Anita Mumm Archives - Jessica Ferguson

Our BWG conference is over. I enjoyed it this year because I wasn’t on the conference committee. I didn’t work the door, the book room or anything. I was able to truly listen and not worry about anyone having a good time. There’s joy in being a spectator.

Here’s a little summary from the notes I took. Let me warn you—I’m not a good note-taker. I tend to collect quotes, phrases with a nice rhythm to them, sayings that will look great on bumper stickers. BTW, the pictures were taken by my friend Sylvia.

D.B. Grady told us, “To write is a sacrifice.” Can’t you visualize that on a bumper sticker? I’m sure David isn’t the first to say it—and we all know it, have lived it, but I wrote it down anyway. David’s advice and encouragement was laced with sardonic humor. He’s come a long way since his Red Planet Noir, a combination crime fiction and science fiction novel, was publishing in 2009 by Brown Street Press. His nonfiction book will be out late next year.

Agent Anita Mumm–actually a literary assistant–was a delight; very approachable, friendly, encouraging, but at the same time, professional. Anyone looking for an excellent speaker about queries and proposals, I encourage you to consider her. She’s the gatekeeper at Nelson Literary Agency. Bad queries and manuscripts do not get passed her. Anita said her agency receives 100 queries a day (minus holidays), 35,000 queries a year. Only 952 sample page sets went to the next round. 85 full manuscripts were requested and six new clients were signed – these are 2010 numbers. Do you see how important it is to hone our query writing skills? Anita told us we have to sell our book in two or three paragraphs within our one-page query letter. Yes, it can be done. “Even War and Peace has a blurb,” she said. She suggested we read the blurbs from the back of books—not new advice, but are we doing it? I am!

Mark Harris has been writing about pop culture for 26 years—since 1985. He said, “No one wants to read a writer that says the same thing all the time. (This hit home to me; sometimes I feel like a record hung on the same spot, playing the same thing over and over and over again.) Mark said we should look for subjects that have the potential to surprise us. He was talking about NF writing but I think we can apply his suggestions to our fiction too. He really spoke to me when he said, “Your writing should be an extension of your passion for the world.” And “Don’t be afraid to risk being wrong.”

The best way to enjoy a conference: Don’t work it. Let everyone else do the worrying. Sit down, listen, be a sponge then go home and write.

What’s the best advice you’ve heard at a conference? Share!

Tomorrow is our Bayou Writers’ Group annual conference. We have an interesting line-up this year. Check it out. You can get more info from our website: http://bayouwritersgroup.com .

D.B. Grady is a Correspondent for The Atlantic co-authoring Secrets: What You Need to Know About What You’re Not Supposed to Know with Marc Ambinder of National Journal (John Wiley & Sons, 2012). His debut novel, Red Planet Noir, won the 2010 Indie Book Award for Science Fiction.

Mark Harris is a contributing editor at New York Magazine and a columnist for Entertainment Weekly. His first book, Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood, won the 2009 Theater Library Association Award and a CODES Notable Books Award and was named a New York Times Notable Book and the year’s best nonfiction book by Booklist Magazine.

Anita Mumm, of Nelson Literary Agency (www.nelsonagency.com), is the first reader for all query letters and sample pages that come in through the slush pile. She takes pitches from writers at conferences across the country. Mumm has picked a number of exciting new authors for the company, including Jennifer Shaw Wolf, whose edgy young adult, Tigerseye, will be out in early 2012.

BWG Writing Conference 2011

A Bridge to Publication – Bayou Writers’ Group – Lake Charles, LA