Erika Dreifus

I have so much to do today (the penultimate day of my vacation). But I’m so pumped from Grub Street’s “The Muse and the Marketplace” conference that I have to spend some time sharing the experience with you.

I don’t know how they do it, but Grub somehow makes this conference even better every year. I’ll try to write a more comprehensive (or at least, sweeping) recap for you in time for Wednesday’s “Work-in-Progress” post here on Practicing Writing. For now, I’ll just summarize the panel that I moderated yesterday: “The Grubbie Guide to Writing Contests, Conferences, and Residencies,” which featured my super-accomplished co-panelists Sheri Joseph and Douglas Trevor.

I can do this only because the amazing Porter Anderson (@Porter_Anderson) was live-tweeting from the conference, and our panel was lucky enough to draw him in. I’ll share with you Porter’s tweets, and supply a few annotations. (Look especially for the cited handout, which I’ll embed within this post.)

Our general approach in this session was this: We began with self-introductions, in which we talked described ways in which contests, conferences, and residencies had helped shape our own writing lives. Then we moved into some “Do’s & Don’ts,” in which we shared advice on selecting opportunities, application tips, and suggestions for making the most of opportunities won (especially residencies). And then we turned to Q&A.

Hope that you enjoy!
(more…)