Yellow Springs Ohio/Antioch Writer's Workshop

So it's been a minute since the workshop. Met some wonderful people/writers. There was a presentation for the scholarship awards-- didn't know that was going to happen or I'd have dressed a bit differently-- ha!

But it was wonderful!

What happened (from a post I placed on a discussion board elsewhere):

I went to the Antioch Writer's Workshop and came home with two new characters with stories I want to follow.

I met the wonderful Crystal Wilkinson and someone I met at the conference bought me her two books and when I asked her to autograph them, she said that even though she'd never read me, she knew I'd won a scholarship to the workshop and wanted me to submit something to her print mag.

I signed up to pitch to an agent. I changed my mind and scratched my name off the list. Then I heard her talk and she was this wonderful funny lady so I signed up again.
Before my eight-minute pitch session, I was on the phone trying to get through to the unemployment benefits people 'cause I was laid off my job and it had been six weeks since I'd applied. There were 18 calls before me and I was told my wait time would be about 41 minutes which would put me two minutes into my pitch time. Hang up? Explain the situation to the agent? A minute before my session, I went to the assigned room and the work fellow guy told me that things were running late and I had to wait about 5 minutes which was wonderful 'cause then the unemployent people answered.

I went into the session and I never got to pitch the book, not really. We talked about the story that won the scholarship and my publications.

In her talk she'd said collections were hard to sell. I told her I was trying to pitch a short story collection.

She sighed, but not in total resignation. She said, "You're going to send me this collection and I'm going to love it."

"You are," I told her.

"Okay, this is what you do. . . "

She said (One)to send a query so I could get into her computer system. "I'll reply and ask for the collection."(That was #2)
"And then, three," she said, "is the Big Wait."

So I sent the query and two of the stories and she said that she liked what I sent and she'd be glad to read the whole thing.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just gotta get it done.