This was my first time attending a writers conference. The experience with well worth it! I signed up for two of the conference workshops, Query Letter Critique and Pitch Session. Both were very reasonable in price. Most conferences cost well over $500 to attend.
The goal of this conference is to give you access to ten top publishing editors and literary agents and to educate you with a workshop and talks by experienced authors. This is a great opportunity for new writers like me to critique my work and find ways to improve. You could be offered a contract based on the materials you’ve submitted: after every conference some AWC members sign with conference agents and realize their dream of publication. I was one of them!
Not only was my Pitch session a success, but I was awarded Best Pitch by Heather Alexander from Dial Books! It was a pleasure meeting with her. She loved my story and provided me with her contact information to submit my manuscript to her.
What a dream come true for a new writer! Authors can submit hundreds of manuscripts to publishers only to be rejected a hundred times. I met with many wonderful authors at the conference many who have gone through countless rejections.
Upon my manuscript submission, I'm hoping to receive a contract from Dial Books. Dial Books for Young Readers is a hardcover division publishing approximately seventy titles per year for children of all ages, from preschool through young adult.
I'm working on my manuscript now. Heather offered a few suggestions, one of them, no rhyming for my manuscript. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping with in the next week I can submit my manuscript and hear back from her soon!
J.E. Clark
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