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Writers Workshop

It sounds like a recipe for mayhem, madness and murders of passion.

Take hundreds of anxious amateur writers. Throw in dozens of high-profile literary agents, best-selling authors, and television and movie executives from La-La Land. Add a dash of hard-nosed editors. Drop all ingredients into a swanky hotel and season with enormous amounts of caffeine and alcohol. Sprinkle with insecurities, jitters, robust egos and rushes of adrenaline. Then cook at high temperature for three and a half-days in an oven of 2-hour classes, panel discussions, workshops, and critique sessions. Top it off with a semi-formal banquet.

Strangely enough–the recipe works. And it's been working for 18 years. And you can partake of this wild literary bacchanalia called the 2004 Southern California Writers Conference–right here in San Diego–at the Shelter Pointe Hotel & Marina, this President's Day Weekend, February 13—16.

This is a once-a-year chance for lonely writers to put aside their spouse's uncomprehending, head-shaking insistence that they "get a real job" and to congregate with hundreds of other writers all seeking to get revved up, pumped with inspiration, and kicked in the ass with encouragement as they stubbornly pursue their mad dreams of writing best-selling novels, Speilberg-optioned screenplays, and Pulitzer-winning books.

"This conference is like a New Year's Celebration for writers," says conference director, independent filmmaker and television writer, Michael Steven Gregory. "Writers often work in isolation. This conference gives them a sense of being a valued part of the larger writing community, and a chance to be immersed in the world and language of writers and writing."

Gregory adds, "This is among the best writing conferences in the country if you're a writer looking for comprehensive feedback on your work."

So bring your best literary fiction, nonfiction, horror, romance, poetry, and children's story (whether finished or works in-progress). Bring your hot television and film scripts. Bring your wry witticisms, your most outrageous cocktail party stories, and your extra-strength aspirin. And bring your business cards–or at least a couple of pens and scraps of paper to jot down the Top Secret email address of that New York literary agent you cornered in the restroom. At this conference, you'll get to use them all.

Gregory points out, "It isn't uncommon to find literary and film representatives listening quietly to manuscripts read in the workshops. We've had network television writing assignments secured at the conference, freelance and stringer work obtained, agent requests, publisher requests."

In fact, the SCWC claims, "Over $2.6 million worth of book and screen deals have been signed as a result of material and contacts nurtured at our conference."

But something that doesn't always come across in press releases and bragging anecdotes about connections made and deals done is the unique culture of this particular writer's conference. While other writer's conferences can be mistaken for chilly conventions of uptight academics, this one is a friendly, slightly rowdy jumble of people excited about good writing of all kinds. Associate Director Wes Albers makes no secret of how the SCWC organizers actively encourage all the staff and every attendee to have fun, to strike up conversations, and to thrust their manuscripts into any and every open hand.

Gregory gives an example of SCWC culture. "If you go into a workshop, and five minutes into it you realize it's not what you thought, what you wanted, then don't just sit there! Get up and leave. Run down the hall to one of the many other workshops you can choose from!"

Gregory explains how the SCWC insists that all its big name agents and editors actively seek out and introduce themselves to attendees and cheerfully field the inevitable and urgent questions on going professional, getting paid, and getting published. "Some of our agents and editors and movie people have been working with us for years," Gregory explains. "They know what this conference is all about. They're the kind of pros who enjoy meeting those on the way up, and offering whatever advice, encouragement, or war stories they think will help."

But there's also a dark and stormy side to the SCWC: The infamous late-night, open-ended Rogue Workshops. These sessions can become marathons. "The novelist Mark Clements holds the record," Gregory confirms. "A single 'Rogue' late-night read and critique session of Mark's went from 9 PM to 5:55AM the next day."

In fact, many first-time conference attendees have become annual pilgrims to the SCWC just for the unique Rogue Workshops. Like the daytime workshops, the Rogue Workshops have professional writers and editors who lead and facilitate lively discussion, but the nighttime Rogue Workshops can be a bit… livelier.

"I've been teaching fiction workshops for over fourteen years," explains Matt Pallamary, science fiction writer and author of the novel Land Without Evil. "In the Rogue Workshops we do hardcore, in-depth critique and analysis of the work that people read aloud. And we do it in such a way that we all learn from it.  It's a wonderful group creative process. It's incredibly empowering, even though by dawn my eyes are usually bugging out of my head from borderline caffeine overdose."

Another benefit for the region's yet-to-be-discovered writers is a chance to meet seasoned professional writers and agents and editors who teach at the conference. The SCWC offers everyone a relaxed, friendly, inspiring, all-barriers-down place to work and play. In these days when golf course groundskeepers and weapons of mass destruction manufacturers have conferences and conventions to connect and inspire them–why not writers?
"This conference is unique," Pallamary says, and tries to capture the essence of the conference. "The locations, the staff. And the vibe.  It's a positive, hands-on, prima-donna-less environment. This conference is truly for writers who want to improve their craft."

And maybe, just maybe, for a lucky writer who will one day tell the story of how his or her big break came when they got an excited phone call from that New York agent they handed their ten-pound manuscript to at the 2004 Southern California Writers Conference.

Copyright 2004 David Boyne

More Information
Website: www. WritersConference.com
E-mail SCWC Associate Director Wes Albers
Phone the SCWC direct at (619) 233-4651

A Note on SCWC Workshops

Each workshop is run according to the preference of its Leader. There are Read & Critique Workshops, Troubleshooting Workshops, Lectures with Q&A Workshops. Most allow the author to read his/her material, then selectively request feedback from members, while others address the work directly and move on to the next.

The following rules serve as a guide. Each workshop leader runs his or her workshop as their years of experience, gut instinct, and the amount of coffee they've consumed determines.

1.  Length of reading time limit to be set by workshop leader.

2.  Critiques are done one person at a time, interruptions are not allowed.

3.  Reader may respond to questions or comments only after critique.

4.  Critiques will be directed only to work read, not critiques given by others.

5.  Only the Art and Craft may be critiqued–not content.

6.  "Pickies" (errors in grammar, usage, etc.) are written, not given orally.

7.  No one may interject critique/comment until all others are finished.

8.  Readers may not explain their work in advance, or defend it against critiques given. If explanation is necessary, the work needs more work!

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Editor's Note: Read one attendee's experience at the San Diego Writer's Conference of 2004, Love Confirmed, by Vickie Jenkins