• An Open Book: TMSW’s Library
  • Copyright
  • Food for Thought Recipes
  • My Right Eye: A Medical Memoir by Marci Rich
  • Praise and Awards
    • Writing Badges
  • The Midlife Second Wives’ Hall of Fame
  • Who is The Midlife Second Wife?
    • Contact
    • FAQ
  • Read Me On The Huffington Post

The Midlife Second Wife ™

~ The Real and True Adventures of Remarriage at Life's Midpoint

The Midlife Second Wife ™

Tag Archives: International Freelancers Academy

To Writers!

23 Friday Sep 2011

Posted by themidlifesecondwife in The Writing Life

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Anthony Hopkins, blogging, C.S. Lewis, freelancers, International Freelancers Academy, International Freelancers Day, James River Writers, Library of Virginia, LinkedIn, literary agents, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Writer Resources, writers conferences, writing, writing communities

Did you know today is International Freelancers Day?

To mark the occasion, I am going to have lunch with some Richmond writers at Can Can Brasserie, one of my favorite haunts here in the real world. In the virtual world I will be attending a few webinar sessions offered by the International Freelancers Academy. The name sounds rather posh and Oxbridge, doesn’t it?

Up until this week, I did not know such an organization existed. That’s the thing about blogging. One day you’re poking around on the web, looking for kindred spirits online; the next thing you know, you’re a member of an Academy. Well, at least on LinkedIn.

A sense of community is important for writers. There’s a touching moment in the film Shadowlands, when a young student tells C.S. Lewis (played by Anthony Hopkins) that “we read to know we’re not alone.”

I agree. To which I would add: we write to know we’re not alone. And when we’re done writing for the day we often seek other members of our tribe. Sometimes, if we’re lucky (and I am), we’re married to one.

In the essay I wrote for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the one that got this blog rolling, I mentioned some of the places and organizations that I discovered early in my tenure as a Richmonder. One organization particularly close to my heart is James River Writers.

I had been here less than a month and was still getting lost—even when using the GPS. After a few wrong turns in a city where, it seems, every other turn is illegal because every other street is one-way, I found myself at JRW’s office in Richmond’s historic Manchester district. The office is actually a room in the ArtWorks gallery on Hull Street. This is where I first met Anne Bryan Westrick, JRW’s administrative director. If such a thing as friendship at first sight exists, this was it. Warm and open-hearted, she welcomed me into her office even though she was in the midst of work. She made me feel at home, and an immediate part of the JRW community—as though they had been saving a place for me.

James River Writers was my lifeline during that first year in Richmond. It helped ground me, and gave me back the sense of writerly self I thought I’d left behind in Oberlin, where all of my writer friends and former professors were. In this strange land, I no longer felt like a stranger.

At the JRW writers’ conference last October, held at the massively impressive Library of Virginia, which I have yet to explore, I served as a volunteer, escorting understandably nervous writers to their five-minute pitch sessions with a New York literary agent. A slight divagation: The five-minute pitch, which includes the time it will take for the agent to respond, is akin to speed dating, something I have, thankfully, never tried. Regular readers of this blog know about my familiarity with online dating, and how that turned out for me. Think of my husband John as a successful book deal, and you begin to get the idea of what’s at stake for these writers at the conference. They are bringing their carefully crafted “elevator speech” about their novel or non-fiction book to the attention of someone who is not only genuinely interested in what they have to say, but also has the power to change their lives.

But back to James River Writers. Besides sessions with literary agents, their annual conference also features discussions with authors, screenwriters, playwrights, poets, and editors—even lawyers and accountants, who spoke about the business of being a writer. After completing my duties as an escort, I was allowed to sit in on some of these sessions. I learned a lot, met some wonderful people, and made some valuable contacts.

Throughout the past year, I attended many of JRW’s dynamic monthly “writing shows,” where panels of authors talk about specific topics related to the art, craft, and business of writing. I was away from Oberlin, but I had found a new place in which to learn, and it was exhilarating. I had found my people. New people, but mine. I was not alone.

