Letters From Alex

Camaraderie is a wonderful thing (albeit tricky to spell).

I was touched by the camaraderie I saw on display at the Tony Awards ceremony a few weeks ago. When the cast of a Broadway show finished their musical performance, the camera showed them coming offstage, being cheered by the cast of another Broadway show about to go on for their performance. You could feel the brassy love and support between each group.

Back in the day, I did some acting in the theatre, and I can tell you one of the many highs from those days was the feeling of camaraderie among the cast and crew. You see this in all kinds of groups where everyone is aiming for a collective goal amid pressure, nerves, and charged emotions. Playing in a band, competing as part of a team, working on a construction crew, fighting on a battlefield.

Writing is mostly done solo. And there’s a beauty to cocooning yourself in the world of your words and story, whether you’re alone in a room or surrounded by people in a public space.

Still, writers need camaraderie, for the sake of their work, not to mention their mental health.

You can always try brainstorming with one or more people. Ask them to help you brainstorm ideas for your story with an offer to return the favor.

Recently we needed a fun idea for our summer writing contest, so I brainstormed with Emma (from our staff) and Maya (our current intern). Someone would toss out an idea, we’d bat it around, make it better, then we’d keep tossing and batting and improving.

We came up with the Not-So-Great Outdoors Contest, which I hope you’ll enter.

Writing classes are also a great place to find camaraderie. I can feel it from the NYC classes adjoining our offices: when I hear a wave of laughter or peek in to see everyone diving into a classmate’s story, offering praise and advice. But there’s also plenty of communing in our Zoom and Online classes, where you get the bonus of students from all over the place.

Hey, we have lots of summer classes starting soon.

Also, please consider coming to one of our free writing classes in Bryant Park this summer, starting Thursday July 6. We always get a great turnout of writers at all levels. And we have a super lineup of teachers and topics. These nights are kind of magical—writing in this gorgeous jewel of a park smack dab in the middle of the most vibrant city in the world. It’s a welcoming vibe, an easy place to make a friend or just feel the excitement of people coming together for a writing adventure.

Alex Steele,

President

Hey, Gotham now has a rotating carousel of writers conferences—each a great ride if you’re hoping to publish a book. Each with a Day 1 of panels/presentations and a Day 2 of pitching roundtables with agents. You can attend either day or both. All on Zoom.

We take great pride in these conferences, featuring the best authors and agents out there.

Children’s Lit Conference
This one just happened on the weekend of May 20-21.

On Day 1, I had the privilege of interviewing Matt de la Peña, acclaimed author of YA novels and picture books, winner of the Newbery medal for his picture book Last Stop on Market Street.

We talked about the layers Matt brings to his books.

For one thing, all his books have a mix of darkness and hope. His YA book Ball Don’t Lie is about a teenager walking the mean streets of LA, bounced from one foster home to another, self-sabotaging his ambitions with shoplifting and robbery. And yet we see the kid’s good heart and root for him.

Matt told me:
    I want people to see the moments of grace and dignity on the quote-unquote wrong side of the tracks.

Matt’s picture book, Milo Imagines the World, is about a little boy riding the subway to visit his mother who’s in prison. We glimpse the layers of emotion in Milo here:

     Milo is a shook-up soda.
     Excitement stacked on top of worry
     on top of confusion
     on top of love.

Here Matt explains what the kid does on the subway ride:
    I have him drawing pictures of the people he sees on the subway, guessing where they’re going. But he’s also exploring the psychology of where he’s going. In all the pictures he does, you’ll see that something gets to go free or something is trapped. He doesn’t know that he’s doing this, but he’s exploring the psychology of incarceration and emancipation.

You can learn so much hearing great writers reveal their insights and secrets.

Genre Fiction Conference
August 12-13, 2023

This one’s coming this summer.

Our line-up for Day 1 is truly impressive. Four panels and presentations you won’t see anywhere else, capped by an interview with Ken Liu, the renowned science fiction & fantasy author, winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award.

Literary/Commercial Fiction Conference
November 18-19, 2023
Stay tuned for further info.

Nonfiction Conference
February 24-25, 2023                                                                                 
Stay tuned for further info.

From someone who just attended:
    This conference blew me away. Amazing and talented writers, agents, and staff at the top of their game. The honesty, intimacy, and heart expressed by the panelists was unusual and inspiring. The agents were generous, kind, and spot-on in their feedback.
                                                                                                                – Jules Donne

Alex Steele,

President

While watching an episode of Party Down, I was struck by an important concept for us writers. The series is about cater-waiters in LA, every episode showing them working a different party. They’re mostly actors waiting for their big breaks, which, of course, may never come.

                                                                                                            
In this episode (from the original series, not the recent revival), they show up to work a birthday party for the real-life movie star Steve Guttenberg, who’s rich but no longer relevant. However, there’s a mix-up, so he’s not having this party, but he invites the cater-waiters to party with him instead. When he discovers that one of them, Roman, is a screenwriter, he insists they do a reading of Roman’s latest script.

Roman—who only writes “hard” science fiction—fancies himself a visionary who will never sell out. But when they start reading his script, it becomes painfully clear that it’s awful. Here’s a sample:

CAPTAIN DUKLARK

Reading on deuterium levels.

BORP-7 (a bio-cybernetic organism)

Seven oh five point two, captain.

KROND

Your ship will never withstand the quantum flux between a binary star.

CAPTAIN DUKLARK

It will in a Godel spacetime field.

Everyone, including Roman, realizes the script is dead on arrival. Steve Guttenberg urges Roman to do a quick revision, which he does. The actors read the new version, which begins showing the heat of life.

BORP-7

Captain. I’m worried–

CAPTAIN DUKLARK

About our deuterium levels? Me too.

BORP-7

About you, sir.

CAPTAIN DUKLARK

Since when was worrying part of your programing? Coordinates set?

KROND

Thread a binary star? You’ll kill us all, DuKlark. Or is that what you want, since she died?

CAPTAIN DUKLARK

Maybe it is.

No, it’s still not a great script. But Roman has started making the characters act and sound like real people (even the bio-cybernetic one) rather than entities with no discernible emotions.  

Roman, who almost never smiles, shows the hint of a smile, pleased with himself.

Roman didn’t just revise the script. He re-envisioned it. He saw his story in a new light and breathed some actual life into it, which spurred the actors to really play something rather than rolling their eyes as they spoke their lines. 

Sometimes, that’s what it takes. Not a tweak. A makeover. Don’t be precious with your writing, especially if it’s not quite working. Crumple it up. Take a break. Then start over, with a new perspective. Maybe it won’t be improved. Maybe it’ll even be worse. And that’s okay, because this is always a process. But…chances are quite good that you’ll have pushed yourself onto the path of making it better. Maybe even as great as you once imagined.

Alex Steele,

Gotham President