|
|
|
Early Bird Registration
$575--full conference!
Through THE HISTORY OF THE SANTA BARBARA WRITERS CONFERENCE — 1997
An excerpt from the upcoming book by Armando Nieto, Mary Conrad, and Matt Pallamary: The 25th Anniversary of the Santa Barbara Writers Conference would have been SBWC Chief of Staff Paul Lazarus’ 20th anniversary with the conference. Unfortunately, Paul suffered a heart attack after hip replacement surgery.
William Styron (Lie Down in Darkness, Set This House on Fire, Sophie’s Choice, and Confessions of Nat Turner), not seen since the Conference’s early days returned to receive the inaugural SBWC Lifetime of Literary Excellence Award. Charles Champlin introduced him for brief comments on “The Writing of My First Book.”
Styron shook his head and said, “For years people have been calling my first novel LAY Down in Darkness. It’s Lie Down in Darkness.” Regarding the editing demanded by his first book’s publisher, the story would have been tame by modern standards.
“There’s not a single four-letter word in it,” Styron announced to the Miramar audience.
“Thank God,” some said out loud.
The road to writing and publishing was about as straight forward for Styron as for any aspiring writer. His first book made the best-sellers list at number seven when he’d been called to service in the Marines for the Korean conflict. He was in good company, as that list also included Norman Mailer’s From Here to Eternity and J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye. Time magazine spurned the three young writers as “doomed to obscurity.” Styron enjoyed telling that story to the SBWC students.
The story of how he came to write his first book was also interesting. He quit his job reading manuscripts for a New York publisher in 1947. “I burned to write a novel,” he said, “but what about?”
He was motivated when he learned that a 22 year-old woman from his home town that he had a crush on, but never pursued, had committed suicide. “He’d never so much as held her hand,” Barney Brantingham wrote in a Santa Barbara News-Press article at the time.
Styron worked long and hard on the novel in a state of shock in his Brooklyn Flatbush neighborhood rooming house, and eventually finished Lie Down in Darkness. It was during that period that he met a fellow boarder, a Polish woman who didn’t speak a lot of English and had a tattoo from a German death camp. He developed a crush on her too, although his timing was bad because besides the language barrier she already had a boyfriend. Years later she became the title figure in Sophie’s Choice.
At the time there wasn’t a lot written about the holocaust and he had been working on a novel that wasn’t quite coming together.
“I’d become preoccupied with the camps. One book had the story of a gypsy woman forced to make a choice between her two children, forced by the Nazis to become a murderer of her own child,” then it occurred to him to marry the story of the woman from his boarding house twenty-odd years prior. He put aside the incomplete novel and began anew. Four years later Sophie’s Choice was the result.
1997 ended on a sad and somber note for the Santa Barbara Writers Conference family. Susan Miles Gulbransen wrote about the passing of Paul Lazarus in a December 1997 column with affection.
“Every once in a while, someone touches your life, makes a huge difference and leaves you a much better person. Paul Lazarus was that kind of someone. As an insider in the movie business, the retired studio executive could have been a pontificating guru or a larger-than-life celebrity. Instead, Paul always remained a gracious, humorous and supportive friend whether in the company of deal makers or aspiring writers.
“Few people knew the movie industry like Paul Lazarus. As the middle of the Lazarus generational sandwich, he grew up in the movies. His father began a film career in 1916 while the industry was still in its infancy and warned his son not to try the crazy business.”
Paul Lazarus, retired Hollywood studio executive and SBWC Chief of Staff did end up working in the film industry. He brought his wisdom and experience in the genre to the SBWC, and a generation of writers thank him. He was loved, admired, and he will be remembered.
Paul and Ellie Lazarus
THE HISTORY OF THE SANTA BARBARA WRITERS CONFERENCE — 1996
An excerpt from the upcoming book by Armando Nieto, Mary Conrad, and Matt Pallamary: On Monday night two accomplished writers took the stage, one a newcomer, the other an old friend of the Conference. Elmore “Dutch” Leonard author of 32 novels including Mr. Majestyk, Hombre, Stick, and 52 Pick-up, fifteen of which were made into films and Scott Frank an accomplished screenplay writer, including the screen version of Leonard’s Get Shorty.
Dutch opened with a reading of how he wrote a scene in the book Get Shorty, where the character Chili Parker played by John Travolta meets the producer played by Danny Devito, as a way of showing how the written word gets transposed on film. True to his style, Leonard’s read words were short, crisp, and pithy.
