Hi Writers,
Do you ever wonder what genre you're writing in? Should you?

If so, you definitely need to read this essay from this week's Publishers Weekly:
Identity Crisis? Not really: Let the marketing people decide whether I'm writing adult or YA novels, written by Meg Rosoff.

You may have encountered this familiar writerly dilemma:

According to my (new) publisher, I used to be a Young Adult writer. This statement has caused one of my bookseller fans so much outrage, she e-mailed me at home, saying, “I am all set to be enraged at 'Formerly a YA author’ on your bio. Like YA was just a phase you grew out of? And now, finally, you’re writing Respectable Literary Fiction?” It’s a problem. The truth is, most writers simply write, and by virtue of the subject matter they choose (divorce, sexual deviance, the Peloponnesian wars), are deemed to be adult writers. The presence of puppies and pigs in a story line usually indicates a children’s book, except when it doesn’t (Marley and Me, Animal Farm). And according to the marketing departments of most American publishers, there are children’s books and adult books, and never the twain shall meet.

Rosoff goes on to say that her writing hasn't changed even though the way her work is being marketed has. She's still writing about coming-of-age themes just as she did several years ago when her debut novel How I Live Now was sold as YA fiction.

Have you ever confronted this problem of having to figure out which genre your writing fits in? Is this essentially the writers responsibility to know or should writers just leave it up to the marketing departments, as Rosoff suggests? Please drop me a line here.

Keep Writing,
Maria

Hi Writers,
Wow, we're on week 11 of my Project 20/20 Build my Blogroll Project (see all the details in the left navigation). I've been adding a writer's blog to my blogroll every Friday for 11 weeks now. More than 75 writer's blogs have been nominated so far. I encourage you to check them out in the comments section of the Project 20/20 link.

This week's add is all about the subject writer's hate talking about but really need to know.
And that subject is—you guessed it—MONEY!

I've been acquainted with this writer for a while now. She provides such a valuable service to writers by tracking down grants and making the listings readily available.

Please check out this great resource/ blog by C. Hope Clark:
Funds For Writers

This blog will give you a great boost toward getting funds to enable you to write.

Thanks for all you do on behalf of writers, Hope.

Keep the nominations coming, there are still 9 spots to fill!

Keep Writing,
Maria

Hi Writers,
Here's the press release for a prestigious award for a debut author. This is open to books published in 2007 (self-pub books not eligible):

Go here for more info: The Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award

Entry Requirements, Deadlines and Application

PEN New England is now accepting submissions for the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for books published in 2007. The award of $8,000 is presented for a novel or book of short stories by an American author who has not previously published a book of fiction. The prize was won last year by Ben Fountain, BRIEF ENCOUNTERS WITH CHE GUEVARA. Two finalists and two runners-up will also be named. The winner also receives a one-week residency in The Distinguished Visiting Writers Series at the University of Idaho’s MFA Program in Creative Writing. In addition, the winner and competition finalists and runners-up receive Ucross Residency Fellowships at the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming, a retreat for artists and writers.

The late Mary Hemingway, a member of PEN, founded the award in 1976 both to honor the memory of her husband, Ernest Hemingway, and to recognize distinguished first books of fiction. The award is funded by the Ernest Hemingway Foundation, which has been administered by the Hemingway Society since 1987, and PEN New England. A panel of three distinguished fiction writers selects the winner. PEN New England is one of five regional branches of PEN American Center, which is in turn part of International PEN, the only worldwide organization of writing professionals.

The award will be presented at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston on Sunday, March 30, 2008. The ceremony is co-sponsored by the library and The Boston Globe. Previous recipients of the Hemingway/PEN Award include Marilynne Robinson, Bobbie Ann Mason, Josephine Humphreys, Mark Richard, Louis Begley, Edward P. Jones, Susan Power, Ha Jin, Charlotte Bacon, Jhumpa Lahiri, Akhil Sharma, Justin Cronin, Jennifer Haigh, Chris Abani, and Yiyun Li.

Eligible titles, which must be the first published book length work of fiction by an American citizen or resident, published in the United States in 2007, may be submitted by publishers, agents, or the authors themselves. Authors are not disqualified by the previous publication of nonfiction, poetry, drama, or books for children. No self-published books, electronic submissions, or e-books are eligible for consideration.

DEADLINE: December 21, 2007 POSTMARK (Early submissions are encouraged. Galleys are acceptable.)

To Submit Books for the Award, mail four (4) copies, a $40 entry fee* for each title, and the application form to:

THE HEMINGWAY FOUNDATION / PEN AWARD
PEN New England
Lesley University
29 Everett Street
Cambridge, MA 02138

*Exceptions will be made for small press submissions: if your press’s annual net sales do not exceed $4 million, you need not submit the entry fee.

Keep Writing,
Maria

Hi Writers,
I wanted to bring to your attention this fab new Writer's Digest product:

Writer's Digest presents: The Writer's Ultimate Resource Guide 2008This essential CD is filled with oodles of helpful information and hyper-links to:

• top writing websites
• 100 best markets for book and magazine writers
• a state-by-state guide to local writing clubs and organizations
• writing and publishing FAQs
• literary agents who want your work
• annual writing contests
• and more! (please follow the link above for the full lineup)


This is the first CD project brought to you by yours truly with the help of the fearless Writer's Digest editing team (special thanks to our wunderbar managing editor, Kara Uhl). We're very pleased to make this available to our readers and hope to follow up this project next year with The Writer's Ultimate Resource Guide 2009.

