If you’ve been following this blog very long, you may have noticed I’m a huge advocate of authors. When I find a debut author or any author who’s work I enjoy and they’ve engaged in meaningful conversation with me, I usually do what I can to help market them. I enjoy doing author interviews and giveaways because I enjoy sharing my love for their books. Basically, when I read a great book or “meet” a great author, you will hear about it. My friends have at one time or another received a book for their birthday. It is the nerdy part of me that I’m okay with. With that said, when Sharon asked me to be a part of her PR team that supports and helps authors get their books out into the world, I jumped in with both feet.

I’ve learned a lot from working with Sharon at BookSavvy PR over the past nine months and have enjoyed about 95% of it. (At least I’m learning rejection early. By the time I start receiving criticism and rejection letters, I’ll be a suit of armor!) Many of the clients we have had are people Sharon meets through Grub Street Writers or through her network of publishing industry folks located near Boston. As the snow was still falling almost on a daily basis around these parts, Sharon approached me about coming to Muse. I hadn’t even thought about it because I had no finished novel to peddle. I always planned on going to my first conference when my novel was done, using it as the proverbial dangling carrot. However, since I’m part of BookSavvy PR now, many of our clients would be in attendance as well as their publishers and agents. It was going to be a great time to meet all of them at one time and place. I considered it my 41′s birthday present to myself (40 is so blasé) and agreed to come.

I haven’t been to a writing conference before, with the last conference of any type I attended was when I worked for a large recruiting firm when my daughter was 2 or 3 (she is almost 14). I also hadn’t flown by myself since then. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go anywhere by myself (anytime, anywhere baby!) but logistically and financially, it just hadn’t been possible. My kids are all in school full-time so it made things much easier now.

I chose to take full advantage and flew in a day early and flew out a day after. I didn’t want to miss a thing and hate feeling rushed so it made sense to spend little extra money to keep what little sanity I have left. I booked my room at the hotel where the conference was held and was very glad I did. Now that I know the area, I may choose to stay somewhere else close by next year but it was convenient for my first trip. The only downside about having the conference in Boston and hosted by a Boston organization was that all the Bostonians went home at night. No one I knew was staying at the hotel or I guess I hadn’t learned who was staying yet.

I looked over the schedule of workshops and made some last minute adjustments of which ones I was going to attend Friday afternoon. Like an idiot, I didn’t spend a lot of time going over the presenters’ bios because it could have said Elvis was presenting and I would still be there. I was going for content and what I thought I would get the most writing mileage from.

As my  Thursday evening normally entailed soccer practice and ordering showers all around, instead,  I was snuggled in my queen bed with my arms and legs exuberantly reaching for each luxurious corner. After navigating my way to Boston successfully and locating my hotel with no major mishaps, I felt I was off to a good start. It was hard to go sleep knowing the next day I was going to meet people like Jael McHenry, Eve Bridburg, Dawn Tripp, Madeline Miller (Alright, that’s a lie. I didn’t realize I’d be meeting THE Madeline Miller who wrote The Song of Achilles-I hadn’t put 2 and 2 together yet; this proves I didn’t do some of my homework.), Therese Walsh, Vaughn Roycroft, and many others I had “seen” only  in my online world. And that also included Sharon! We had done Google Hangouts multiple times while working together on BookSavvy PR projects but we were finally going to be in the same time zone!

Giddy.

(Thank you Sharon!!)

To be continued…

The post My Muse 2013 Backstory appeared first on Hallie Sawyer.

Today I’m over at Great New Books giving my latest book recommendation, Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian. Hop over there to find out why I loved it.

Also, I’m currently reading The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood for my local book club and Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline for SheReads.org.

I’m also listening to the audio version of Lord John and the Private Matter by Diana Gabaldon. This is part of a three-book series and weaves in a character or two from her Outlander novels. It seemed sacrilegious for me not to have read all of her novels and decided to correct that. I don’t consider listening and reading experiences to be entirely the same thing but it helps me get through my to-read list. I listen while I work out or go for long walk/runs. Even if I don’t pay 100% attention like I do when reading, I hope to still learn something on a subliminal level.

Side note:

I will be sharing Muse and the Marketplace stories soon. I’ve been playing catch-up since I’ve been back but promise I’ll share the highlights very soon!

The post Read My Latest Book Recommendation and What I’m Reading Now appeared first on Hallie Sawyer.

I was lucky to be able to attend this year’s Muse and The Marketplace conference put on by Grub Street in Boston. Sharon Bially invited me to join her as part of our BookSavvy PR team and I was more than thrilled to come. We had many of our author clients in attendance and it was wonderful to meet them all, Douglas Trevor, Kim Triedman, Stuart Horwitz, Andrew Goldstein, as well as our newest, Tony Vanderwarker.

I will admit, what really had me excited was meeting some people I’ve known for a while from online writing communities such as Writer Unboxed and Beyond the Margins. I know some of you out there have had the privilege of this experience already and I now understand the level of inspiration so many of you have talked about after attending.

My world, and perhaps yours as well, exists like this. My friends who I see daily, weekly, or monthly know me for our shared life experiences such as high school, college, our children, as well as through our neighborhood. The writing communities I engage with doesn’t give me that but what they do have is the shared passion for reading, writing, as well as supporting other writers. Proximity bears no weight for me on which of these two groups is more important. What is important to me is whether or not people “get” me and if I “get” them.

What I’ve learned about the online friends I have is that it really doesn’t matter where we are in our processes either, whether just starting our novel research or on a book tour. If the rope of support we send out is genuine and real, there is usually someone out there willing to take hold, which in turn, buoys us both.

The last session I attended on Sunday was mostly an informative panel on how the  online community has impacted the writers who were sitting on the panel, and they gave their two cents on why it was worth it to get involved. In my opinion, this one should be at the beginning of the conference and not the end. I think it would have led to some wonderful discussion throughout the weekend. There weren’t a lot of people in attendance which made me sad because so many writers and authors needed to hear what they had to say.

My writing life would not be what it looks and feels like right now if I didn’t have the support of the people I’ve met online. I have written a blog post about this before so look at this one as my yearly thank you letter.

There are so many of you I have yet to meet but as you carry me each and every day, please know that I carry you as well.

Much love,

H

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