Empire State Book Festival

Kay and I made the trek to Albany for the first Empire State Book Festival. A full-day event, stretching from 10am-5:30pm, the festival offered seminars for aspiring and professional writers, plus the chance to buy books, and meet and greet authors and publishers.

Gregory Maguire gave a solid and entertaining opening address, and then Kay and I were off to our various conferences, she focusing on murder-mystery, me on children's books. Without going into steep detail, we both reached the same conclusion on our own -- these seminars were for early-stage writers, those just dabbling in the written word and in need of direction. Which is not to say I wasn't impressed by individual presenters, and even ran into a few friends and friends of friends who were on various panels. I was particularly impressed by the way in which Kyra Teis of Star Bright Books controlled a room full of, well, rambunctious children eager to be entertained. Which is an example of what I generally walked away with at this conference -- no real knowledge or insight into the publishing world, but maybe a pointer or two, a reference source here or there, a chance to study not the process of writing but the process of presenting.

I am sure the professional side of the festival helped many writers find direction, even answered a few of their questions. It's just that Kay and I have been at this game for awhile, and had either experienced, read, or heard much of the advice elsewhere. There was also a political element to all of it -- that is the way in which authors failed to answer questions directly but rather related it to their books. I'm all for moving product and have been guilty of this trick on occasion, but it was often obvious what was happening.

Still, with all that said, I made a contact at one of the houses, an opportunity to submit, which I will be doing later this week. Hey, I understand how to push my product, too!