“If only I was a light skinned black chick I could sing and do it on my own,” he read, the words of a transvestite reacquainting herself with Chili.
The patter between Chili and other characters continued in Leonard’s gravelly, cough-accented voice for ten minutes. Short bits, (cough), “inflict pain if I need to,” the character said. “Look at me,” Chili said, “no, I mean look at me like I’m looking at you. You’re nothing to me. It’s nothing personal. It’s just business...”
The audience was then treated to a slice of the Get Shorty movie and a scene played out by Danny Devito and John Travolta. Oddly enough, the dialogue between Devito and Travolta was close to what Dutch had read, but the rest of the scene so crisply read by Leonard was fleshed out with an overacting transvestite character. Clearly, the best part of the scene was the dialogue that Travolta and Devito delivered almost exactly as Dutch had written.
Scott Frank related the story of a two hour lunch with Leonard where he told of how others had made movies of his novels that were horrible. Scott went home and said to his wife that he didn’t want to give Leonard another horror story.
For that reason more than any other the scene with Devito and Travolta rang with verisimilitude, to the pleasure of the audience, author, and screenwriter.
Elmore (Dutch) Leonard
THE HISTORY OF THE SANTA BARBARA WRITERS CONFERENCE — 1995
An excerpt from the upcoming book by Armando Nieto, Mary Conrad, and Matt Pallamary: At the 1995 SBWC Bob Kane explained how he finally got his moment in the limelight with the resurgence of the Batman franchise. He opened his 4:00 pm lecture on Wednesday afternoon talking about growing up in the Bronx to the sound of Bing Crosby’s voice—“ba ba ba boom!”
Kane came up with the concept for Batman in 1939.
Speaking after a weekend when a Batman movie garnered $53 million Kane had a lot to say about Hollywood.
“Hollywood had a strange habit,” he began. “You bring them a concept and they buy it, and then they bring in ten other writers to change it for you.”
Kane expressed praise for all the Batman movies, and for the ‘60s television show based on his characters. He encouraged the audience to stay true to their characters and passions, no matter what. Regarding the movie industry itself, he said, “They speak with forked tongues in Hollywood. If you’re a failure there you’re treated like a leper.
“You’ve got to stick to your guns. You should never stop working and being creative. Being creative is like breathing. When you stop, you die.”
In his Santa Barbara News-Press article on the lecture, Daniel M. Jimenez talked with thirteen-year-old Billy Eckerson and his eleven-year-old brother Brent, both wearing Batman paraphernalia.
“Batman is more like a detective than Superman,” Billy said, echoing the argument that fans had been having for more than fifty years. Billy said he wants to create comics when he grows up.
Batman made his first appearance in Detective Comics No. 27 in May of 1939 with “The Case of the Chemical Syndicate,” starring “The Bat Man.” When the first printing sold out immediately, subsequent issues built a following almost as big as Superman. A year later Kane approached his publishers about adding a teen-aged side kick named Robin. Despite his bosses grumbling that mothers wouldn’t approve of a young boy running around at night with the caped crusader, sales of Batman with Robin outsold Batman alone, five to one.
In 1995, a copy of that original Batman Detective Comics No. 27 was worth $150,000, depending on condition.
THE HISTORY OF THE SANTA BARBARA WRITERS CONFERENCE — 1994
An excerpt from the upcoming book by Armando Nieto, Mary Conrad, and Matt Pallamary: In the June 17, 1994 welcoming Friday issue of Write Right ON! Jan Curran quoted Ray Bradbury:
“If you want to write, if you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling. You must write every single day of your life.
“I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you. May you live with hysteria, and out of it make fine stories. May you be in love for the next 20,000 days, and out of that love, remake a world.”
Ray opened the 22nd SBWC, as he had for the previous 21 years, and waxed eloquent on the subject of “Why Aren’t You Home Writing?”
By 1994 the SBWC was a well-established, premiere event for west coast literati, across the country and in other parts of the world. Australia was always well represented as well as England and the far east, but if you were to ask any of the participants, students, staff, or featured speaker you would get a variety of explanations for success.
In a Santa Barbara Independent article on June 16, 1994, Bill Greenwald wrote, “There’s something about the Santa Barbara Writer’s Conference — a feeling, an ambiance you can’t describe. It’s a sense of being right there in the middle of the literary swirl.” Greenwald continued, “It’s not intended for dilettantes who want to impress themselves by going to a writer’s convention, but the 22 year-old Santa Barbara institution is so multifaceted that even they will get something they didn’t expect.”
