Muse and the Marketplace

This weekend Grub Street, Inc. hosts its annual literary conference, called Muse and the Marketplace. It's at the Omni Parker House in downtown Boston. I'll be working the manuscript mart, as usual, and hosting a panel about agents and how to get one (not that I know). Two days of hanging out with writers, present and former students and other instructors is really fun. Some conferences of this type are pretty awkward, you know, the haves ignoring the have-nots and everyone staring at everyone else across a charged space. Not here. Last year there were a couple of big name author types, who quite literally didn't want to leave at the end. I know how they felt. Every year several people find an agent, find representation, at the manuscript mart. People share their success stories, and their writing exercises. And really famous authors talk about how hard it was for them in the beginning, how hard it still is sometimes. For two days, anything seems possible.