#MDC3CON IS COMING...ARE YOU?

If you are still undecided about whether you want to make the trip to Baltimore, and think there is nothing for +Baltimore Science Fiction Society there. You would be wrong. We could write a long blog about it but we thought we would do one better. Baltimore Public Library has a podcast and they interviewed two of the principals involved with the Creatures, Crimes and Creativity conference. 

This conference is for all authors, fans, writers and publishers. Where else could +IndieAuthors.com be an active participant and have their books to sell? 

We hope to see you there. 

WHERE HAVE WE BEEN?

The right answer would be everywhere!

Our authors have been traveling and promoting their novels like hard working bees and their efforts and paying off.

Two of our authors, joined +Christine Verstraete by winning the +LOVEY award this year in Chicago at the Love Is Murder conference.

+Annie Alexander and +Jeff Markowitz won Lovey's for their novels and we were super excited!

They are pictured here with the other award winners and as you can see they are very excited.

So although we haven't been writing our blogs, we have been doing a lot of personal appearances and traveling to conferences.

The next thing coming up is the conference in Salisbury Maryland and New York City.

So, if you are in the area or want our authors to visit your book club or your event, contact our marketing director Sandra Bowman at sandra.bowman@intriguepublishing.com

LOOK WHO WE HAVE COMING!

We have secured one local guest from the Washington Metropolitan area. 

S.D.Skye is a native of S.D. Skye is a former Senior Intelligence/Operations Analyst for the FBI Counter other 3-letter agencies. She is a highly opinionated blogger on National Security and Intelligence Community Topics. She is also a romantic mystery novelist. She is also a proud member of the MWA and Romance Writers. She is also a member of the International Thriller Writers Association.

If you want to see the fun that we had this year. Take a look at our conference website; Md C3conference. 

We hope to see you there in September

C3 CON IS OVER BUT WE HAVE PICS

We are going to let the pictures speak for themselves.

 Two friends stopped for a selfie

FOUR DAYS AND COUNTING

We are so excited we could burst!

Four days until the 2nd annual +MdC3Con is here. On October 10; authors, fans and writers will descend upon +HuntValley Maryland to attend the Creatures, Crimes and Creativity conference.

We have worked hard to put together this conference for you. The board members have met every month and tweak, stretched and scratched our heads on how to make it a great conference for you.

You will be surprised on the number of suggestions that we took from the survey's last year to make you the conference that you wanted.

From more fan panels to more time to network; we listened and we hope that you will enjoy this conference.

We have more volunteers who will be wearing some really cool hats for you to find them more easily. We also have a scavenger hunt planned with the grand prize being a KINDLE FIRE..now how cool is THAT!

So, get your pens, paper and brains ready. We are going to have a blast and we can't wait to see you all.

If you are going to be there, spread the word about our book signing. We have not one but 3 New York Times bestselling authors signing their books on Friday AND Saturday. So grab your wallet and camera and come on down; they are waiting for you and have their smiles ready!

PROMOTING IS HARD

Have you ever had to promote something that no one ever heard of?

We did. Last year. It was the first year of the +C3Conference and we had no idea how to go about letting people know about this conference. You can look at the fun we had by click the link: Creatures, Crimes and Creativity

We immediately took to +Social Media Explorer and started putting it out there for people to find us.

We were shocked by the turnout! We had over 100 registered attendees to a conference that was the brain child of  +Austin Camacho .

We gathered authors and fans of Sci-Fi, Horror, Paranormal, Mystery, Thrillers, Suspense and Fantasy in +HuntValleyInn to celebrate these genres.

We had great food, had lots of laughs and even took over the bar. We were so surprised at the reviews afterwards.

John Gilstrap has spoken about how great of a time he had last year and he plans to join us this year. We have some great folks lined up.

+Eric Von Lustbader, +Rebecca York, +CJ Ellison and +Brad Parks will be our headliners this year and we have already signed up over 2 dozen writers.

We have an anthology that will be given away and will never be sold. This is a way to get fans to enjoy new authors and their stories.

Our on site bookstore was always busy and some of the authors actually sold out of their novels.

We had a first time authors panel and a spouses panel where we got to hear all about some of the authors secrets while they were working on their latest novel.

So why not take a chance and go to our website and see what we are going to do this year. We promise you that you will not be disappointed.