Barnaby Conrad, SBWC director and cofounder said, “We try to make it so no one who can write gets away unnoticed. Most beginners feel they have no chance to meet other writers. Here they have a chance to rub shoulders with famous writers and get professional advice.”
Columnist and former Los Angeles Times arts editor Charles Champlin said, “First, it gives you a chance to think about what you do and why you do it. It renews you. Writing is a lonely business. It [the SBWC] engenders a family feeling. There’s a terrific spirit throughout the conference.”
Chuck Champlin - Veteran SBWC Workshop Leader
Ray Bradbury had this to say: “I think what makes the Santa Barbara Writer’s Conference different is that it’s more relaxed than others, not as pompous and self-conscious.” When asked how he prepared for each of his 22 appearances as opening speaker he said, “I just get up there and explode and have a lot of fun."
Ray was quoted as saying, “Last year I told you to stop watching the local news,” gesticulating with a finger the size of bratwurst. “Today I tell you to fire the people standing in the way of your writing!”
Sparky Schulz, returned from a one-year hiatus to follow Ray on Sunday afternoon, speaking on the topic “Snoopy, Charlie Brown, and Me.” It was a homecoming for frequent SBWC attendees.
Sparky was always asked where he got ideas for Snoopy and Charlie Brown. “An idea comes from your whole life. You don’t just create characters out of nothing and force ideas out of them. It has to come from your own life.”
He told the audience about a memory of reading that crunching wintergreen flavored Lifesavers candy would produce sparks. He said it followed that if one chewed them in the dark, the sparks would be visible.
“This is where cartoon ideas come from,” said the Peanuts creator, because although he was unsuccessful in making sparks, he still used the idea in a strip with Snoopy and Charlie Brown. “It takes maturity. You have to live. You have to suffer before you can cartoon these things.”
Sparky
1994 was the year that Bob Kane, creator of Batman, became a friend of the SBWC. He passed through workshops, parties and SBWC events always accompanied by a bevy of devotees and a stunning companion who turned out to be Elizabeth, his wife. Although not scheduled as a speaker it was obvious that he loved being part of the maelstrom of creativity at the Miramar, and would be wooed to return to tell the Batman story at a future conference.
THE HISTORY OF THE SANTA BARBARA WRITERS CONFERENCE
The brainchild of Y. Armando Nieto, a long time SBWC volunteer, known to veteran conference participants as "Mando", The History of the Santa Barbara Writers Conference project has evolved on two fronts in the form of a book and film titled with same name.
As seen in the byline, the book was written in a three way collaboration between Mando, long time SBWC workshop leader Matt Pallamary, and founder Mary Conrad, along with the deeply appreciated help and graphics support from veteran humor workshop leader Ernie Witham.
The film, the book, and the conference itself would never have existed if it were not for the efforts of Barnaby and Mary Conrad, the founders of the SBWC.
Barnaby was the well known and loved face and "front man"of the conference, but it was Mary's tireless devotion and work behind the scenes that made the SBWC a reality.
Enter Lisa Angle, the talented filmmaker and producer of Literary Gumbo who conference attendees usually see behind a camera at the conference filming keynoters, who came up with the suggestion to make a documentary film of the conference which has been entered into the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.
Add to that Mando's nephew, Hollywood special effects wizard Andras Kavalecz who generously donated his time and considerable talents to the film and the many SBWC "old timers" who came to be interviewed for the film, among them, Fannie Flagg and Catherine Ryan Hyde, with a special shout out of appreciation to Chris Mitchum who flew in from Boston over the weekend and flew right back in a "turn and burn", specifically for the twenty minute interview!
And one more shout out of appreciation to Canadian recording artist André Nobels for his generous musical contribution to the film's soundtrack.
Here is the film's trailer for your viewing pleasure and enticement.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCFQ2nhNZlc[/embed]
THE HISTORY OF THE SANTA BARBARA WRITERS CONFERENCE — 1993
An excerpt from the upcoming book by Armando Nieto, Mary Conrad, and Matt Pallamary: SBWC Chief of Staff Paul Lazarus introduced Robert B. Parker, he highlighted Parker’s background as a tenured professor at Northeastern University in Boston. Lazarus explained that although a tenured professor, Parker was only teaching one Wednesday class a week when he left the university to write full time. When asked why he left academia where he only had to teach on Wednesdays, Parker replied, “Yeah, but it was every Wednesday.” His Spenser thrillers were hailed by the Washington Post as “a seminal and exceptional series in the history of American hard-boiled detective fiction.”
