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Backspace Agent-Author Seminar - November 11 & 12 - NYC |
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| REGISTRATION is now open. Early bird discount up to $100 through September 15. | ||||
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| June 23, 2010 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The November Agent-Author Seminar - Registration is now open! The November Agent-Author Seminar will be held this year on Thursday, November 11th and Friday, November 12th at the Radisson Martinique in Manhattan, NY. This event always sells out and for good reason - it's two intense days of panels and small-group workshops with over 25 top literary agents attending. Last year 10 writers found their agents through one of our events, and this year we expect those numbers to be even higher!  Jenny Bent (The Bent Agency) • Paul Cirone (Molly Friedrich Agency) • Jennifer DiChiara (The Jennifer DeChiara Literary Agency) • Molly Jaffa (Folio Literary Management) • Natanya Wheeler (Nancy Yost Literary Agency) • Lois Winston (Ashley Grayson Literary Agency) • Kathleen Ortiz (Lowenstein Associates) • Michelle Brower (Folio Literary Management) • Rebecca Strauss (McIntosh & Otis, Inc.) • Kirsten Neuhaus (Kirsten Neuhaus Literary) • Alexandra Machinist (Linda Chester Literary Agency) • Jason Allen Ashlock (Movable Type Literary Group) • Joanna Stampfel-Volpe (Nancy Coffey Literary) • Suzie Townsend (FinePrint Literary Management) • Tamar Rydzinski (The Laura Dail Literary Agency) • Diana Fox (Fox Literary Agency) • Emmanuelle Alspaugh (Judith Ehrlich Literary Management)• Alanna Ramirez (Trident Media Group) • Brandi Bowles (Foundry Literary + Media) • Weronika Janczuk (D4EO Literary Agency) • Rebecca Friedman (Sterling Lord Literistic) • Jason Pinter (Waxman Literary Agency) and more to come! On Thursday night, Kathleen Ortiz from Lowenstein Associates will teach an additional 2-hour workshop, "Who’s Listening to You? Effective Online Marketing." Description: From evaluating web site traffic, discussing effective blogging methods and deciphering the ‘creepy’ term known as branding, this course will cover a variety of online marketing topics so attendees can analyze their current online presence, uncover who their current audience is, who their target audience should be and what they can do to make it more effective (Please note: there is an additional charge for the Thursday night workshop). Early registration discounts of $100 are available until Sept 15th, bringing the cost down to $495 (Regularly $595). Forum subscribers please visit the Backspace Discussion Forums to find out how you can save as much as $150 from now until the event sells out. To learn more about the discussion forums and the benefits of subscribing, click here.  Our good friend, Little Ms. J writes, Donald Maass Saved My Life Author Rebbie Macintyre writes The Opening or Making the Average Joe Unaverage Sharon Ford reports on A Writer's Banquet - The Backspace Conference J.P. McNeill gives us a day-by-day breakdown on For The Love of Writing Lynette Ecklund's Clattering Keys delivers a breakdown of each day, plus what it felt like to read her query letter to two literary agents, and what they had to say! Visit our conference website for details and check back often over the next two months for frequent updates as we fill in the agenda and announce this year's literary agents. Prefer a video? Check out What Literary Agents Want, a short excerpt from our the 2009 Backspace Writers Conference. As always, any questions, or any additional information you need, feel free to email Christopher Graham at chrisg@bksp.org, or pick up the phone and call: 732-267-6449. See you all in November! |
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| November 8, 2009 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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2010 Backspace Writers Conference Highlights Here's what was featured at the 2010 Backspace Writers Conference and Agent-Author Day May 27 - 29, 2010 - New York City Keynote speakers: #1 NYTimes bestselling author Lorenzo Carcaterra. In addition to his books, Carcaterra has written a number of feature scripts and teleplays. Among his features are "Dreamer," the story of singer Bobby Darin, for Warner Bros. and director Barry Levinson; "Doubt," a thriller for Robert Lawrence and Touchstone/Disney, and "Street Boys" for producers Steve Reuther and Paula Weinstein and director Barry Levinson. Carcaterra's television writing credits include "The Hall," a pilot for Fox-TV (co-written with Jacqueline Zambrano); "Rounders," an NBC pilot, and "The Force" for the WB network, which Carcaterra executive-produced and filmed in Toronto in the winter of 1999. In 2003-2004, he worked as a writer and producer for the NBC series, "Law & Order." Neil S. Nyren, Senior Vice President, Publisher and Editor in Chief of G.P. Putnam’s Sons. Among his authors are Tom Clancy, Clive Cussler, Patricia Cornwell, Jack Higgins, W.E.B. Griffin, John Sandford, Dave Barry, Daniel Silva, Ken Follett, Frederick Forsyth, Randy Wayne White, Alex Berenson, James O. Born, Ace Atkins and Carol O’Connell; nonfiction by Bob Schieffer, Maureen Dowd, John McEnroe, Linda Ellerbee, Jeff Greenfield, Charles Kuralt, Secretary of State James Baker III, Thomas P.M. Barnett, Sara Nelson, General Tony Zinni, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. with: Paul Cirone (Molly Friedrich Agency), Elizabeth Evans (Reece Halsey Literary Agency), Joanna Stampfel-Volpe (Nancy Coffey Literary & Media Representation), Adam Chromy (Artists and Artisans Agency), Elana Roth (Caren Johnson Literary Agency, Jennifer DeChiara (Jennifer DeChiara Literary Agency), Victoria Horn (Liza Dawson Associates), Brandi Bowles (Howard Morhaim Literary Agency), Lois Winston (Ashley Grayson Literary Agency), Rebecca Strauss (McIntosh and Otis, Inc.), Jeff Kleinman (Folio Literary Management), Kristin