WHAT I LIKE ABOUT CONFERENCES

This blog was submitted by one of the attendees: Bill Fietzer


What I like best about writers' conferences and this one in particular are the interesting people one meets. Not only the headliners like Jeffrey Deaver and Allison Leotta (See my blog page on the conference at: http://williamfietzer.com/2013/10/27/a-lesson-repeated-at-the-creatures-crimes-and-creativity-conference/ but the attendees I rubbed elbows or broke bread with at the breakfasts, luncheons, and after-hours soirees all had interesting stories to tell.

Allied with this is the serendipity factor. Though Baltimore is something of an outer-ring satellite of Washington, D.C., I never expected to meet the mother of a son who works for the U.S. Foreign Service. Turns out that Lane Stone and I both have sons in the diplomatic corps working in the Far East, hers in Beijing and mine in Osaka. Such a small, intimate, intriguing world globalization has created for us!

The other thing I enjoyed about the conference was the opportunity to explore the Baltimore area via the light rail line. At other conventions such as in Atlanta and San Antonio, taking the light rail or bus lines permits me the opportunity to get a feel of the city, if only through a window as a passing traveler. Never having been to Baltimore before, the hour and a half trip provided ample opportunity to witness the magnitude of Baltimore Harbor, the location of the Baltimore Orioles stadium, the rebuilding historic downtown, and the extensive sub-urbanization of many industries and manufacturing plants that reach almost to the Pennsylvania state line.

The trip also revealed that a two-story high berm or bridge need not be the environmental eyesore that opponents of one of the proposed local spurs to the light rail line in Minneapolis claim it could be. All politics, they say (whoever "they" are), are local, and the anecdotal evidence gleaned from my ride to and from the airport showed that an elevated rail track is not the odious monster some locals claim is sufficient reason for stalling a multi-million dollar transportation project.

The link to my Facebook photo album of C3 highlights is: https://www.facebook.com/william.fietzer/media_set?set=a.4645617317360.1073741829.1800969976&type=3
I'm looking forward to an even more provocative, inspirational time at next year's event.

CASUAL, INCLUSIVE AND FUN

This blog was submitted by Lane Stone:

Panels at C3 reflected the casual, inclusive spirit of the conference.  By way of follow up, I thought I’d inflict the notes I had prepared for my panels on you now.

Here are the bullet points from my remarks in the “What’s so funny about…?”  

According to my informal survey people preferred the first Sex in the City movie to the second.  In the follow on, there was too much ‘set up for a joke, joke.’  Humor in your novel should be organic to the plot and the characters. Next, consider your genre.  In mysteries, you can use humor to give your readers a break from the tension you've created.  Whereas, in romance, including romantic suspense, editors tend prefer your heroine have very few funny lines. Her best friend can cracks jokes all the time.  Last, and you’ll have to trust me on this, after you read your funny lines a couple of hundred times you’ll question them.  Rely on your critique partner. 

“The morals of heroes & heroines.”   

 In this post-Breaking Bad world, we need to think of our protagonist’s moral code, rather than his or her morals.  In my Tiara Investigations series, the three sleuths start a detective agency and don’t tell their husbands, which forces them to meet clients at a local Cracker Barrel.  Sure, this deceit might look immoral to some, but it is consistent with their code of sisterhood.   Consistency is key – until it’s not.  Again, consider your genre.  In romantic suspense, characters are expected to change. They work their way through some internal conflict and are different by the end of the book, so they can – you guessed it – love again.  In cozy mysteries, the sleuth changes very little.  Think Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.  Your sleuth’s life might change (or not) but not her moral code.  And remember, show don’t tell your hero or heroines moral code.  

Loved the conference! 

LaneStone

WORKING HARD ON NEXT YEAR

The Board members of the C3 conference have already started working on next year.

They added a new member and they have their duties. Larry Matthews has been a friend for a while and after attending the C3 conference, he asked if he could be a part of this small group of zany, crazy people. I personally think it was because +Austin Camacho was the lone man on the group and after the passionate speech that Austin gave at the opening ceremony, Larry felt sorry for him. We like to think it was because the women on the board are so irresistible or maybe he just wanted to be the first to see what shoes one board member would have for next year.