Parker was a big, affable man with an “elegant mustache,” according to one newspaper account of his visit to the SBWC. With his doctorate in English Literature, he created the well-read Spenser, a Boston detective whose cases comprised twenty-four novels and a television series. That same newspaper account noted that the purchase and subsequent loss of a handgun was the only genre related research Parker conducted in developing his character’s character.
On his writing process: “I write five pages five days a week.”
On his struggle as a beginning writer: “None, I’m sorry to say. I wrote my first book and sent it off to Houghton Mifflin because they were the closest. Three weeks later they wrote me to say they wanted to publish it,” and the Spenser series was born with publication of The Godwulf Manuscript.
Parker was sheepish in explaining that his wife Joan was responsible for much of his success; for encouraging his pursuit of a doctorate to get a better job, and negotiating with agents and publishers. “Trust me,” he explained, “if you have to get into an argument with one of us you want it to be me and not Joan.”
On what mystery writer he read: “I don’t read much at all. I have a Phd, so I don’t have to,” he joked, but seriously, he explained that he saved his creative juices for writing. “I like Dutch, because of the way he sounds,” referring to Elmore Leonard. He also admitted to reading non-fiction.
On Robert Urich who portrayed Spenser in the TV series: “No, I didn’t imagine Urich as Spenser. If I thought of anyone it would probably be a young Robert Mitchum, or now, an older Robert Mitchum.”
Robert Mitchum
SBWC workshop leader Matt Pallamary always had an affinity for the Spenser books and television series because he grew up in Dorchester, a tough Irish Catholic neighborhood, a setting where many scenes from and many of the Spenser stories took place. Best selling Crime writer Dennis Lehane is also from Dorchester.
When Matt met Parker this first time in Santa Barbara the exchange went something like this:
"Hi Bob, it's nice to meet you. I grew up in Dorchester and I have always enjoyed Spenser."
Parker sat back, eyes wide in an exaggerated gesture and said, "Dorchester? What the f*ck are you doing here?"
THE HISTORY OF THE SANTA BARBARA WRITERS CONFERENCE — 1992
An excerpt from the upcoming book by Armando Nieto, Mary Conrad, and Matt Pallamary:
Ray Bradbury spoke on Friday night about belief in oneself and to never lose faith. “When you make your first sale you need to celebrate, because it may be a year before you make another.”
He told how as a boy he opened an envelope on the lawn of his mother’s house and let out a yell when he read a letter telling him of his first sale. “My mother and I hugged each other and danced around the yard!” he said. For which he received a free subscription to the magazine.
He didn’t make another sale for more than a year.
Ray said that when his family moved to Los Angeles he was thirteen years old and he discovered the places in local museums where Hollywood memorabilia was housed. He searched out those places and wrote letters to cartoonists, pulp fiction writers, and the people who made magic in B movies, and he spent hours and days reading stories about everything, haunting the libraries.
He said he didn’t go to college. “I went to libraries, and I stayed there,” he said. “And when I was 27 years old I graduated from the library!”
He also spoke about his time in Ireland with movie director John Huston, who was filming his classic “Moby Dick.” As he told the story behind Green Shadows, White Whale, writer Bradbury painted a picture of his time in Ireland chasing Huston’s dream of an epic screenplay worthy of the concept in the director’s mind. Waving his arms and drawing out the pub owner and cab driver from the pages of his novel and memory he filled the auditorium with images of Irish fog, warm Guinness, and cold rain.
He got the gig, writing the screenplay for Moby Dick, when John Huston invited him to his hotel in Los Angeles and asked, “Well Ray, what are you doing for the next year?” When Ray answered, “nothing,” Huston continued, “Well, tell you what. Why don’t you go home tonight, read as much as you can of the book [Moby Dick], come back tomorrow and help me kill the white whale?”
Bradbury did go home and said to his wife, “Maggie, pray for me. I have to read a book tonight and give a book report in the morning.”
November Newsletter
JUNE 18-23, 2017
Early Bird Registration
A Perfect Holiday Gift to Yourself
$575--full conference for all six days! Through February 15 Register here.
Improve your craft. Find your tribe. Make lifelong connections.
The Santa Barbara Writers Conference will reconvene June 18 - 23 at the charming, beachside Santa Barbara Hyatt.
