Introduction | Speakers | Faculty | Book Sales | Registration | Directions | Critique Guidelines | Gallery
Finding the right editor for your manuscript can feel a little like looking for a needle in a haystack, but it may help your odds if you look in a smaller haystack. Though small publishing houses don't bring out as many books in a year as the big ones, they often boast more stable staffs and more distinctive lists.
At SpringMingle'05, you will hear from representatives of six of the country's leading small presses - Cricket Books, Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, Front Street, Llewellyn Publications, Milkweed Editions, and Peachtree Publishers.
Taken together, they boast books that run the gamut from cutting-edge, socially relevant middle grade and young adult novels to lusciously illustrated picture books. They publish fiction, non-fiction, fantasy, and poetry.
Five editors and one art director will lead sessions on: making your manuscript rise above the ordinary; eliminating dull pockets of prose; defining socially relevant stories; handling difficult topics in age-appropriate ways; and telling stories through pictures.
The Speakers: Emerson Blake, editor-in-chief at Milkweed; Loraine Joyner, art director at Peachtree; Paula Morrow, editor at Cricket Books; Joy Neaves, editor at Front Street; Valerie Valentine, fiction editor at Llewellyn; and Judy Zylstra, editor-in-chief at Eerdmans - will also tell you what they want to see in the manuscripts that come across their desks.
Just like last year's SpringMingle in Atlanta, this conference promises to fill up fast. Send in your registration early.
At SpringMingle'05, we will launch a new Southern Breeze tradition. At the conference, in materials and displays, we want to surround ourselves with wisdom on writing. Think about the quotes you have taped to your office walls or your computer monitor.
With your registration form, please send us your favorite quote on writing. Please type the quote, properly attributed, on a separate sheet of paper. Here's one to get you thinking. It is from Madeleine L'Engle's book, Herself, which is about the writing life. The quote is from an interview that Jean Rhys gave the Paris Review: "Listen to me. All of writing is a huge lake. There are great rivers that feed the lake, like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. And there are mere trickles, like Jean Rhys. All that matters is feeding the lake. I don't matter. The lake matters. You must keep feeding the lake."