C3 Conference Board Members (left-right)
Sandra, Juli, Denise, Cyndi, Deliah
Austin, Ann

Either way, we are glad to have him on the team and the work has begun. Marketing never stops and Sandra has been working hard; well we don't think she ever stopped and except for interchanging a just signed author with an author that she has been trying to forget. Austin has been contacting potential guests and finding out that not everyone reads email every day. Denise has been trying to keep the website updated but with the many changes that occur; it's almost a full time job in itself. Cyndi is out of state so she doesn't have to worry about the long meetings but she has the task of keeping all emails/registrations and payments (which have already started rolling in)Ann, Juli and Deliah have all waited so patiently for their new duties that they may run and hide when they find out what it is that they will be doing. (Deliah...don't worry, your job duties are exactly the same) That leaves Larry; poor, unsuspecting, Larry. Well he will find out soon enough why we meet at an eatery that serves plenty of coffee!

The laughs that will be shared, the coffee that will be drank and the ideas, suggestions that will be shared will be the best memories that we all will make
.

Welcome aboard and welcome back. The work has just begun!

AND NOW THE WORK BEGINS

The C3 Conference ended last Sunday, a little before noon. The panelists were heading home, the hotel was quiet and the board members were exhausted.

The drive home was spent in reflection.

Had everyone enjoyed themselves? Was it what I wanted it to be? Did I do a good job moderating my panels? Did everyone think I was funny, stupid or just an annoyance? Did my shoes photograph well?

I know people enjoyed themselves and I know that although there weren't that many fans there, I think the authors had a great time.

Look, we (the board members) tried our hardest to get the fans involved but we didn't have costumes, movie stars or TV stars and we didn't have a game room that stayed open all night. We didn't have the 8-3-1 rule (for those that don't know it is...sleep for at least 8 hours, eat at least 3 times and take at least 1 shower) Apparently at some 'fan' based conferences they have to state that rule up front. Well we didn't have that rule although a lot of us ended up in the bar, we still managed to get enough rest that we didn't look like we were zombies. (hint: +visine is your friend at a conference)

What we did have was panels that were informative, authors that were accessible and volunteers that were helpful. We thought we wouldn't get a lot of feedback but you know what; we did and all of the feedback has been positive.

Were there problems, sure, just like any conference but those problems were so small we could swat them away. (for those of you at the conference, you know what I am talking about) Hey, that was a good problem to have. Not every first time conference can say that they had almost 80 people there, the food was great and the entertainment was fantastic!

We Can!

All that to say, hopefully next year fans will want to come even if we don't have those silly rules and no game room. If not, the writers and their friends, who have now become fans, will have a blast. Just like they did this year.

If you were there and took pictures of our marketing director and her shoes, please send them to our shoe diva so she can post them here and on her blog; aptly called "Shoes On Tour 2013"

Next year's conference is scheduled for October 10-12 and will have more great authors, more great panelists and the cutest shoes our marketing director can find. You don't want to miss it!

Submitted by: Sandra Bowman

WHY I ATTENDED THE C3 CONFERENCE

Today this blog will feature two submissions. The first by Anne Alexander and the second by Juli Monroe.

Submitted by: Anne Alexander

I thoroughly enjoyed the C3 Conference because everyone was friendly, and down to earth.



Austin Camacho interviewing author John Gilstrap at the Saturday breakfast

The panels were informative, and the food was delicious.  I liked the way the book store was set up. It was easy to find the books by the author's names.

I loved the way the big name authors were treated the same as the first time authors in every respect, from the panel selections, to the book signings, to the seating arrangements at dinner. 

I think this is one of the best conferences I have ever attended. I look forward to being there again next year. I brought two guests with me to the conference and they had so much fun they want to come again next year.

Annie Rose Alexander

Author of Evil In High Places

Submitted by: Juli Monroe



Jeffery Deaver keynote

You may have noticed that I haven’t been around much for the last few days. I was getting ready for and then attending the Creatures, Crime and Creativity Conference that was held last weekend in Baltimore.

While I’ve attended numerous conferences, this was my first writer’s conference, and I admit I’m...

To read the rest of this article, please visit--> Tele Read






 

LET THE COUNTDOWN BEGIN!

The countdown has officially began.

Well, it didn't just start, it started 13 months ago when the brain child of this conference twisted the arm of a webmaster and got the website up and running. The countdown clock was the brainchild of our webmaster, James.

