Time to report in on two recent writing events I attended.
NHWP 603 Writers’ Conference
I was thrilled to be one of five finalists in the “Pitch Party” competition at the 2023 603 Writers’ Conference sponsored by the New Hampshire Writers’ Project (NHWP) on June 3rd. My submission was for my work-in-progress, a novel entitled 101 Ways to Screw Up a Kid. That’s me at the podium fielding questions from the expert panel.
Here’s how NHWP reported on the event:
The signature 603 event, the “Pitch Party,” saw five nervous finalists competing for the best book pitch written to secure an agent or publisher. Professional actor, Colin Malette read each of the pitches out loud for the panel of judges to critique and ask the authors follow up questions. The five finalists were Dwen Chester, Sarah Hoffschwelle, Sandra Mucci, S.M. Stevens and Judith Howe.
The conference was excellent and I’ve been to over a hundred conferences in my career as an author and a PR/marketing professional. The pace was perfect and all the sessions informative, and that’s saying something! The conference was also a chance to spend time with author friends and to make new ones.
Fuller Public Library Author Meet & Greet
On June 17th, the Fuller Public Library in Hillsborough, New Hampshire, hosted its annual Author Meet & Greet, a chance for its patrons to mingle with local authors and perhaps purchase a book or two. I raffled off three free copies of my novel Horseshoes and Hand Grenades.
This event was also a chance to mingle with local authors and friends, including Susie Spikol (pictured with me in photo), who is knocking it out of the park with her Animal Adventurer’s Guide, and Karen Coulters, whose books include the newly released, contemporary romance Patchwork to Healing.
The star of the show though, if I’m being honest, was the library itself. Fuller Public Library is housed in the mansion of former New Hampshire Governor John B. Smith. It dates to the late 1800’s and features woodwork galore, pastoral tapestries, intricately carved railings, 12-foot-high painted ceilings, archways, chandeliers and stained glass. Read more here.
The Fuller Library sound (and looks from your photos) gorgeous! I’ll have to visit sometime. I just finished reading a book on Frederick Law Olmstead and Henry Richardson, landscape and building architects, who created some wonderful landscapes and buildings in nineteenth-century America. So, the Fuller Library piques my interest in that context.