Submission & Retreat

Weird title on today's post, huh? The submission part refers to a great review of the words submission, acceptance and rejection as they apply to writers and poets sending their words around in the hopes of getting published. I won't even try to paraphrase the wise words of an editor/poet on this subject, so go read for yourself Tim Green's post "You Must Submit" at his blog!

Now, the retreat part has to do with author and good friend Deborah LeBlanc's upcoming Pen-to-Press Retreat you MUST check out if you are currently wrangling with a manuscript of your own and want to pitch it to top notch agents on site. As a participant in the first annual retreat, I cannot tout it enough. And who couldn't use a few days away in New Orleans? [Ooo, and maybe we can even meet in 3D, as I'm hoping to go again myself for at least part of the time!]

Here's the latest newsletter update:

About the 2010 Pen to Press Writers' Retreat
Announcing a one of a kind writers' retreat that you simply can't pass up! Come excited and leave inspired, ready to improve your writing and get that manuscript published!

Pen to Press Retreats are five intense, hands-on, inspiring days that teach participants how to shape and present a saleable manuscript. You'll learn in a variety of settings, from workshops to one-on-one mentoring sessions to seminars. To that end, you will write and revise, have your manuscript critiqued, and revise some more. This is a remarkable opportunity to transform your writing!

To top it off, throughout the last two days of each retreat, all of our participants are given exclusive, one-on-one time with agents and editors to whom they can pitch their work.

With this retreat under your belt, who can stop you?

Activities: Participants will be assigned to a class of 20 and a team instructor. (Our instructors are all successfully published authors, many New York Times and U.S.A. Today Best-sellers, award-winners, and all are excellent teachers.) With this group, you will spend five days working on specifics to improve your manuscript. During classes and panel discussions, you'll learn details about characterization, plot, dialogue, pacing, voice, marketing, pitching, contract negotiations, etc., all of it geared around your specific work.

Agents and editors will be on hand the last two days of the retreat, and they'll be there to spend one-on-one time with you, our participants . . . writers who now have a polished pitch for a promising work!

We've even established a payment plan to help participants who are accepted into the 2010 program stretch the cost of the retreat out over time.

Join Us: The dates for the 2010 Pen to Press Writers Retreat are May 25-29, 2010, and the location will be in beautiful downtown New Orleans, Louisiana.

Interested writers must submit a two page synopsis of a completed novel or novel in progress along with the first five pages of that novel. From those submissions, a maximum of 160 participants will be selected.

To find out more about the 2010 Pen to Press Writers' Retreat, visit our website at http://www.pentopressretreat.com/ There you'll find in-action videos and testimonials from past participants. So jump on over to the website and have a look. And we hope to see YOU at the 2010 PPW Retreat!