Every week I would look at that clock and say, "wow, that's seems like a long way off" and then I looked at the clock today and said, "oh my gosh! it's here already".

I have been fortunate enough to work with some great people on this conference and have learned a lot about them and about myself in the process.

I learned that I love to have fun in everything that I do. Our monthly meetings started off with organization and an agenda and quickly erupted into a free for all of conversations, jokes, laughs and plenty of coffee. In the end we all have worked like a well oiled machine. We have come together for a common goal and that is to bring you the best damn conference possible.

If you are coming to the conference, I can't wait to meet you and if you aren't...shame shame, you are going to miss the best damn party, EVER!

See you in four days, 20 hours and 15, 14, 13, 12....well you get the picture....

I'm as giddy as a two year old waiting for Santa!

Submitted: B. Swangin Webster

ROMANTIC-SUSPENSE JUNKIE

Hi, It's me again, Author Deliah Lawrence and Yes, I’m a romantic-suspense junkie. You may be wondering what that means and I’ll tell you that it’s the best of both worlds. There are some folks who enjoy reading a good romance novel, especially one that’s filled with characters staring lovingly into each other’s eyes, exchanging sweet kisses and locked in warm embraces? Well, for me that would only last for a split second before I start looking for the action. You see I like non-stop action where the protagonist is on a quest to solve a murder and still finds time for a lot of kisses and warm embraces.

Typically when you think of non-stop action, you think of thrillers with high drama, a rush of emotions and excitement that truly keeps you on the edge of your seat. Thrillers are villain driven where the protagonist must overcome some obstacle amidst the desire for justice and their morality. Just think of novels by John Grisham, Tom Clancy, and Michael Crichton or movies like The Bourne Identity and Taken or some of my favorite TV shows, The X-Files, 24 and Prison Break. The action truly never stops when reading any of these novels or watching any of these movies or TV shows. Unfortunately, it doesn’t slow down enough to care too much about the romantic side of things.

Mysteries on the other hand, can be less dramatic. It involves giving the readers clues or “red herrings” to allow them to find out who committed the crime. They also contain less violence than thrillers. For example, a cozy mystery is full of clues and its plot is not full of action. It’s more of a mind game between the criminal and the detective. However, an amateur detective mystery involves a detective who gets involved in the plot by accident. These amateur sleuths don’t follow the same rules as the police but it’s fun to read how they solve the cases. Here too, not enough time is spent on romantic relationships.

There are many sub-categories of a thriller (e.g. psychological thrillers, crime thrillers, erotic thrillers, spy thrillers, etc.). However, suspense is an integral part of thrillers that builds up the “on-edge” feeling for the audience. So, for me, writing romantic-suspense novels where I strive for a balance between heart pounding action and sexual tension between the characters guarantees that my readers will be turning the pages. In my debut novel, Gotta Let It Go, the protagonist is on a quest to solve a murder, throw in unresolved feelings for a soon to be ex-husband, attraction to a hot detective and a few death threats and you have a roller coaster ride of a romantic-suspense novel. Although my novel, won the 2011 Next Generation Indie Book Finalist Awards in the multi-cultural fiction category, the ultimate praise for my novel came from a family friend who said that her husband asked if she wasn’t coming to bed. When I heard this, I knew that I’ve done my job as a writer! 

THE THINGS YOU CAN LEARN FROM TELEVISION

What I Learned About Writing From Watching Supernatural

I've been a pretty good dialogue writer for a while, but I've been weaker on description. Not static description, like for a room, but descriptions of character body language and all the non-verbals that go into good dialogue and character interaction.

It's curious that I haven't been good at it. In my day job, I'm a life and business coach. Watching body language is part of my training, but I finally figured out why that didn't translate to good writing. When I'm coaching, I'm using more of my intuition. I'm not stopping to break down body language with an eye toward describing it in my writing.

Which is when I discovered Supernatural. If you've never watched it, you can probably guess the idea from the title. A couple of young guys ride around the country, dealing with supernatural menace. The early seasons follow a "monster of the week" format, while later seasons get more into long story arcs.

Yes, it's genre fiction. But it's genre fiction with some actors who know how to use their body and faces to communicate a lot of sub-text.

