it deals with “everything” so there’s bound to be something for most any writer. It meets at the Provo Marriott Hotel and Conference Center. For complete information, go to LTUE.net.

Writing for Charity - March 21

This one day event features presenters, many of whom are Utah authors, panel discussions and a chance to have your work discussed with an agent, either Ammi-Joan Paquette or Minju Chang. They have four options for registration, each with varying levels of exposure to the two agents in attendance. Oh, and your registration fees are charitable. Writers for Charity chooses different organizations to donate to with a goal of getting books into the hands of children. They’ll also meet in Provo and more information is available at WritingforCharity.blogspot.com.

LDStorymakers - May 15 & 16

Agents galore and more Utah writers presenting on various aspects of the craft. Martine Leavitt delivers the keynote. Prices vary depending on the degree of involvement you choose. This conference also happens in Provo and their site, LDStorymakers.com provides details. 

WIFYR - June 15-19

My personal favorite is Carol Lynch William’s Writing and Illustrating For Young Readers. Like the others, this conference offers agents and Utah authors, and pricing varies. This is a week-long conference and differs from the others in that writers in the morning workshops are more active participants. Listening to a lecturer tends to be a more passive role. The workshops are interactive and intense. Their purpose is to critique and improve your manuscript. The afternoons have presenters and Jennifer Nielsen is the keynote speaker. This conference meets in Sandy and the WIFYR.com website offers details.

It’s winter in NYC, balmy in SLC. I would love to do SCBWI’s conference one of these days. But why spend the money on airfare and lodging when we’ve got some excellent opportunities for writers right here in Utah.

(This article also posted at http://writetimeluck.blogspot.com)

LTUE 2014: A Cornucopia of Writing Goodness

by Deren Hansen

Life, the Universe, and Everything 32, which runs from February 13-15, 2014 at the Provo Marriot, is a remarkable (and amazingly affordable) gathering of people fascinated by writing and speculative fiction.

I mentioned the guest list in a previous note, but for those of you still on the fence about the conference, the full schedule is now available. I'm willing to wager that you can find a dozen sessions to help your writing.

If you're a real glutton for punishment, in addition to participating on several panel, I'm giving two presentations:

• The Hero's Journey and the Virgin's Promise: Patterns and Archetypes for Better Characters, on Thursday, February 13, 2014 at 11am.
• Verisimilitude: How Illusions, Confidence Games, and Skillful Lying Can Improve Your Fiction, on Saturday, February 15, 2014 at 5:00pm 

You can register for the full conference or for individual days, so if you're chained to your desk at work until Friday evening there's still plenty to see and do at LTUE on Saturday.

If you're able to attend and you see a tall fellow in a brown sports coat, come say hello. I'd love to visit with you.


Deren Hansen is the author of the Dunlith Hill Writers Guides. Learn more at dunlithhill.com.

LTUE, the Place to Be (in February)

by Deren Hansen

Life, the Universe, & Everything (LTUE) 32, which runs February 13-15, 2014 at the Provo Marriott Hotel & Conference Center, is among the best bang-for-the-buck Utah conferences for writers.

"LTUE is comprised of panels, workshops, presentations and papers on writing, art, literature, media, science and other aspects of speculative fiction. It is the longest, student run symposium of its nature in the nation (or so we have been told)."

The registration fee will set you back $15 a day but it's a small price to pay for three days packed* with panels and presentation. [*Packed means the conference runs hourly sessions from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm with no scheduled breaks.]

Orson Scott Card is this year's guest of honor, and special guests include Blake Casselman, Michael Collings, Michaelbrent Collings, David Farland, Brian Hailes, L. E. Modesitt Jr., James A. Owen, Brandon Sanderson, and Anne Sowards.

LTUE is organized into the following tracks: Academic, Books, Create Your Own World (CYOW), Educator's Conference, Film, Gaming, Graphic Art, Special Events, and Writing. If past conferences are any indication, writers will have a hard time deciding what to miss, particularly between the writing and CYOW tracks.

