Friday, June 17, 2005

between things

Whew! How can summer be such a whirlwind? Almost busier than the school year… almost.

Anyway, last week was the Write-to-Publish conference in Chicago. It was a packed four days!

We went to a “continuing class” that met every morning, and then we got to pick from a variety of electives—usually two each day. I went to the Writing Fiction continuing class, and all kinds of electives…

Some of my favorites? (Look out, this will sound nerdy…) Negotiating a Book Contract—which was exciting because, with any luck, this will be what I do for a living! Also the Writing a Novel Proposal class, which was taught by a Fiction Acquisitions Editor from one of the major publishing houses that attended. Again, I liked hearing about this, because the speaker was doing exactly what I’d like to do after college.

I actually got to speak with her after the class was over, and it turns out: she graduated from Calvin! So that was exciting. And she was very nice—I told her what I was majoring in, and what my plans were, and she was very encouraging. That was a definite high point.

I also got to meet the lady that hired me a year ago to work for her publishing house. She had met my mom, and my mom recommended me (as moms will :cheese: ) for a proofreading position that had just opened at the house. I was hired, and I did a lot of work for them last summer and this past spring (as an internship). Anyway, we finally got to meet! We were both excited to be able to match faces and personalities with the countless emails we’ve swapped over the last year.

Anyway… I learned a lot, both as a writer and as a future editor (and current editor… whatever). I met some neat people who really encouraged me. And I got even more excited about the rest of the summer writing…

Oh, and here’s a picture of Mom and me at the banquet—kind of like the graduation ceremony after the classes…

So, it was great!

The next big project? Helping get my younger sister ready to head for Europe! She’ll be there for over three weeks (I’m insanely jealous) touring Germany and Eastern Europe with her choir. We leave on Sunday to drive her up to Chicago… And there’s a lot to do before then!—jl

Posted by Jenn Langefeld on 06/17 at 10:34 AM
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