We'll have agents, afternoon panels, 20 daily writing workshops, two banquets and an ocean view cocktail party.
Guest speakers include: Fannie Flagg, David Brin, Armando Lucas Correa, Lesley M. M. Blume, and Tracy Daugherty.
Since its origins in 1972, SBWC has given writers an oasis of time, place and focus to hone craft and connect with mentors, agents and publishers.
A few of America's influential writers who have spoken at SBWC: Ray Bradbury, Eudora Welty, James Michener, Charles M. Schulz, and Elmore Leonard.
We invite you to be a part of this ongoing literary legacy.
Registration is open now.
We look forward to seeing you June 18-23, 2017.
Grace Rachow SBWC Director
Our 45th Year! "The answer to all writing is love." — Ray Bradbury
"The best in the nation." — James A. Michener
"A most stimulating time—a glorious week!" — Eudora Welty
"An important and wonderful week." — Elmore Leonard
"SBWC offers aspiring talents opportunities to have their work seen by professionals who can help them reach publication." — Los Angeles Times
THE HISTORY OF THE SANTA BARBARA WRITERS CONFERENCE — 1991
An excerpt from the upcoming book by Armando Nieto, Mary Conrad, and Matt Pallamary: The Santa Barbara Writers Conference Scrapbook — Words of Wisdom from Thirty Years of Literary Excellence 1973 – 2003
On January 7th - Saddam Hussein prepared his troops for what he said would be a long violent war against the United States and on January 8th "Davis Rules" with Jonathan Winters & Randy Quaid premiered on ABC-TV.
On January 10th US Congress began its debate on the Persian Gulf crisis and on January 11th - Congress empowered George Bush Sr. to order attack on Iraq following up on January 12th by giving Bush authority to wage war against Iraq. Operation Desert Storm began against Saddam Hussein on January 17th.
On March 3rd the Los Angeles Police severely beat motorist Rodney King, which was captured on amateur video and on March 15th Four Los Angeles, California police officers were indicted for the videotaped March 3rd beating of motorist Rodney King during an arrest.
From thirty-six students at the Cate School in 1973, the students attending the 19th Annual Santa Barbara Writers Conference now numbered 300 plus, 60% of whom were returnees and 26 faculty members. All the elements that made the conference a premiere event were coordinated by Mary Conrad, assisted by her cadre of volunteers.
A late addition to the conference was Joseph Wambaugh, The Onion Field, The Blue Knight, and many others. Returning speakers included Elmore Leonard, Cat Chaser, 52 Pick-Up, Killshot, Get Shorty, and others, and longtime SBWC favorite Sue Grafton, A is for Alibi, and the rest of her alphabet series, and perennial favorite Charles (Sparky) Schulz.
Before introducing Ray Bradbury on Friday night, Barnaby Conrad read a few examples of what could be submissions for the annual “Worst Opening Sentence” contest which was open to all conference attendees.
“He’d always hated being bound and gagged…”
“The sun rose slowly, like a fiery fur ball coughed up uneasily onto a sky-blue carpet by a giant unseen cat…”
“While the riddle of the long intestine cannot be unraveled here, we can at least allude to the romance of digestion…”
“The sun fought like a tiger to escape from its cage of dark clouds and finally emerged gently as a lamb, bestowing its soft warmth upon Leanne, her golden hair blown by the wind which swept across the high, rocky hill overlooking her ancestral home, once threatened by fire and flood, now owned by the man who killed her father, raped her grandmother, and was soon to become her husband.”
Arguably, only Ray Bradbury could comfortably follow Barnaby at his best, and Ray started the 19th SBWC lecturing on “Tomorrow the Universe.” In the welcoming Write Right On! Jan Curran quoted from Bradbury’s book, A Complete Guide to Writing Fiction:
“If you want to write, if you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that Gold ever turned out and rambling…You must write every single day of your life…I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you…may you live with hysteria, and out of it make fine stories…may you be in love for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.”
Joe Wambaugh and Chuck Champlin
May 27 Newsletter
|
|||||
|
|||||
THE HISTORY OF THE SANTA BARBARA WRITERS CONFERENCE — 1990
An excerpt from the upcoming book by Armando Nieto, Mary Conrad, and Matt Pallamary: The Santa Barbara Writers Conference Scrapbook — Words of Wisdom from Thirty Years of Literary Excellence 1973 – 2003
The 18th Annual Santa Barbara Writers Conference welcomed new speakers including author, composer, musician, comedian, television and radio personality Steve Allen; new book panelist Monte Shultz for Down by the River, Ella Leffland Looking for Goring, Joan Quigley, President and Mrs. Reagan’s astrologer, and Amy Tan The Joy Luck Club. The conference also featured two tributes; one for Gore Vidal and another for John Hersey.