The only major downside is that the conference runs through February 14th, but if you have any facility at all with wordsmithing and storytelling you should be able to convince your valentine that sharing conference sessions in Provo is, in fact, the pinnacle of romance.

For more information, go to ltue.net.

Deren Hansen is the author of the Dunlith Hill Writers Guides. This article is from Sustainable Creativity: How to Enjoy a Committed, Long-term Relationship with your Muse. Learn more at dunlithhill.com.

Writing conferences

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The New York publishing houses have their eye on Utah children’s writers. Elissa Cruz, of the local SCBWI, said that publisher refer to us as the “Mormon Mafia.” Deren Hansen mentioned in his Wednesday post that Utah seems to have a disproportionate number of writers. It could be that we take our craft seriously as evidenced by the number of writing conferences in the state. Three good ones in particular are coming up soon.

Deren mentioned the LTUE next weekend. Years ago the brilliant Douglass Adams penned Life, the Universe and Everything, from which LTUE takes its name. Life, The Universe, and Everything is a three-day symposium that examines the realms of science fiction and fantasy. Their sessions are full of all topics imaginable to writers of these genres. They offer several editors and agents and you can sign up for a pitch session with them. For more information, click on their site: http://ltue.net/

In May the LDStorymakers meet. They, too, have some amazing sessions along with publishers and a pitch session. One of my critique group members is going and encouraging the rest of us to go. I’m having a hard time finding a reason not to attend. More information can be found here: http://storymakersconference.myshopify.com/

My favorite writer’s conference is WIFYR in June. Carol Lynch Williams does such a service to the children’s writing community by providing top-notch authors and a week to sit in their workshops and glean tips of the craft. This is a weeklong event with afternoon sessions offering speakers detailing the multiple aspects of writing. Real writing growth comes from the morning workshops. Guided and pampered by an acclaimed author, participants meet in an intimate setting with other like-minded writers Monday through Friday. The author shares their take on character and story development, trends in the publishing industry, and tips on how to move your manuscript out of the sludge-pile and get it noticed. Agents and editors will be at WIFYR, as well. Registration will open soon. Go here to learn more: http://www.wifyr.com/

Whatever your ability level, you can kick your writing up a notch by attending any of these wonderful Utah offerings.

Blooming in Unlikely Places: LTUE 31

by Deren Hansen

There is an established order to things: movies come out of Hollywood and books come out of New York. The coasts are where the interesting things happen and the middle states are what you fly over. And in an established order, you must go to the center if you want to succeed. No one will find you if you set up shop off the beaten path.

Except when they do. Sometimes if you build it, they do come.

Life, The Universe, and Everything (LTUE) 31 will meet on February 14 – 16, 2013 in Provo, Utah. The symposium organized thirty-one years ago by a BYU professor has grown into one of the largest writing conferences in the Intermountain West.

Provo? Utah? There’s nothing there but snow, salt, and a peculiar religious tradition, right?

Actually, Utah boasts a surprising — some would say disproportionate — number of writers. And LTUE is only one of nearly a dozen writing conferences held in Utah. It’s hard to say whether the number of writers grew because of the conferences, or the conferences because of the writers, but we have a vibrant, vital writing community out here in what many would say is the middle of nowhere.

Why?

Because no one took any notice of the fact that portions of Utah look remarkably like Tatooine or that their Western home was far away from the bright center of the publishing universe. Instead, they devoted themselves to what they loved: they wrote and they found like-minded people who wanted to get together periodically and talk about writing. They didn’t worry (too much) about what was going on elsewhere or, more importantly, what anyone else thought.

Sometimes the best way to succeed is to forget about the established order, pursue your fascination, and simply invite others to share what you’ve discovered.

For those of you in the area, I will be sharing two presentations at LTUE 31: “Verisimilitude: How Illusions, Confidence Games, and Skillful Lying Can Improve Your Fiction,” (Thursday, February 14, 2013 at 1:00 pm) and “Weaving a Complex Narrative: How to Write Like J.R.R. Tolkien in Three Easy Steps,” (Friday, February 15, 2013 at 11:00 am). I’ll also be holding forth on various panels about anachronisms, archetypes, and anthropology. (And if you’re a real glutton for punishment, stop me in the hallway.)