Enjoy!

Keep Writing,
Maria

Hi Writers,
These are scary, scary times for writers. You'll realize this quickly if you've been following the news on the looming screenwriters strike. The Writers Guild is at a standstill in negotiations with the Hollywood production studios. The primary issue of contention—compensating writers for "New Media" (read: Internet) rights.

Here are two must-read recent articles on the topic, with brief excerpts:

From the Los Angeles Times:
Writers Guild votes overwhelmingly to authorize strike
Writers have rallied behind a theme that might best be summed up by the Who's hit song "Won't Get Fooled Again." Writers maintain they were shortchanged years ago when they agreed to a discounted pay formula for home video sales, only to see that business take off. And they're determined not to make the same mistake again as the digital revolution upends the entertainment industry.

"The guild made a bad deal 20 years ago and they've been angry ever since and they don't want to do it again," said Jonathan Handel, an entertainment industry attorney with TroyGould in Los Angeles and a former associate counsel for the Writers Guild. "That's why we're seeing a line drawn in the sand."

For their part, the studios maintain that DVD sales are needed to offset rising marketing and production costs, and they contend that it's too early to lock into pay formulas for shows distributed online because technologies are rapidly changing and they're still grappling with uncertain business models.

Also, please read this article in Variety: WGA strike talks log digital divide: Sides still far apart on new media revenues.
Accounting for digital revenues has emerged as a major sticking point during the three months of contract negotiations between companies and the Writers Guild of America. The guild has seized on Hollywood's bullishness over digital deals to hammer home its dual points: Digital media revenues will be a major driver of revenue growth at the media congloms, and writers deserve a slice.


Why this should matter to you if you're not a screenwriter? Well, if you're writing for publication and haven't had to grapple with so-called "New Media" rights yet, you will be soon. I think the outcome of this strike really sets the stage for protecting writers' rights for years ahead.

OK, please allow me to pontificate for just 30 seconds. You shouldn't have to be poor in order to practice your craft. There are many, many big companies becoming very, very wealthy from the work of writers, and yes, they can afford to compensate writers fairly (psst: don't believe anyone who tells you otherwise).

Please read the articles linked here and share your thoughts. And best wishes to our screenwriting friends.

Keep Writing,
Maria

Hi Writers,
I've been saying for a while now that there will soon be a time when many writers will be writing blogs as a full-time job. Since I've encountered a lot of skepticism about this, every time I find an article in the mainstream media to support this viewpoint, I'm going to post it here.

This is from the Los Angeles Times "Newspapers, Bloggers, Now on the Same Page."

This year, the Washington Post added a sponsored blog roll to its website, a directory of links to blogs that specialize in travel, technology, health and more. If the Post sells an ad on the blog roll's main page, the bloggers split the money with the newspaper. So far, about 100 bloggers have signed up.

To Caroline Little, the chief executive of Washingtonpost Newsweek Interactive, the ad network is good business. Most ad buyers don't want to take the time to buy space on dozens of different blogs, she said, and the staff-driven side of the website often doesn't have enough stories about technology, business or health for advertisers looking to place ads near that content. With the blog roll, the Post can grab ad revenue that might have gone elsewhere.

Have you found a creative way to make money blogging? If so, please share here with your fellow writers.

Keep Writing,
Maria

Hi Writers,
I highly recommend you check out Stephen King's NYT essay on the state of the American short story. The essay was about King's wading through the slush pile to find stories for The Best American Short Stories 2007, which he edited.

Here's a brief excerpt from King's essay:
Last year, I read scores of stories that felt ... not quite dead on the page, I won’t go that far, but airless, somehow, and self-referring. These stories felt show-offy rather than entertaining, self-important rather than interesting, guarded and self-conscious rather than gloriously open, and worst of all, written for editors and teachers rather than for readers. The chief reason for all this, I think, is that bottom shelf. It’s tough for writers to write (and editors to edit) when faced with a shrinking audience. Once, in the days of the old Saturday Evening Post, short fiction was a stadium act; now it can barely fill a coffeehouse and often performs in the company of nothing more than an acoustic guitar and a mouth organ. If the stories felt airless, why not? When circulation falters, the air in the room gets stale.

Make sure you check out the comments (which are possibly even more interesting than King's essay itself) here. There's all sorts of pontificating on whether or not the short story is dead or just gasping for air in a culture that no longer seems to appreciate its value.

There are plenty of comments on writing programs since King all but disses them in his essay, which got me thinking about a reading I recently attended, featuring MFA alum Steve Almond.

Almond had a question about how he learned to write. And he answered that the most valuable thing he got from his MFA was getting the chance to work on the campus literary magazine. He said going through the slush pile and reading what writers consistently do wrong is what really taught him to write.

Anyway, just a little something to think about.

Keep Writing,
Maria