Plans for the SBWC took a few detours because of the infamous Painted Cave Fire which was later renamed the Painted Fire which raged throughout the week of the conference, endangering homes and closing highways. Barnaby Conrad went missing in action on his errand to pick up Gore Vidal from the Santa Barbara Airport due to road closures. Gore and Barnaby had to drive north, spending the night and dining in Buellton, to the surprise and pleasure of North County residents. Although one fan introduced himself saying, “How do you do, Mr. Asimov? I’ve read all your books,” mistaking Vidal for science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. Thankfully, word of their North County exploits calmed Santa Barbara Conference attendee’s fear of the worst while flames from the fire continued to light the night sky and smoke filled the daylight hours.
When the durable duo finally returned to the Miramar hotel, at the opening of the Gore Vidal Tribute the author began with an amusing, low-key imitation of Ronald Reagan, followed by the comment, “I’m here because I would say Barnaby is the world’s greatest blackmailer!”
Before leaving the stage he also announced, “I go from here to what is left of the left—Berkeley!”
Regarding his recent sojourn in Mississippi where he was shooting a five-day documentary about his family, most of whom he’d never met, “I’ve never seen so many variations of my nose!”
It seemed as if every sentence of his ended with an exclamation point.
Artie Shaw returned as a speaker and was in fine fettle, imparting his own brand of wisdom. Said the former Abraham Isaac Arshawsky, who was raised in poverty on New York’s lower East Side:
“What’s so hard about divorce? You just pack a bag and call a cab.”
On marriage to Ava Gardner, Lana Turner, and his eight marriages: “All those were, were legalized love affairs. You should have seen the women I didn’t marry!”
On talent and fame: “Talent is a form of obsession. Talented people are not pleasant.”
And his four rules of life: “Show up, get along, have fun, and don’t get caught.”
SBWC Writing Contest Winners Announced
|
SBWC 2016: June 5-10, Hyatt Santa Barbara
Dear Writers,Thank you to those of you who entered our Annual Writing Contest.
After reviewing more than 250 entries from all over the United States, we’d like to congratulate our 3 winners and 2 runners-up. The following individuals won a full or partial tuition scholarship to this year's conference, June 5-10. You can read their winning entries on our SBWC blog in a few days. Winners: Full Scholarships to SBWC 2016 Melanie Howard Wanda Maureen Miller Sharon Brown Honorable Mentions: Partial Scholarships to SBWC 2016 Sophie Berti Anita Perez Ferguson We appreciate every writer who took a chance and submitted their writing to be considered. We know that is a small act of bravery. There were many excellent entries, but the above writers were the ones who this time around rose to the top. Congratulations, all. 10-minute Pitch Sessions with Agents and Editors
One perk of this year's conference is the 10-minute pitch sessions. Many writers who didn't have a polished five pages to send into agents for Advanced Submission can still get a chance to meet with an agent or editor to pitch their book or project. Registered attendees can sign up to meet with as many agents/editors as desired depending on availability. Don't wait too long since spots are filling up fast. Sign up here for only $25 once you are registered for the full conference. Check out the agents' bios here. The 44th Annual Santa Barbara Writers Conference will be kicking off in almost two weeks and we are looking forward to another wonderful year. If you haven't yet registered, visit our website: www.sbwriters.com. |
Our 44th Year! "A most stimulating time—a glorious week!" — Eudora Welty "The best in the nation." — James A. Michener "An important and wonderful week." — Elmore Leonard "SBWC offers aspiring talents opportunities to have their work seen by professionals who can help them reach publication." — Los Angeles Times   |
|
Write On!
Grace Rachow and Erin Munsch“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” — Ernest Hemingway
|
|
SBWC 2016 Writing Contest Winners Named
Thank you to those of you who entered our SBWC Annual Writing Contest. After reviewing more than 250 entries from all over the United States, we’d like to congratulate our 3 winners and 2 runners-up.
The following individuals won a full or partial tuition scholarship to this year's conference, June 5-10. You can read their winning entries on our SBWC blog in a few days.