Check out this gif. http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m87igg54Uu1qjxl1no4_r1_250.gif

Heck, you don't even need to know what's going on. You could make up an entire story, just from that short clip. From the turn, to the facial expression to the hand motion. Lots there to work with.

Or this scene. Three actors doing a lot with their facial expressions (and one of my favorite scenes in the show).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub94sbKxjPw

What made me sit up and take notice was realizing I could watch scenes and dissect them. That's why I like all the animated .gifs I can find on Tumblr. Sometimes not having dialogue helps. I can watch facial expressions and hand movements and decide how I'd describe them. I've learned things about eye contact that completely altered a scene. I knew a character was nervous, and in the original draft, I talked about how she was nervous. In the rewrite, I showed it by describing how she avoided eye contact and casual touching. When she finally met another character's eyes, you knew it meant something.

I do all my writing on my iPad, and I've actually downloaded some Supernatural clips from YouTube. When I get stuck on writing a scene, I load one of the clips and watch the actors do their job. Which inspires me to do mine even better.

What do you use for descriptive inspiration?

Thank you Juli and we can't wait to see you at the confernece; Check out her website here: http://1to1discovery.com/books/

FUN! FUN! FUN!

Why should you be looking forward to the Creatures, Crimes, and Creativity conference on September 13^th?  In a word, FUN.

We literary types have the head for this kind of stuff.  I mean, where else can you get together for a weekend with a bunch of like-minded people and talk about horror? Suspense? Murder methods and body disposal? If that gets your imagination revved, you will be right at home here.

And we know that we writer types can talk endlessly about things like social networking, marketing and publicity, and what to expect from those people from another planet: publishers and editors.

But this conference, should we actually get there, will have a deeply personal meaning for my husband and me. My husband is author Robert E. Bailey, who started the Art Hardin mystery series in 1998 and whose books have received a Josiah Bancroft award, and been finalists for the Shamus and the Great Lakes Book Award. Ever since we started dating ten years ago, we’ve always wanted to go to a writer’s conference together. We tried to find time and money to get to the Florida First Coast writer’s conference, where it all started for Bob back in 1998, but for a few years it never worked out, and then the Florida First Coast abruptly folded. Too many writer’s conferences have bitten the dust. Bob is full of wonderful memories of FFC, and that’s why it’s always good to see a new conference make its debut.

But then something worse happened, right in the middle of Bob’s fourth book. Brain cancer. It showed up in the speech and language area of Bob’s brain, making him aphasic and making completion of this last book extremely difficult. But he got it done. In March of this year he reached the words, “The End,” and submitted the book to his agent. His agent requested that a chapter be added, and Bob started to work on that. It was right about then that we planned several appearances and signings for the summer, including the CCC conference, and spent a wonderful evening anticipating the fun we were going to have.

Bet you can guess what happened next. Brain cancer came back, and it is inoperable this time. In the course of two weeks, Bob went from reading, writing, walking, and driving, to someone suffering from both three new brain tumors and gout at the same time, who couldn’t even turn himself over in bed. By all the published information about brain tumors I could find, I estimate that we were about three weeks from losing him.

Dr. Khan, our wonderful neuro oncologist at VCU Massey Cancer Center, came to the rescue with a change of chemotherapy, and so far Bob has gotten quite a lot of function back. He’ll never drive again, but he can walk, talk, and complete many basic tasks he could not perform two weeks ago. The human brain is an amazing thing. The sad thing is that Bob’s tumor, glioblastoma multiforme, is rare compared to breast and prostate cancer, and research for this does not get a lot of funding. There are only two chemotherapies that are really proven to work, Temodar and Avastin. When the tumor comes back after those, your number’s up. But Bob is determined to be there to meet all of you on September 13^th.

Please come, and stop by to say hi. We’ll be REALLY glad to see you!

Meet the volunteers

Today we want to introduce you to the group of ladies that are helping us put on the C3 Conference.

These ladies jumped; well maybe jumped isn't the right word but they walked; very slowly, towards being volunteers to help put this confernce together.

With all of their knowledge and expertise, they have brought great ideas to the meetings and have also taken on responsiblities that most people would have run away from.

Deliah Lawrence is not only an author but she is our Master Scheduler and Author Liason. She will work with the authors and the on-site book store to make sure that the titles that the attending authors want to sign will be there when they arrive. She is also working on putting together the schedule of sessions/panels that the authors will sit on. This is a huge undertaking and we want to salute her for taking on this huge role.