Nelson (Nelson Literary), Jamie Brenner (Artists & Artisans Literary Management), Colleen Lindsay (FinePrint Literary Management), Jason Allen Ashlock (Movable Type Literary Group), Diana Fox (Fox Literary Agency), April Eberhardt (Kimberly Cameron & Associates), Kathleen Ortiz (Lowenstein Associates) Gwendolyn Heasley (Artists and Artisans Literary Management), Suzie Townsend (FinePrint Literary Management) Scott Hoffman (Folio Literary Management), Jenny Bent (The Bent Agency), Alanna Ramirez (Trident Media Group), Kirsten Neuhaus (Kirsten Neuhaus Literary Agency), Eric Myers (The Spieler Agency), Tamar Rydzinski (The Laura Dail Literary Agency), Blair Hewes (Dunham Literary), Marisa Corvisiero (Lori Perkins Agency) Joe Veltre (The Veltre Company), Molly Jaffa (Folio Literary Management) and more to come! "Unquestionably the best of all writers’ conferences, this two-day annual conference has leaped to the top with its emphasis on quality, not quantity. No more than 150 novelists can attend, and there are no formal pitch sessions. Instead, you’ll have the opportunity to attend quality workshops and mingle with some of the best editors, agents and other publishing professionals in the industry in a comfortable, non-aggressive atmosphere." |
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| August 9, 2009 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Excerpts from the 2009 Backspace Writers Conference |
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| A R C H I V E / H I G H L I G H T S | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Backspace: A Retrospective Backspace began in April 2004, before the days of social network sites like Facebook and Myspace, back when writers were just discovering the Internet as a means to connect with other writers. Co-founders Christopher Graham and Karen Dionne met at a public online writers discussion forum, where they saw a tremendous amount of potential in interacting with other talented, serious, up-and-coming writers. But because the site wasn't moderated, they often had to wade through pages of useless information to find the posts of value. So Karen and Chris started their own forum, a private site for serious writers, and invited everybody whose experience and talent they felt they could benefit from to join. "We knew we were onto something when 110 writers signed on the first week," says Chris. Five years later, 45 of the original 110 members have been published - most by major publishers; many more than once. Six of their books have made the New York Times bestseller list (Sara Gruen, WATER FOR ELEPHANTS; Ally Carter, I’D TELL YOU I LOVE YOU BUT THEN I’D HAVE TO KILL YOU and CROSS MY HEART AND HOPE TO SPY; Lesley Kagen, WHISTLING IN THE DARK; Allison Winn Scotch, TIME OF MY LIFE; Karen Abbott, SIN IN THE SECOND CITY). Six of the original 110 members have also sold film or television rights. Their books have won awards: the American Library Association’s Notable Book Award (Jon Clinch, FINN; Sara Gruen, WATER FOR ELEPHANTS), the National Library Association’s Colorado Book Award (Kim Reid, NO PLACE SAFE), been featured as a Today Show Top 10 Read (Allison Winn Scotch, TIME OF MY LIFE), featured in Cosmopolitan Magazine (Martha O’Connor, THE BITCH POSSE; Jackie Kessler, HOTTER THAN HELL), named a John Singer Sargent Award finalist (Jon Clinch, FINN), Romantic Times Reviewers Choice Award finalist (Karen Dionne, FREEZING POINT), and #1 New York Times bestseller, 2-time Quill Award Nominee, 2007 Booksense Book of the Year (Sara Gruen, WATER FOR ELEPHANTS), to name just a few. In addition to these 45 published authors, another dozen of the original 110 Backspace members are on the cusp of publication, and are either currently or have been represented by agents and have had their work on submission at the major publishing houses. Considering a mere 4% of aspiring authors ever see their novel or non-fiction project in print, these stats represent a success rate that would be the envy of any MFA program in the country. As of this writing (April, 2009), Backspace has close to a thousand members in a dozen countries. Members released 112 titles in 2008 (see list at right), and a third are agented and/or published. Backspace has the endorsement of  top literary agents and bestselling authors. The Backspace homepages (www.bksp.org) have been named one of Writer’s Digest Magazine’s 101 Best Websites for Writers all five years of our existence. (2005 - 2009). Backspace also puts on an annual writers conference in New York City that faculty members, attendees, and even other conference organizers rank as one of the best. "Backspace is relatively new, but it’s the real deal,” NYTimes bestselling author Lee Child once wrote, “which is amply proved both by the quality of discourse within and the truly amazing hit-rate its members have already achieved." For years, members have maintained that the Backspace discussion forums are the best-kept secret on the Web. We think it's time the world found out about the incredible confluence of talent that spawned one of the most unique and successful writers communities on the Internet. |
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The Backspace organization is predicated on the idea of writers helping writers, which we accomplish by means of discussion forums, a guest speaker program in which agents, acquisitions editors, and bestselling authors regularly conduct online question and answer sessions with the group, and articles and advice from agents and other publishing professionals on our homepages, along with useful links, conference and book reviews, and more. Backspace has attracted the support and/or participation of Richard Curtis, Dan Lazar, Jenny Bent, Sara Nelson, Kristin Nelson, Jeff Kleinman, Kristen Weber, Jeffery Deaver, Lee Child, Robert Crais, Neil Gaiman, Chris Bohjalian, Elizabeth George and many other publishing professionals. |
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