Winners: Full Tuition Scholarships to SBWC 2016
Melanie Howard
Wanda Maureen Miller
Sharon Brown
Honorable Mentions: Partial Tuition Scholarships to SBWC 2016
Sophie Berti
Anita Perez Ferguson
We appreciate every writer who took a chance and submitted their writing to be considered. We know that is a small act of bravery.
There were many excellent entries, but the above writers were the ones who this time around rose to the top.
Congratulations, all.
An e-newsletter will follow with this information and more.
THE HISTORY OF THE SANTA BARBARA WRITERS CONFERENCE — 1989
An excerpt from the upcoming book by Armando Nieto, Mary Conrad, and Matt Pallamary: The Santa Barbara Writers Conference Scrapbook — Words of Wisdom from Thirty Years of Literary Excellence 1973 – 2003
On Thursday night at the 1989 SBWC, Charles Champlin, The Movies Grow Up—1940-80 and Back There Where the Past Was, long time editor at the Los Angeles Times and beloved SBWC workshop leader was billed as the featured speaker in the SBWC mailings, but decided to share the stage with Joseph Wambaugh, author of The Onion Field, The New Centurians, Echoes in the Darkness, etc., a late addition to the Conference.
Barnaby said in his introduction, Chuck Champlin coined the phrase “I love this conference. Its become the punctuation of my life.” Champlin himself endorsed the phrase when he spoke, talking about the aloneness of writing. He said his endorsement of the SBWC was heartfelt because at this stage of his life, he valued the authenticity and craft of writing, and the opportunity to rub shoulders with fellow spirits.
Champlin spoke in a homespun singsong voice reminiscent of Garrison Keillor and A Prairie Home Companion, bringing alive a time when telephone numbers were WJ5, and bicycles were the main form of transportation around town.
He finished his remarks saying, “I wish you ongoing success with your compulsions, which I share.”
Joe Wambaugh and Chuck Champlin
In his introduction of Joseph Wambaugh, Barnaby Conrad said Wambaugh was quoted as saying “All my wrinkles are on the inside,” in response to a lady’s flattery, and why not, as he was a veteran of fourteen years on the Los Angeles police force.
A special treat for the audience, Wambaugh’s “lecture” took the form of being interviewed by Barnaby Conrad and questions from the audience. For his part, Barny asked how and why Wambaugh wrote alternately fiction and non-fiction.
“Because I can’t always come up with a fiction idea,” he said, Wambaugh sometimes wrote “true crime” stories. Another benefit of writing non-fiction was his comfort level with stumping for those works.
“I was able to publicize The Blooding: The True Story of the Narborough Village Murders,” he said, “because it was a true story, and I wasn’t promoting my own idea.” It was the first time one of his books had been publicized in years.
“When I write a novel, a lot of things change, I go back and forth with my editor,” he continued. Not so much with non-fiction.
Regarding the movies made from his works, he said, “the only one I didn’t like was The Choir Boys. It was a rotten, lousy, sleazy, disgusting movie.” Perhaps it was this kind of attitude that contributed to his reputation among some in Hollywood, but he said he was a much more mature and sober man these days.
Writing for Wambaugh was a means to express a creative energy that plagued him in his adult life. He began with short stories sent to magazines that would pay a penny a word. One story he even sent off to Playboy twice over the space of a year.
“And some cruel bastard at Playboy sent it back, writing, ‘Its no better this time than it was the last!’”
He said that writing while working as a policeman was something he never talked about at work, “and my short stories never sold, to this day!” He also said he believes his first novels were clumsy and somewhat amateurish, perhaps because he first wrote novels as a moonlighting cop—in his mind. Instead of as a writer should write.
He couldn’t say enough about his editor, someone who he’s worked with since The Onion Field. “If you are lucky enough to have an editor, never let her go.” He credits his editor as half the reason for his success in writing subsequent novels.
The other half of his success he attributes to leaving the LAPD.
Barnaby Conrad and Joseph Wambaugh
SBWC Events Open to the Public -- Tickets $10 at the Door
Click on image for full size.
Aline Ohanesian at SBWC June 8 @ 7:30 PM, $10 at the door
Aline Ohanesian is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Orhan's Inheritance, which was long listed for the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize, a Summer 2015 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, a April 2014 Indie Next pick. The novel was also a finalist for the PEN/Bellwether Award for Socially Engaged Fiction.