Cynthia Lauth is our registration coordianator. She tirelessly works the registration part of our website. She contacts the authors when they have forgotten to make their meal choice or have forgotten to press the submit button to enter their choice of payment.

Juli Monroe is our Intrigue Pub twitter guru. She is on Twitter everyday putting the word out and making sure that @IntriguePub is being seen by the people that need information about our conference.

Ann Arbaugh is our volunteer coordinator. She will be working with our volunteers and recruiting volunteers. She will be one of the people you will see running around during the conference making sure that our guests are being taken care of properly.

We have all gotten so excited about this conference that we meet regularly to talk about the new things that are happening or that we want to happen.

This group of dedicated workers will be there to meet and greet you on Friday and they will be easy to spot. They will all have one their C3 shirts.

See you in September!

Sit down...Let's have a chat

Oh hello, how are you, I wasn't expecting you for another few minutes, but please come in and sit down, let's have a chat. So you wanted to ask me a few questions about the Creatures, Crimes and Creativity conference.

What's your first question?

How did I find out about the C3 Conference? I am a member of Sister's In Crime and as I was perusing their list of conferences, I came across the listing for the C3 conference and when I continued reading the description, it sounded like a perfect opportunity for me to meet other authors, as well as readers. Oh and let's not forget that the price fit right into my budget.

What appealed to me about the conference is the unique angle of bringing authors together with their fans, along with getting the opportunity to pitch my story to an agent. I love the list of guest speakers that are attendidng because it will allow me to rub elbows with a few bestselling authors, which is never a bad thing, right?

Another great aspect of the conferences is the opportunity I had to contribute to their C3 anthology. I got the chance to write a short story of about 7,500 words and Acorn Book Services is going to add it, and other author's stories, to create an e-book. When the conference is over, they will release it to Amazon and my promotional information will be included. What a great way to get my name out ot the masses.

Was I aware of the discussion panels? Oh yes, this is another great opportunity to be a part of a group of authors to share ideas, experiences and learning curves. I don't doubt I will learn something from the other writers. We all have something to share.

Sure, I'd love to tell you about the stories I've written. I have two published in my paranormal mystery series. The first is Sullivan's Secret, and the second is Secret of the Big Easy. I like to tell people that my stores are a Psychic Detectives meets Ghost Hunter's mystery. My third book in the series, Federal City's Secret is due for release this summer.

Yes, I have an author platform and you can find me at www.robinmurphyauthor.com and I'd love for you to follow me on my social media sites on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/robin-Murphy/161123980616276 and on Twitter: @murfett and LinkedIn: http://www.LinkedIn.com/pub/robin-murphy/38/213/338

Now tell me, after hearing all of the great information about the Creatures, Crimes and Creativity conference, will I see you there? Great, I'm glad to hear it and who knows, maybe you'll become one of my new fans.

Thank you, I enjoyed meeting you as well.  See you in September.

Post Written by: Author Robin Murphy

Early to rise!

The sun is shining a little longer each evening.

She isn't a morning person, that could not be mistaken, ever! But on this day, the sun awakened her with it's bright ray and she stretched, yawned and padded to the bathroom. She climbed into the steamy shower, letting the day begin as she formed the thoughts of what would be her adventures. She toweled off, brushed her teeth and pulled her hair into a ponytail. Ready to meet the world head on.

She decended the stairs into her open kitchen and wondered what to have for breakfast. She then decided to get the paper but it wasn't there. Those darn newspaper thieves! No problem...she started to scramble an egg, got her coffee and turned on the morning news. Imagine that...no news..hmm, she switched channels and again no news...What is this...a slow day or maybe it was later than she thought.

She turned her head as her cat wandered in and gave her a look. "Don't give me that look missy. I already have your food out." she said as she focused her eyes on the microwave.

She jumped up and went closer. It couldn't be.

"Good Lord! It's only 6:16 in the morning!"

Yes. It was early...and she is not a morning person..she actually shouted that to no one but the cat.

To early to be up on a Saturday but what was she to do? Well, she decided the only thing possible. She pulled out her laptop and checked out the Creatures,Crimes and Creativity Blog and so here she sits...reading and wondering...how many more days until the conference?

