Posts

Keynote Speaker for #MWW22: Jane Friedman!

Jane Friedman has 20 years of experience in the publishing industry, with expertise in business strategy for authors and publishers. She’s the editor of The Hot Sheet, the essential industry newsletter for authors, and has previously worked for Writer’s Digest and the Virginia Quarterly Review. In 2019, Jane was awarded Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World; her newsletter was awarded Media Outlet of the Year in 2020.

Jane’s newest book is The Business of Being a Writer (University of Chicago Press); Publishers Weekly said that it is “destined to become a staple reference book for writers and those interested in publishing careers.” Also, in collaboration with The Authors Guild, she wrote The Authors Guild Guide to Self-Publishing.

In addition to being a professor with The Great Courses, Jane maintains an award-winning blog for writers at JaneFriedman.com; her expertise has been featured by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New York Post, Publishers Weekly, NPR, PBS, NBC, CBS, the National Press Club and many other outlets.

Jane has delivered keynotes and workshops on the digital era of authorship at worldwide industry events, including the Writer’s Digest annual conference, Stockholm Writers Festival, San Miguel Writers Conference, The Muse & The Marketplace, Frankfurt Book Fair, BookExpo America, and Digital Book World. She’s also served on grant panels for the National Endowment for the Arts and the Creative Work Fund, and has held positions as a professor of writing, media, and publishing at the University of Cincinnati and University of Virginia.

In her spare time, Jane writes creative nonfiction, which has been included in the anthologies Every Father’s Daughter and Drinking Diaries. If you look hard enough, you can also find her embarrassing college poetry.

Find out more at https://janefriedman.com/

Jane Friedman has an established history with Midwest Writers Workshop:

My career, almost in its entirety, has been spent in service to writers and the writing and publishing community. I’ve attended hundreds of conferences over the years, and while they all have wonderful success stories (and their own special qualities), Midwest Writers has always been the event I go “home” to each year, to hit my own reset button and remember why I do the work that I do. I’ve watched writer-attendees from my very first years flourish into full-time authors, who then return as faculty—and sometimes join the committee. There is a strong tradition of giving back, of helping another writer up the ladder. The spirit is one of generosity and warm-heartedness.

She will deliver the keynote speech, “The Anxiety Talk: Answering the Unanswerable Questions.” You don’t want to miss out on this!

Check out the Full Faculty

Check out the Full Schedule

Q & A with Jane

Leah Lederman, MWW publicity chair, was thrilled to ask Jane Friedman some questions about her upcoming keynote speech. As ever, Jane’s responses were as much practical as they were inspiring, a gift to writers at any stage.

Hopefully you enjoy this interview as much as we did!

MWW: I’ve learned a lot from you about the nuts & bolts of an author career (thank you!), and I’m really excited to hear you talk about the emotional aspect of this strange writer path. What are some of the biggest and most common fears you’ve seen writers express, regarding their work—whether it’s in the mere creation of it, or in putting it “out there”?

JF: Writers get stuck in these lack of confidence loops, and it can stop progress before it even starts. Two of the biggest traps

Do I have talent? There’s a fear of looking foolish, like you’re obviously wasting your time because you can’t write well. The problem is that we all necessarily have to start by doing “bad” work. It takes time and practice to get better. You have to push through it and take satisfaction, even joy, in improving.

Am I too old, too young? Everyone is worried their age is working against them, even young writers, who sometimes feel they won’t be taken seriously. Yet there are few industries like writing and publishing where you can mostly do the work unseen by editors, agents or anyone else. No one has to know your age when you query, and anyway it’s not what you’re being judged on. You’re being judged on the writing or the story on the page. Worries about age is mainly a mindset issue. You can’t do anything about it. Press on with your work.

MWW: Writers definitely seek validation—I’ll be the first to admit it! What types of things have you seen authors qualify as “validation”?

JF: I’ve had writers ask me (since some perceive me as an authority) to rate their writing on a scale of 1 to 10 or ask whether I think it’s “worth it” to continue. They want assurance their writing is good enough to secure an agent or publisher. There’s fear of failure and avoidance of failure.

Probably the biggest piece of validation for authors who seek traditional publication is securing an agent and receiving a very large advance. Then, after publication, usually the biggest validation an author can receive is bestsellerdom, a review in a publication like the NY Times, or a big award.

MWW: But that validation never seems to last long. Do you often see writers achieve a sense of satisfaction or “done-ness” with their work or career?

JF: Almost never, but part of that is just the human condition. We’re never satisfied with what we have, we’re always looking at what we don’t have, or looking at someone else’s paper wondering if they have the answers. It’s natural and somewhat unavoidable. The key is to recognize these thoughts for what they are (unhelpful), and get back to work.