Aline was born in Kuwait and immigrated to Southern California at the age of three. After getting her MA in History, she abandoned her PhD studies when she realized her heart belonged to the novel. She is an alumna of the Bread Loaf and Squaw Valley writers conferences. She lives and writes in San Juan Capistrano, California, with her husband and two young sons.
Photography credit: Raffia Hadidian
Location, Location, Location!
I am not saying that we writers at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference are on the roof of the Santa Barbara Hyatt that often, but if we were, this is what we would see. We spend the week of the conference right at the edge of the Pacific viewing palm trees and sailboats--a perfect place for inspiration. For more information or to register: sbwriters.com
10-Minute Pitch Sessions with Agents June 7, 2016
We are about to sell out appointments with Annie Hwang and Corinna Barsan. If you want an appointment with one of these two agents, register on line today.
https://www.sbwriters.com/advpitch.php
Get more information at the above link as well.
What is a pitch session?
This is a 10-minute personal meeting with an agent or an editor in which you “pitch” your book project. For nonfiction writers, a pitch session is an oral proposal in which you lay out the basic idea of your project and its structure in the hopes of piquing the agent’s interest. If you write fiction, you will pitch the idea of your novel to an agent with the goal of interesting the agent to see your manuscript.
Pitch Session Fees:
The cost for each 10-minute pitch session is $25 dollars. There is no manuscript involved, but you may bring a 1-page query letter or synopsis that you could leave with the agent upon the agent’s request. https://www.sbwriters.com/advpitch.php
THE HISTORY OF THE SANTA BARBARA WRITERS CONFERENCE — 1988
An excerpt from the upcoming book by Armando Nieto, Mary Conrad, and Matt Pallamary: The Santa Barbara Writers Conference Scrapbook — Words of Wisdom from Thirty Years of Literary Excellence 1973 – 2003
In 1988 Michael Dell launched the Dell Computer company and Microsoft released Windows 2.1. and the SBWC had some great speakers, among them, Fannie Flagg.
Fannie Flagg 1988
In his introduction Barnaby Conrad recalled some of the SBWC alumns, including Spencer Johnson, The One Minute Manager, and Kitty Kelley, His Way, but said he was most proud of Fannie Flagg. Already a household name as a writer and co-host of Alan Funt’s television show Candid Camera and other television appearances, she came to the SBWC a novice in writing outside of television.
“I’m absolutely thrilled to be here,” Fanny said of her first speaking appearance at the conference.
“I came here twelve years ago and heard Ray Bradbury and was inspired as I assume you were.” Flagg came to believe she could write, and eventually came to write Coming Attractions: Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man. It started as the short story Daisy Fay that won a competition at the SBWC in 1978.
“Barnaby Conrad came up to me and said, “Don’t you think you ought to do something with that?” She sent it off to a publisher and they said it was a nice story, but they wanted a novel.
“So I went out and bought 400 sheets of paper, and started writing. When I finished those 400 pages it weighed four pounds and seven ounces, and the novel ended.”
Between the first and second novel Flagg lost her parents. She returned to her home town, searching for something. Maybe her childhood. She needed an idea for another book because Barny had told her, “One book does not an author make!”
Her lecture was very much a homecoming, and she began to tell the story of her journey along the way in a soft voice, as if in confidence to a dear friend. By the time she began reading from Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café she’d transitioned seamlessly into a narrator’s voice, still imparting a confidence, but also through the dialogue recreating characters from her hometown of Irondale that you just wanted to meet and learn more about. The narrator, Ninny Threadgoode was a talker, and Flagg had to invent Evelyn Couch so Threadgoode had someone to talk to.
“So I had Evelyn walk down the hall with a candy bar in her hand so she’d have something to do while she listened,” Teri Sforza captured Fanny’s words in a Santa Barbara News-Press interview. “And Evelyn went berserk on me! She decided to have a life of her own.”
Once she got going it seemed Fanny hardly stopped to breathe. The audience stared at the little redhead who kept glancing up to make sure you were paying attention, blue eyes darting back and forth between her notes and attendees, a little confab between close friends.
1988 was also the first year that veteran Phantastic Fiction Workshop leader Matt Pallamary attended the SBWC as a student and had the good fortune to find himself in Sid Stebel's workshop and subsequently on a televised writing workshop with him. The videos of this television show can be viewed on YouTube beginning here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cCBEwV9Vtk
Another historic SBWC moment came that year when Margaret Millar, one of the best known mystery writers of the 20th century and widow of Ken Millar aka the legendary Ross Macdonald received a lifetime achievement award.