Deren Hansen is the author of the Dunlith Hill Writers Guides. Learn more at dunlithhill.com.

LTUE 30: Non-intersecting Orbits

by Deren Hansen

Two weeks ago the thirtieth incarnation of Life, the Universe, and Everything (LTUE), the BYU symposium on science fiction that has morphed into the largest (and least expensive) writing conference in Utah, convened. This year the conference was held at UVU to handle the crowd.

I always find conferences like this a bit frustrating at the structural level: at best you can only participate in about a third of what's going on. But what they don't mention in the brochure is that there's as much going on in the dealers’ room and in the halls and lobbies as in the sessions proper.

This year I had to officially give up trying to attend every session that sounded interesting because I participated as a presenter.

I learned several things from being the one at the front of the room:

• There are a surprisingly large number of people who don't simply tolerate but actually have an appetite for abstraction at 9:00 am.
• No green room is large enough when Larry Correia and Robert Defendi are holding forth on military history.
• Hydration is critical if you have to speak for more than a few minutes
• There are an awful lot of professional writers within the orbit of the Wasatch front (LTUE 30 had nearly 150 guest, panelists, and presenters)
• There are even more people who have the constitution and stamina to be pleasant on the third day of a conference that runs at least three sessions for twelve hours a day—with no meal breaks.
• Brandon Sanderson is a Martian.

I suppose that last bullet point requires a bit more explanation.

First, let me state, for the record, that Brandon is charming person—generous and gracious with fans and aspiring writers alike. In our few interactions, he's been the very model of how a writer should behave in public. If you've never seen Brandon at a signing or on a panel, you should go simply to learn from the way he handles himself in public.

Brandon was one of the people I hoped to meet at LTUE 30. Other than the excellent panel with Tracy Hickman, Dave Farland, L.E. Modesitt, Jr., and Brandon, I never saw him at the conference—which wasn't a surpirse: Brandon is a busy man. Brandon's Writing Excuses partners, Dan Wells, Howard Tayler, and Mary Robinett Kowal are also busy people (something I confirmed in brief conversations with Howard and Mary).

But as with the Tango, where it takes two, part of the reason I missed Brandon is because I was busy, too.

Largely because Brandon is practically a Utah county neighbor, I anticipated that we might someday strike up a professional relationship. At one signing, for example, I joked that I was there as part of a cunning plan to score a guest spot on his podcast in two years.

What I realized during the conference is that I'd made the same mistake as the owner of a local franchise who thinks he should pal around with the CEO of a major corporation because they both run a business.

Brandon and I currently have non-intersecting orbits. He already has his slate full of professional relationships. So do I.

During one of the battles of the Civil War, a subordinate rode up to General Grant, gave his report, and then asked if the general was worried about what the confederate general might do. "No," replied General Grant, "I'm worried about what I'm going to do."

I'll bet you didn't expect the second best piece of networking advice to come from the Civil War.

The corollary to last week’s post sharing the best networking advice ever is that the way to cultivate professional relationships is to worry about what I’m going to do not what Brandon or anyone else might be up to.


Deren blogs at The Laws of Making.

Last Second and LTUE

Hey, I'm horrible at this. I think I've said that before. I don't even know if I did my second round in January. Work and life are just that busy unfortunately.

But, I want to remind everyone to go to www.ltue.org if you haven't yet and check out the awesome writers conference going on this week. I really can't wait. I went to the Friday and Saturday sessions last year and it was awesome. First time I heard Dan Wells speak, who is one of the best speakers ever (of course, I fear him at this point, so I may pass on his lessons on horror writing.) Plus, the dudetastic James Dashner will be the Guest of Honor. (Couldn't find a better adjective.)

So, go to LTUE, it's awesome. Plus, I'll be there. And I'm awesome, right? :-)

Short post, I know. Busy life still. And remember:

Alien abductions are involuntary.