MWW: What do you advise writers pursue instead of that validation—or maybe, how do we access that from within?

JF: Consider: Why did you start writing in the first place? What’s motivating you to tell stories or spread a particular message? What’s that internal why? It doesn’t have to be something positive. You can harness anger at the system or a desire to expose wrongdoing or to warn the world.

When you focus for too long on outcomes (especially outcomes that are really about validation), you can forget what led you to writing to begin with. If you don’t like writing and only like the outcomes, then that’s problematic for sustaining a career. The validating outcomes don’t arrive all that frequently for writers!

MWW: Have you ever been surprised to find a successful and well-established writer who also suffers from self-sabotage traps? I’ve heard of a few who felt “imposter syndrome” and I wondered if there were other pitfalls you’ve seen in the writer world.

JF: Today almost every writer I know has imposter syndrome of one kind or another. Or they get stuck in the comparison trap with other writers. It’s totally normal. Success isn’t a remedy for this.

MWW: In other words, does it ever get easier?

JF: I think the only thing that does make it easier is repetition and consistency in your writing practice. The more you commit and put in the work, the more you realize that’s what it all amounts to. Showing up, day after day, no matter how you feel. That goes for both the good and bad times. You can have a stunning accomplishment, but the next day, you still have to write. Chop wood, carry water, the Zen saying goes.

MWW: How would you advise a writer to establish healthy, attainable goals for their work?

JF: Set goals that you have control over. You can’t control what sort of publisher you’ll get, the size of advance, the number of sales, who will review you, etc. But you can control your own work habits.

There are takeaways for everyone, no matter your genre.

MWW22 is an important opportunity for you to network with others and build a writing community for yourself. 

REGISTER TODAY!

Faculty Katrina Kittle has Encouraging Words for You!

Katrina Kittle is the author of Traveling Light, Two Truths and a Lie, The Kindness of Strangers (winner of the 2006 Great Lakes Book Award for Fiction), The Blessings of the Animals, and Reasons to Be Happy. Katrina’s new novel, Morning in This Broken World, is forthcoming in June of 2023. She teaches creative writing workshops through Word’s Worth Writing Connections, focusing on craft and motivation (and is especially good at jumpstarting stalled writers). She is a public speaker, most often leading her “Leap and the Net Will Appear” and “Happy Class” workshops. She has been on faculty for the Antioch Writers’ Workshop, the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop, the Chicago Writers Association Conference, The Writer’s Digest Novel Writing Conference, and the Writer’s Block Conference in Louisville. She is currently a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Dayton. Katrina has a thing for goats, gardening, and going barefoot; and is addicted to coffee, pedicures, and movies. She is on Instagram and Twitter @katrinakittle.

Find out more at https://katrinakittle.com/

Katrina will teach the sessions “Wooing Your Muse: Reclaiming Your Pre-Pandemic Moho and Jumpstarting Your Writing Practice” and “Revision: Approached It Like Triage,” and as a panel member for “Point of Entry (about novel openings)”.

Check out the Full Faculty

Check out the Full Schedule

Q&A with Katrina Kittle

Leah Lederman, MWW publicity chair, had a few questions for Katrina Kittle about her upcoming sessions and her outlook on writing. Hopefully you find this interview as refreshing as we did!

MWW: Many writers have created new routines for ourselves in the midst of COVID. What does dedicating time to your craft right now look like for you and what are your top two tips for writers who feel stalled during this time?

KK: Early morning is my magical, creative time. I try to pay myself first by allowing myself this best productive time for my writing. Also, I try to prepare my desk and space the night before, so that there’s nothing that hinders me falling right into the creative work. I prepare my mental space, too, by giving a bit of thought the night before to the writing goal I want to accomplish in the morning.

MWW: Oftentimes writers have a “do as I say, not as I do” approach to writing. What is some advice that you give to your students that you wish you did more of in your own writing?

KK: I wish I’d get better at grabbing little bits of time throughout the day, rather than waiting for big chunks of uninterrupted time. Just doing a ten-minute freewrite can create a sparkling gem! And those ten minutes can accumulate.

MWW: What are the most satisfying aspects of the writing process for you? Conversely, what are the most frustrating or difficult aspects of writing, and how do you cope with those issues?

KK: I really do love all parts of the process, but I think the first draft can be a little terrifying. Writing the rough draft is full of great discovery, but it feels a little like trying to corral a wild animal. Every day, there’s the fear it will run away and disappear and all the work will be lost. After I “capture” the first draft I relax and enjoy the revision process even more. To cope with that out-of-control, tenuous feeling of the first draft requires a daily leap of faith. I focus solely on getting words on the page–quantity over quality. Just catch the words, catch the words. I’ll “tame” the words later.

