Thursday, April 14, 2011

Agent Negotiates Civil War Truce!


A beautiful sunrise is reflecting off the Platt River which runs below the lodge here at the Nebraska Writer’s Guild conference at Mahoney State Park. It is early Sunday morning and I sit here on the balcony, Starbucks in hand reflecting on the conference wrapping up this morning with a special session of displays and resources for particularly resource writers.

I celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Civil War in this peaceful setting by finally negotiating a truce between Union and Confederate forces. Not necessarily an end to the war, but at least a truce. Not the usual negotiations that a literary agent is involved in.

President Sally Walker and her terrific team have orchestrated a great conference. A modest size and located in a writer-friendly retreat setting just outside of Omaha for travel convenience it opened on Friday night with a reading session giving Guild members the chance to do readings on their works in progress.



Saturday featured a balanced series of programs and workshops with something for everybody plus time for those who wished to pitch their fare to agents and editors (one of each). The food in the lodge was nothing short of excellent.





 

 One of the attendees, Monty McCord is shown here trying to get an agent the easy way – with a gun and handcuffs.



A very economical conference, those in convenient distance in particular would do well to add it to your conference schedule for next year. More information may be found at http://www.nebraskawriters.org/ and I’m sure in a few months information for next years conference will go up there. I want to thank Sally and all of the NWG people for hosting Saundra and I so well, and for putting on an excellent conference.

PS. It is a real convenience traveling with a wife that is studying photography. Thanks to Saundra for these great pictures.

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