If you want to know how many days there are left for the best conference in Maryland this year...check out http://creaturescrimesandcreativity.com and the countdown clock will tell you.

Posted by B.Swangin Webster

Memoriable First

I’m Ann Arbaugh and I’m happy to join Intrigue Publishing and the C3 Board as the Conference Volunteer Coordinator.  

My first professional experience with Conferences was back in 2006.
Austin’s wife, Denise, was the Maryland Writers Association Conference Coordinator.  She put out a call for volunteers and I stepped in. I thought I’d be helping with a small task, but Denise really needed someone to organize all the volunteers. No problem, I said.  

Sometimes it’s better not to know how big a job really is becaue you don’t have time to talk yourself out of it.  

There were many communications about which volunteer to assign to what position, how many people were needed, and many other details that needed attention. Yes, there were even a few emails from Denise.  She was afraid I’d back out.

Not a chance. 

The weeks passed quickly. 

Conference day was filled with meeting new people, running up stairs, and making sure everyone was in place. The facility didn’t have catering, so we took care of the food on our own.  I had to make regular runs between coolers and our rooms, bottled water filling my arms, making sure that our moderators didn’t run dry. 

I sat in on several sessions for minutes while catching my breath. 

At the end of the day, we relaxed at a cocktail hour. Everyone who worked the conference was tired. I felt like I’d been in a whirlwind all day. My brain was fried and I wondered how I did as a first-time volunteer coordinator.  

Then Denise came up and repeated what one attendee told her – “This was your best conference ever.” 

That’s all I needed to hear. 

Since that time, I’ve attended many local conferences and retreats in Maryland and Pennsylvania. Each one was put together by a great team of volunteers. 

Flash forward to August 2012 and a short email from Denise asking if I’d like to help Intrigue Publishing with the C3 Conference. Being cautious, I asked for more info. I checked the website and was very impressed. 

Three days...Lots of sessions... Hunt Valley Inn... And Jeffrey Deaver? Seriously? My reply email said “sign me up”. 

Every C3 meeting makes me more excited about the Conference. Ideas are coming together. My job, so far, is to add ideas and thoughts regarding our volunteers. My real work begins in a few months. 

For now, I’m going to sit back and pick up another Deaver novel.

My assignment is to read several books by each of our guests by the time September arrives. 

Why don’t you pull up a chair and join me.

Which authors will you be reading? 

What's the appeal?

What is it that makes Cons so appealing? First of all what kind Con are we speaking of? Is it a scifi convention or writing conference? And are you going as a fan or an author or both?

I am Amy McCorkle and my first Con as a professional was the 2011 Fandom Fest/Fright Night Film Festival.  I went as a way to promote my work and to get my name out there. As someone who writes under a pen name as well as my given name it was a great way to get my feet wet. I had a table with hardly anything on it, some bookmarks and trading cards and I sat next to a generous individual, Bertena Varney  who showed me the ropes.

I learned valuable things on how to network and even found a publisher there. (My second one) Hydra specializes in speculative fiction.

Scifi Conventions are great events where everyone is a fan, even the authors, and everyone helps each other out. It’s a very inclusive atmosphere and the friends you make at one Con are very likely the people you’ll see at another and it’s a great way to network professionally and personally.

Writers Conferences on the other hand are places where there is a more business-like attitude. People are often there to learn how to get published. There are the exceptions like Romfest and RomCon which are reader oriented romance versions of the sci-fi cons, but when you go to a writers conference you are going somewhere to either learn something, learn how to sell your work, or promote your work.

I like both aspects of the conventions and conferences but often conventions are cheaper than conferences.

Whereas the membership fee for a sci-fi con is 30-50 bucks a straight conference can be 200-300 dollars at best for registration alone. And for those of us on a budget that can be intimidating. Especially when trying to bust through the slush pile.

A nice thing about sci-fi cons is that sometimes speculative fiction small presses are there to pitch too. The bigger conferences are nice to pitch to the agents. I haven’t been to any mystery conferences. Until this year. This year I have two or three of the more expensive conferences to attend.

I’m attending Romfest, Killer Nashville, and Creatures, Crimes, and Creativity. All of which are more expensive than Fandom Fest which I will be comped for. But these conferences could advance my career. I am looking forward to them as the camaraderie that one feels at these things is wonderful. And that is ultimately why I love the Cons and Conferences most of all.