I’ll be sorry to miss the JRW conference this year; John and I will be in San Diego. He has a conference of his own to attend, and I’ll be meeting with a client about a book project. But there’s a symmetry to that—I’ll be putting to use some of what I’ve learned this past year.

So on this Day of International Freelancers, one year after joining James River Writers and one month after launching this blog, I raise a glass to all of the freelancers, fiction writers, non-fiction writers, journalists, bloggers, poets, playwrights, screenwriters, librettists, and editors out there—in the blogosphere and on the Earth’s sphere. To the ones I know, and the ones I’ll never know. To the ones I might one day meet, and the ones I might one day read.

You are not alone.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

Twitter Updates

  • Hi there! I changed names; please follow me @marcirichwriter instead. 5 years ago
Follow @midlife2wife

Company

  • 166,925 Guests since 8/24/11

Receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 2,938 other subscribers

Topics

  • Current Events
  • Food for Thought
  • Giveaways
  • House and Garden
  • Humor Me
  • Indulgences
  • Inspiring Women
  • LifeStyles
  • Love
  • Midpoints
  • Monday Morning Q & A
  • Money Matters
  • Nostalgia
  • Portraits of the Artist
  • Product Reviews
  • Relationships and Family Life
  • Remarriage
  • Second Weddings
  • Second Wife Hall of Fame
  • Secrets to a Happy Relationship
  • Special Events
  • Technology
  • The Beautiful Life
  • The Cultured Life
  • The Healthy Life
  • The Life Poetic
  • The Musical Life
  • The Reading Life
  • The Well-Dressed Life
  • The Writing Life
  • Transitions
  • Travel
  • Well-Dressed
  • What's the Buzz?

RSS Feeds

  • RSS - Posts
  • RSS - Comments

Archives

  • July 2019 (1)
  • December 2014 (1)
  • November 2014 (1)
  • October 2014 (2)
  • August 2014 (1)
  • June 2014 (2)
  • May 2014 (2)
  • April 2014 (3)
  • March 2014 (3)
  • February 2014 (3)
  • January 2014 (4)
  • December 2013 (9)
  • November 2013 (2)
  • October 2013 (3)
  • September 2013 (6)
  • August 2013 (5)
  • July 2013 (6)
  • June 2013 (2)
  • May 2013 (3)
  • April 2013 (1)
  • March 2013 (1)
  • January 2013 (3)
  • December 2012 (7)
  • November 2012 (7)
  • October 2012 (12)
  • September 2012 (9)
  • August 2012 (6)
  • July 2012 (4)
  • June 2012 (5)
  • May 2012 (4)
  • April 2012 (1)
  • March 2012 (10)
  • February 2012 (8)
  • January 2012 (9)
  • December 2011 (10)
  • November 2011 (30)
  • October 2011 (18)
  • September 2011 (12)
  • August 2011 (2)

Networks

NetworkedBlogs
Blog:
The Midlife Second Wife ™
Topics:
Relationships, Life, After 50
 
Follow my blog

bloglovin

The Blogs of Others

  • A Baby Boomer Woman's Life After 50
  • A.B. Westrick
  • Alexandra Wrote
  • An Empowered Spirit
  • Apart from my Art
  • Author Meg Medina
  • Better After 50
  • Books is Wonderful
  • Dame Nation
  • Darryle Pollack: I Never Signed Up For This
  • Dating Dementia
  • Diana Patient: Photography
  • Empty House, Full Mind
  • GenerationBSquared
  • Grandma's Briefs
  • Grown and Flown
  • Midlife at the Oasis
  • Midlife Bloggers
  • Midlife Boulevard
  • Midlife Mixtape
  • Reason Creek
  • Relocation: The Blog
  • Romancing Reality
  • Second Lives Club
  • The Boomer Rants
  • The Succulent Wife
  • Think Denk
  • WHOA Network
  • WordCount

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • The Midlife Second Wife ™
    • Join 448 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • The Midlife Second Wife ™
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: