Vanishing Act

It’s astounding. Time is fleeting. Madness….takes control.

No, it’s not another midnight showing of Rocky Horror at the Clinton St Theatre. I'm gearing up for the 2009 edition of the Willamette Writers Conference. Just so you know, that’s what I'm disappearing into for the next four days. And therefore blog postings may be, um, intermittent. Or nonexistent.

I’m managing the volunteers for just the Programs side of Conference (workshops, classes, special programs like Manuscript ER and the like) – a task that has been a preoccupation since May, and come close to being a full-time job for the past few weeks. And as with any conference or festival I’ve ever worked on, the hard part really is the planning. Once the event’s actually underway, your first task is just to jump on that roller coaster as it’s leaving its docket. That much accomplished, you can always ride the thing to its conclusion.

But what is the Conference, you ax. It’s three and a half nutty days and nights of discussing writing, critiquing writing, and writing writing. With 800+ participants attending workshops, getting agent and editor responses, attending special events like Gigi Rosenberg’s Actors Lab etcetcetc, the Conference is a crazy quilt of information and fraternity, where you can find out everything from how you pitch your screenplay to a producer to turning social media to your professional purposes.

But wait! as the Scarecrow once said. Here’s someone who can help you! This video made after last year’s Conference, featuring the fab Marc Acito, clues you in to what’s generally up at the Conference. Thank you Paper Fort for alerting me to this.