Rock Solid Writer’s Conference-- Sept 20th

The last couple of years the PSM library in Castle Rock has hosted the Rock Solid Writer's Conference. It's an all day experience with key speakers, classes taught by published authors and the opportunity for people to pitch their books to agents. this year my mom was kind enough to get me a spot in the conference. Overall, a wonderful experience. The speakers Margaret Coel and Jim Sheeler. Coel used humor and charmed to win over the group talking about her Native American mystery novels and her non-fiction book on Chief Left-Hand. Sheeler moved the audience with his powerful slide show on his new book Final Salute which takes a close look of the morning families of soldiers killed in Iraq.
Everyone signed up for four sessions of classes; mine were:

• "Make Your Poetry Come a Live" taught by Gail Waldstein
• "The Care and Feeding of Editors" taught by Marni Jameson, Sally Stich and Carol McAdoo Rehme
• "Structuring the Screenplay" taught by Ryan Kelly
• Dialogue and Setting in Fiction" taught by Todd Mitchell

Overall the first and last one fall flat. Waldstein was unfocused and used the time to talk about personal manners which wasn't helpful or professional. and ended the class with an exercise that she got from the second worse writing conference she attended plus an exercise she didn't even try herself. The last class taught by Mitchell just didn't add anything to my knowledge and felt like it was geared towards a young/less experience audience. The only interesting thought he presented was using dialogue to hide the truth.

The other two classes were fantastic. I singed up for 'The Care and Feeding of Editors' because of the name. What a creative name-- how couldn't I reward these ladies for such wit!?! Two of ladies (Jameson and Stich) come from a freelance writing for magazine background and spent they're 20 minutes on what editors want/don't want, your relationship is always going to be one sided, and fresh is important to any sells pitch. McAdoo Rehme's background deals with editing collection of short story books such as Chicken Soup for the Soul. The one piece of information that really stuck out to me was that the writers sometime shape the collection. A wonderful punctual, precise, and focused presentation. Finally, Ryan Kelly's 'Structure for Screen Plays' blew me way. Kelly's enthusiasm propelled the whole class and carried our awkward answer to a new heights that added to the discussion. Kelly focused on the plot structure of a good screen play and gave helpful advice as when key events are suppose to happen and what moves a screen play is a characters desire/need and the bigger the consequences the better the movie. Both classes was worth the entry fee for the event.