I suck! I know! I’m sorry! I keep trying to keep this blog alive and then I keep disappearing. In my defense, it has been a really weird and difficult few months. I quit my job, I went on a big trip, and I’ve been sick with covid for the last TWO WEEKS (which is so frustrating! I’ve been miserable and zombie-fied for two weeks and it just keeps lingering and lingering!)

But let me backtrack to the beginning: In the first week of July, I officially left my position as office manager and book curator for the book sub box company I’ve been working for the last four years. I spent all of June working like an absolute MADWOMAN to prepare everything for the transition. I worked ridiculous hours, under quite a lot of stress, and all by myself. (I will add it was a perfectly amicable split. The owner and I were, and remain, good friends. It was just time for me to move on to other things).

I then spent most of July on a little vacation, enjoying the rare privilege of being voluntarily jobless. My plan was to give myself the month to relax and recharge, with the understanding that I would need to start looking for new work in earnest in August. I’d already been applying to some jobs (I’ve been trying to get my foot in the publishing/editing door) to little avail, but if that proved unsuccessful I was content to go find some wage work in retail somewhere just to pay the bills. In the meantime, I wrote some, I read a lot, I slept a good amount (I’d more than earned it). And I prepared for August.

Because August was going to be a big deal. You see, I’d been accepted to the Futurescapes Writers’ Workshop taking place Aug 8-12th, in Snowbird, Utah.

In an effort to take my writing more seriously, I applied to several workshops and writer’s residencies in the first half of the year. Futurescapes was the smallest/most affordable of the bunch, which made it a really good starting place for me. Some workshops (like the very famous Clarion and Clarion West workshops) are multiple weeks long and cost several thousand dollars. Futurescapes (like Clarion) is a workshop exclusively for science fiction, fantasy, and horror, BUT it’s a condensed high-intensity four-day event, and costs $1600 (which included the workshop itself as well as room & board).

Futurescapes had been running on a purely virtual model the last couple years because of the pandemic, and this was the first in-person workshop they had done since 2019. I thought it would be a good first outing for me, as I had no previous experience in any kind of writing workshop outside of a couple classes in my undergrad several lifetimes ago. And unlike most other workshops, the Futurescapes mentors are mostly publishing professionals such as agents and editors rather than authors (which offers some really great insider insight to getting the first publication).

This year’s workshop took place at a ski resort (off-season right now, of course) called Snowbird, up in the mountains about 45 minutes outside of Salt Lake City. The scenery was beautiful. The weather was shockingly gorgeous. When I left Houston it was 101 degrees. Up in the mountains it was about 69 degrees. I could barely contain my absolute glee over the cool temperatures. However, the altitude change was pretty brutal the first day. Houston is about 70 ft above sea level (in some spots its actually below sea level). Meanwhile, Snowbird was approximately 8100 ft above sea level! With the altitude difference, and the air being thinner and much drier than I’m used to, I was pretty ill the first day — headaches and dizziness and all that. And even after I acclimated, I still had to drink water NON. STOP. I jokingly told my mother I’d discovered I was so used to Houston humidity that I was, in fact, a fish. I had a huge 32 oz water bottle with me, and I emptied and refilled the thing around 6 times per day! Still, it was absolutely glorious up in the mountains, and a very large part of me did not want to leave!

The basic setup was this: accepted applicants are placed into groups of 6-7 and assigned a “primary mentor” (mostly in accordance with our previously-stated preferences of first choice). Most of our feedback comes from that primary mentor. However, on each day of the workshop, the groups also rotate to working with the other mentors, so that we all have an opportunity to receive feedback from and network with the other professionals in attendance. One day is spent critiquing a manuscript excerpt for each member of the group (not the whole manuscript, but a sizable opening chunk). The next day focuses on the draft of a query letter we would send out to prospective agents. And the third day focuses on the synopsis of the full novel (easily the most evil genre of writing in the business). And then there is always time for Q&A sessions, social activities, and general mingling/networking.

My primary mentor was Dongwon Song (they/them), an agent with Morhaim Literary and by far my top choice. I’ve been following Dongwon on Twitter since 2011. And I have told multiple people over multiple years that they would be dream agent if/when I ever got published. Dongwon was just as amazing in person as they are online and it was such a delight to be able to meet them and work with them and chat with them over multiple days. In addition, the other writers in my group were all amazing. I loved having the opportunity to read their manuscript excerpts, and get their feedback on my writing (I was probably the weakest one in the bunch if I’m being honest), and just talk with them all. One of the writers in my group actually had the amazing good fortune of landing an agent just before the workshop started! I was very impressed and happy for them, and of course, a tiny bit jealous.

One of the highlights, however, was actually being “adopted” by one of the other groups. Lol! For context, the workshop started with an open hour for breakfast in the morning, with coffee and muffins and such provided. You were not required to attend,so people came and went as they wished before things officially started each morning. Most of my group, just by coincidence, tended not to show up til right before we were starting our sessions, whereas I was usually one of the first down for breakfast (I’m just neurotic that way). So I would grab a table and a couple other early birds would join me, and before long the table would be filled with mostly people from one of the other groups. So we chatted a lot in between official events. And just as a matter of course, I ended up hanging out with the people in this other group rather a lot during meals and break periods and such. So much so that on our free unscheduled morning we all decided to take a tram the resort provided up to the top of the mountain where the skiiing starts in winter. And then, the group invited me out to dinner with them on the last evening, and announced they were “officially adopting” me. It was ridiculously touching. I really adore all of them. And were are all keeping in touch via email and discord (which is true of my actual critique group as well, of course).

The actual critique sessions themselves were hugely helpful. I learned so much about both craft issues and the business-side of the publishing world. I got a bunch of really useful feedback and suggestions on my manuscript. This feedback did, unfortunately, result in me feeling like I probably need to explode my entire manuscript, dismantle it, and try to put it back together again (better this time). And it was valuable feedback to receive particularly because I write mostly in a vacuum — I don’t have a writers group to routinely talk to or share work with, and I had gotten to a point where i just could not tell what was, and was not, working. So it was information I needed. Did I hope I was a little better off than I apparently am? Sure. But that’s the nature of the beast.

It was an absolutely wonderful experience. I learned a ton. I had a lot of great conversations with interesting people. And I had the opportunity to spend time in an environment I would never otherwise have had access to. If you are a genre writer looking to learn more about the publishing business and your own craft, I highly recommend checking out Futurescapes.