MWW: In The Writing Life, Annie Dillard says “Several delusions weaken the writer’s resolve to throw away work.” Talk about a time you edited something out of a book that was difficult. Why did you make the decision to remove it and how did it change the story?

KK: It’s always so difficult to throw something away…but it almost always makes the book better. You never want to leave something in just because it was difficult to write or you worked really hard to create or research it–if it doesn’t serve the story, it needs to go. My novel The Kindness of Strangers centers around a case of child sexual abuse (I know that sounds horribly depressing, but there are no scenes of the abuse actually happening! The story begins with the discovery of the abuse, so it’s really about how a community heals) and one woman Sarah’s experience being an emergency foster mom for the abused son of her dear friend. In an early draft, Sarah’s husband was alive, and as my writing group read the opening chapters they said they suspected Sarah’s husband in the abuse because he was a doctor who worked with the abused boy’s mother. Horrified, I wrote a lot of scenes showing Roy to be a model father and husband, trying to get rid of their suspicion, but then my writing friends said things like, “Something really big is going to happen with Roy because you’re giving him so much page time.” I was so frustrated! I remembered wishing Roy was just dead…and then realized that’s exactly what the book needed: for Sarah to be a recent widow. Having her be a grieving widow fit the research even better. Pedophiles go after families where the adults are distracted–from death, illness, divorce, etc.–and the children are hungry for adult attention. Removing him obviously caused a lot of work, although many scenes could still exist as memories and flashbacks. Removing him raised the personal stakes and enriched the story. Having a healthy, intact family reach out to help someone is an okay story. But having a broken, grieving family find the strength to reach out to help someone worse off than they are–and have that help be what actually begins to heal them–is a much better story.

MWW: What resources would you recommend for writers to learn proper revision techniques (aside from your course)?

KK: Tiffany Yates Martin has a fabulous book–Intuitive Editing–that I can’t recommend enough. It’s so helpful and hands on about how to recognize issues in your own work and how to fix them. But any time you can see a before and after revision of a chapter or story, that can be like a master class in revision–to really dig in and look at each change, and how even the smallest changes can accumulate to really elevate and strengthen a piece of writing.

MWW: What’s your favorite takeaway from the session you’ll be teaching?

KK: For the Revision Session: Treat revision like triage–tackle the most “life-threatening” issues to the story first, then work your way to the “cosmetic” details. Both the storytelling and the language are equally important, but those revisions come in a particular order. For the Woo Your Muse Session: Treat your writing like a relationship–prepare for it, make it welcome, be creative about keeping it happy.

MWW: As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar?

KK: A mountain goat! I’m a Capricorn anyway, but you have to be so stubborn and tenacious to be a writer. A little capriciousness doesn’t hurt, either!

 

There are takeaways for everyone, no matter your genre.

MWW22 is an important opportunity for you to network with others and build a writing community for yourself. 

REGISTER TODAY!

Stretch to the next level with MWW22!

MWW board member and writer Leah McNaughton Lederman encourages you to stretch your writing! 

Because I write primarily creative nonfiction, I aim for the creative nonfiction sessions at any conference I attend. Makes sense, right?

But then it happened: There wasn’t a creative nonfiction option available. Huh. Well, I supposed, a poetry session might work in a pinch.

Let me tell you, it most certainly worked.

Writing within the constraints of a different medium pulled ideas and phrases out of me that I didn’t know I had in me; it forced me to approach my ideas from a different angle and spilled my word-hoard in refreshing and delightful ways.

Now I make it a point to attend workshops outside of my chosen genre. After all, what piece of nonfiction couldn’t benefit from the scene setting, character building, and dialogue studied in fiction sessions? And the autobiographical elements of fiction can be finessed onto the page using the memory-mining techniques of nonfiction. Poetry’s precision of language and inside-out phrasing create a lyrical quality in your prose. All of these things will compel your readers to move forward and turn the page.

Of course, this isn’t an original revelation—some of you may even be thinking, “Well, duh.” But hey, it’s worth talking about. Especially as the Midwest Writers Workshop first-ever hybrid summer conference approaches…

We’re offering you the opportunity to attend ALL of our sessions in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, plus research and the writing process! Heck, watch them more than once with the recordings you’ll receive. If you’re a fiction writer, you can try on some nonfiction; a nonfiction writer can wrestle their ideas into a poem, a poet can stretch their legs into an essay. Each session features a different type of word wrangling, planning, exposition, plotting, and pacing.

Challenge yourself! Your writing will gain depths and layers that will mesmerize your readers.

Join MWW this summer for our first-ever hybrid conference. You can attend in person at the beautiful Ball State Alumni Center, or sit in from wherever you’re located (pajamas recommended).

There are takeaways for everyone, no matter your genre. MWW22 is an important opportunity for you to network with others and build a writing community for yourself. 

Stay tuned! Future E-pistle newsletters and blogs will feature faculty members with videos and interviews. They will help you write your story!

~ Leah McNaughton Lederman

Registration available for MWW22 Hybrid Conference!

Join us for the 49th Midwest Writers Workshop

MWW22 Conference: Craft + Community

Thursday, July 14 – Saturday, July 16, 2022

MWW22 is our first ever hybrid conference! This July 14 – 16, whether you attend in person or online (using Zoom), we have top-notch instructors leading interactive sessions, enlightening panels on vital topics, and networking opportunities to help you expand your writing community. Our keynote speaker is Jane Friedman! 

This version of MWW allows us to offer plenty of instruction, networking, and the sense of community that makes MWW so special. Come to Muncie, Indiana, and join us at the beautiful Ball State Alumni Center for our 49th writers’ conference, or join us virtually wherever you’re located.

Our hybrid MWW22 includes:

**In-person sessions and/or Zoom video conferencing that feature a variety of topics determined by each faculty member, writing prompts, and vital, informative, enjoyable discussions to build your skills as a writer.

**A remarkable faculty who know their stuff, providing information for aspiring writers at all stages of their journey.

**Instruction led by renowned faculty for the genres of:

  • Fiction – Katrina Kittle
  • Fiction – Martin Seay
  • Fiction/Mystery – Mia P. Manansala
  • Fiction/Thriller – Matthew Clemens
  • Young Adult – Michelle Falkoff
  • Poetry/Memoir – Kathleen Rooney
  • Nonfiction/Essays – Jack Heffron
  • Thursday evening keynote: Jane Friedman
  • Friday evening: Angela Jackson-Brown, “Autopsy of a Novel”

Why attend?

Do you dream of getting your story out of your heart and into a book? It’s time to turn that dream into reality. We’ll help you get those words onto paper and craft your story into a powerful offering.

That’s the vision behind our mission statement and our passion to help writers. We’re dedicated to maintaining and building our MWW writing community to nurture writers at every stage of their journey, giving them the tools they need to improve their craft and achieve their publishing goals.

MWW22 is designed to guide you to the next step in your writing journey. Whether you’re a beginner with zero experience or you’ve been writing for years, you’ll want the collective wisdom of our conference faculty. These authors will empower you to dream, write, and publish the story inside you. 

 **Private Facebook Group plus evening “Talkabouts” for camaraderie and to build connections with other participants and faculty.

**Can’t attend all the sessions live? No problem. MWW is offering archival video access to ALL attendees for ALL sessions for three months following the conference.

The cost for our in-person MWW22 experience is $269 [reduced from $399!] 

No more having to choose among breakout sessions! Attend ALL sessions live or watch the recordings for up to three months later. This format encourages all writers to stretch beyond their genre and learn from every instructor.

We know that a writing conference can make your head with new information and inspiration when it’s all over! Our hybrid setup gives you the chance to go back and revisit the sessions. That way you can catch any content that you missed, rewatch sessions you found particularly helpful, or get inspired all over again!

The In-Person Experience:

  • Manuscript evaluations: Evaluation of your first five pages plus a one-page synopsis of a manuscript, completed or in progress. The $50 fee covers a 15-minute one-on-one in-person appointment during the conference.
  • Office Hour with each faculty: Have you ever wanted to sit with a published author and pick their brains on topics like: publishing, revising, or anything else that relates to becoming an author? This is your opportunity. You don’t need an appointment, just drop in for these informal sessions with our faculty members.
  • Meal fellowship with participants: Sign up for lunches (pre-order when you register) and hang out with other writers at the Ball State Alumni Center. (See FAQ for details.)
  • Ball State Bookstore on-site vendor: Purchase books by our MWW22 faculty and Board. Get them autographed!
  • MWW Consignment Bookstore: If you’re a published author attending in-person, you can sell your books at our consignment bookstore. (See FAQ for details.)
  • MWW merchandise: Take something home to commemorate your MWW22 experience!

Note* In-Person attendees will have virtual access to live sessions as well. Virtual attendees will have virtual access only.

The cost for our Virtual MWW22 experience is $199.

From the comfort of your home (think: pajamas!), enjoy sessions in real time, participating in a live chat with other writers who are joining virtually. Or tap back in later! Recordings of sessions will be available for three months after the conference.

Join us to be inspired and equipped for the next step in your writing journey!

Find the entire schedule: here.

Find the faculty bios: here.

Register HERE!