Second Place, Adult Short Topic--Essay

Wow! How exciting was that?! I actually got second prize for my essay "Baywalk Rondo". I thought I might win and then I thought no way, then I thought maybe, and when they called my name I wasn't sure if they actually called my name. Did I imagine it? But the people at my table were applauding and smiling at me, so I figured I might as well walk up there and see what name was actually on the certificate. It was my name!

What a conference. I really got my money's worth out of these few days with all of the great sessions, meeting the agents and editors, making friends, and then the contest. What was really cool was that many of the people I talked to throught the conference won prizes, too. There were a lot of friendly faces at the winners' reception.

The only thing I regret is not taking more time off to enjoy Seattle. It looks like a nice city and it's about 20 degrees cooler than the Philadelphia area right now. I collected brochures for my next trip and told my new friends at the conference I would be back next year. I'll have to keep my word.

I will be happy to be home again this time tomorrow, and back to the routine for a few weeks before my next week at the beach.

PNWA conference

Hello from Seattle! I'm here for the Pacific Northwest Writers' Association summer conference, and I'm busy beyond belief. I registered for this conference because my essay was chosen as a finalist in the Adult Short Topic--Essay divison and a quick look at the presentations and benefits of attending convinced me to fly to Seattle. In preparing for this event and now living it, the contest has faded to the background and I'm looking forward to meeting an editor and an agent: both seem like good matches for my work. The presentations are also very interesting--enough so that I'm not tempted to play hookie to go see more of Seattle or take a nap. (There's a three-hour time difference that I'm coping with reasonably well.)

Books are the thing here. Hardly anyone is talking about articles. Romance, Fantasy, and Thriller writers are everywhere and I haven't met any Travel Essayists yet. Just about everyone is interested in trading book ideas, and this is good practice for stating our ideas concisely. Mine, of course, changes everytime I say it, but it is basically an essay about Cape May, NJ, through the months and seasons narrated by me, one of the last baby boomers to enter middle age. Everyone who visits Cape May knows that it has a rich Victorian heritage, but most don't know about all the other historical, cultural, and natural histories that go along with the region. People I talk to who are familiar with Cape May are always surprised when I tell them that the area was first settled by whalers in the 1600s, it was a prime target during WWII because of its proximity to major ports up the Delaware River, and that it hosts the World Series of Birding. So that's my quick description and it seems to interest most people I talk to. Whether it interests the agent I meet tomorrow remains to be seen. That's the Cape May Point Lighthouse above, by the way. (I don't have any pictures of Seattle!)

The article writing doesn't stop while I'm in Seattle. I just submitted revisions to my cranberry article for Edible Jersey late last night, and my World War II at the Twin Capes and Holidays at the Twin Capes articles were submitted to Twin Capes Traveller (the ferry magazine) hours before I left New Jersey. I'm not doing much actual writing while in Seattle, but I'm gathering steam for when I return home.

It's almost 6am and I've been up for an hour already. I should take a nap since I have to be coherent and charming until 10:30 tonight. I'm dealing with the time difference reasonably well.