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Networking for Writersby Waverly Fitzgerald If I told you this article was about networking would you read it? How about if I say it’s about creating community? I actually think the two are the same and necessary for succeeding as a writer. We think of writers as solitary creatures, often introverts, toiling away alone at their desks but I don’t know any successful writers who are not part of a writing community. When I was first exposed to the concept of “networking” (in a class I was taking at Centerpoint, the career development center, I thought “that’s not for me.” But when the teacher asked us to think about how we had found our previous jobs, I realized that 70% of them came from personal connections: referrals from a friend, a housemate, a colleague, even a dance partner. I owe my current position at Richard Hugo House to networking. It all began when a former colleague from Red and Black Books, Karen Allman (now a bookseller for Elliott Bay Books) suggested I submit a class to Hugo House and recommended me to the program director. That got me started teaching classes at Hugo House and I ended up applying for several other jobs there. When the job as Finance Manager opened up, I was recruited by Linda Bowers, the Interim Managing Director for Hugo House at that time. We had worked together at the Seattle Art Museum and she had also been the Director at Hedgebrook when I was a resident. And I would never have gone to Hedgebrook if it were not for another colleague at Red and Black, the poet, Kate Miller, who coached me through the application process after my first rejection. Red and Black was clearly a pivotal place for me in terms of my growth as a writer. I recommend working in a bookstore to any writer (though I suppose working for a publisher or at a writing center like Hugo House is equally ideal). A writing workshop is another wonderful way to find a writing community. I still meet weekly with my writing buddy who I met over ten years ago in Brenda Peterson’s writing group. And I have another friend from that writing group, Dana Standish, as a colleague at Richard Hugo House. Three of the women in my last Non-Fiction Book Proposal group formed a writing group after class and I am confident they will cheer each other on to publication, because I’ve seen this happen with other students. Elisabeth Squires who has a book forthcoming from Seal Press, attributes her success to her writing group, two women she met in a writing class. And Stephanie Kallos also credits her writing group for supporting her through the long process of writing her best-selling novel, Broken for You. You can do it alone but it often takes much longer. There are other places to find writing community, for instance, conferences, residencies and MFA programs. Particular genres of writers (mystery writers, romance writers, speculative fiction writers) have their own organizations and events and even magazines which can help you figure out if this is your niche. Networking is always about finding the people who are your tribe, the people with whom you click. I had this recognition in February when I attended the big Flower and Garden show at the Convention Center. I had been working on a proposal for a book about flowers so I thought the show would be a great place to gather information. But every time I sat down next to someone and struck up a conversation, it went nowhere. I just couldn’t find any common ground. I finally realized, in the middle of a particularly disappointing lecture, that these were not my people. I’m much more comfortable around teachers, writers, genealogists and tango dancers, to name a few groups where I feel at home. While working at Richard Hugo House, I’ve been admiring the networking technique of one of my co-workers, Registrar Brian McGuigan. When he moved to Seattle from New York, he checked out the various poetry scenes and found that none really met his needs. So he started his own magazine, Raining from the Ground Up, and his own poetry event, Cheap Wine and Poetry, which is now one of Hugo House’s most popular events. At every reading, people are spilling out of the cabaret space and he is showcasing increasingly better known local writers. What I most admire about Brian--besides the clever marketing (wine for $1 a glass is a great come-on)--is that he can now look around at the poets working in Seattle and instead of feeling competition (goddamn it, why are they getting media attention?), he has something to offer (hey, would you like to be featured at my very popular event?). The connections he’s making enhance his success as a poet. There’s a larger writing community that’s national and international and we sometimes forget we’re connected to that as well. Every rejection letter is a networking opportunity, especially if they are personal letters, especially if you write a gracious thank you, as Carolyn See suggests in her book on writing. (She was first published by someone who had repeatedly rejected her submissions but whose advice she sought on how to improve.) The Internet also makes it possible to expand our networks through online classes, list-serves and publication. I know that to succeed as a writer I have to write. So I set aside time for that (or trick myself into doing it through the various activities I described above). But I also set aside time for ancillary activities like submitting my writing and reading. Among these, I include networking. I try to find at least one networking opportunity a month, for instance, attending a reading or having lunch with another writer. Thanks to my work at Hugo House, such opportunities are usually right outside my office door. I used to read a beautiful quote from an interview with Sharon Olds in Poets and Writers magazine during the first session of my Artist’s Way class. I lost it and haven’t been able to find it again (not even with Google). She talks about the way we sometimes torture ourselves by thinking that we don’t belong. And the incredible pleasure of finally admitting that we are part of the community of writers. That is the gift of networking.
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More articles on writing by Waverly Fitzgerald: Getting the Most Out of Summer Writing Conferences Imitation: Conscious and Unconscious |
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