Letter From the Editor - Make it Snow

We've nearly made it to spring. Around here that can mean gorgeous, sunny days and rising temperatures, or more snowfall than we've had collectively for the entire winter. Usually it's a combination of both.

Now is a good time look at your writing habits and see if they're working for you. Are you accomplishing a blizzard of writing? Or are you basking instead? Somewhere in between? Look at what's working for you, and what isn't, and change the things that aren't. Spring cleaning doesn't just have to apply to dust bunnies and winter clothing. Then again, it probably wouldn't hurt to do a little office spring cleaning. After all, if your writing space is cluttered, that may distract you from getting anything done.

Writing distractions and space were addressed at the Write Your Heart Out event we hosted in February, but the good news is that the presentations given at WYHO were miniature versions of workshops that will be presented at conference in April. If you need help figuring out beneficial changes to your work space, be sure to look up the workshops having to do with the topic. JT Evans and Chris Mandeville spoke on space and time, so you'll want to look them up in the program.

With conference fast approaching, we will have profiles of faculty, keynotes, editors and agents going up 2-3 times per week, most Tuesdays and Thursdays, and occasional Saturdays. It's worth stopping by on those days to see who you might be interested in seeing at the conference, and which agent or editor you might want to pitch to. If you intend to pitch, you should definitely know the background of the editor or agent you'll be selecting. Your genre should always match up with what they're accepting, and especially with what they've specifically said they're interested in. Do your homework for the best results! We hope to help you a bit with that by doing these profiles, but a short profile cannot take the place of in-depth research.

If you aren't attending conference, no worries! We will have plenty of content that has nothing to do with conference, whether that's a piece on ghostwriting, tips for writing fantasy, or an essay on reading. While conference is our big event each year, it is by no means our sole focus, and we hope to bring you great monthly content of both conference and non-conference interest.

Have a wonderful month, enjoy the warm days and the snowy days, and work on turning your writing into a blizzard of accomplishment. In like a lion!

Shannon Lawrence
Managing Editor, Writing From the Peak
Director of Non-Conference Events