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Hone Your Craft - Leave Inspired
Build Your Writer's Network
Open Mike Night
Conference: Keynote Speaker Chris Bohjalian

Welcome!

The League of Vermont Writers (often referred to simply as LVW) is open to all who make writing a part of their lives. We offer encouragement, motivation, and networking opportunities to writers with a broad range of writing experience.

You do not need to be published to join. Visit our Membership Page for more information about benefits and fees.

Founded in 1929, LVW's mission is to:

  • Help writers develop their skills
  • Promote responsible and ethical writing and writing practices
  • Increase communication between professional writers and publishers
  • Promote an enduring appreciation for the power of the word

Thanks to our organizers, board members, and three great speakers for making the League's Annual Meeting and Winter Program at the Double Tree Hotel in South Burlington such a fine day for all who attended. During the Annual  Meeting portion of the agenda, we heard committee reports, amended the League's by-laws, and elected new volunteers to the Board of Directors. We're looking forward to an exciting year in 2012 filled with more great programs.

FOR APRIL'S SPRING PROGRAM, SAVE THE DATE: Saturday, April 28.

FOR JULY'S SUMMER PROGRAM: WRITERS MEET AGENTS EVENT: Saturday, July 28.

 

 

LVW Events - League of Vermont Writers

[We're pleased to announce that this class filled. Thanks so much to Jim and to all who signed up for making it a great event!]

With JIM DEFILIPPI, author and founder of Brown Fedora Books [www.brownfedorabooks.com]

Jim says, "E-publishing is the best thing to happen to publishing in centuries." He's coming to Middlebury in November to talk about his own online publishing venture that now features his books and works by an award winning group of authors from around Vermont and beyond. And he'll teach participants how to e-publish their own books.

In Middlebury at the Ilsley Library; Saturday, November 5, from 1 pm -- 3 pm.

Participants heard:

1 A brief summary of Jim's experience publishing his own and others' books on Brown Fedora Books

2 How to prepare your book for e-publishing

3 How to get your book onto the main e-book Web sites (Amazon's Kindle Store, Barnes & Noble's PubIt, Smashwords, etc.)

4 How to get your book reviewed

5 How to publicize your book (for free!)

About Jim and Brown Fedora books and writers:

Jim DeFilippi was born and raised in Duck Alley, just over the New York City line, and has been walking just over the line ever since.

Jim has lived and written on a dirt road in Colchester, Vermont, since 1974. His abnormal crime novels have been called “suspenseful and often hilarious” (Newsday) and full of “unconventional characters, bizarre plotting, and off-the-wall language, with a jaunty tone and unexpected twits” (The Library Journal).

In 2008, Jim saw the future of book publishing and started Brown Fedora Books, an E-publishing company. Brown Fedora’s authors have received wide recognition including a long list of awards and prizes like the Premier Book Award for General Fiction awarded to work from small publishers, an Associated Press Award, various Book of the Month Club selections, and many more.

Jim’s latest novel is BUF.

LVW Events - League of Vermont Writers

It was a full day of conversation, teaching, sharing, creating relationships and learning, learning, learning about the world of publishing that we writers need to understand if we're to succeed as part of it!
KATHARINE SANDS and PAUL S. LEVINE were incredibly generous and approachable, covering topics from queries to contract negotiations and everything in between. A gathering of more than 50 Vermont writers asked probing questions, braved the "hot seat" and gave sample pitches for critique, and contributed their enthusiasm and energy to the day's events.
Thank you to everyone who took part in this day, and double thanks to our two presenters, Katharine and Paul.
With all best regards,
The League of Vermont Writers
The Program:

NYC Agent Katharine Sands: The Sarah Jane Freymann Agency
A literary agent with the Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency, Katharine Sands has worked with a varied list of authors who publish a diverse array of books.
Highlights include Dating the Devil (producer: Vast Entertainment) by Lia Romeo; XTC: SongStories; Chasing Zebras: The Unofficial Guide to House, MD; Make Up, Don't Break Up with Oprah guest Dr. Bonnie Eaker Weil; playwright Robert Patrick's novel, Temple Slave; The New Rules of Attraction by Arden Leigh; The Complete Book on International Adoption: A Step-by-Step Guide to Finding Your Child; Hands Off My Belly: The Pregnant Woman's Survival Guide to Myths, Mothers, and Moods.
Under the Hula Moon; The Gay Vacation Guide; CityTripping: a Guide for Foodies, Fashionistas and the Generally Style-Obsessed; Writers on Directors; Ford model Helen Lee's The Tao of Beauty; Elvis and You: Your Guide to the Pleasures of Being an Elvis Fan; New York: Songs of the City; Talk to Strangers: How Random Everyday Encounters Can Supercharge Your Business, Your Career, Your Income and Your Life.
Taxpertise: Dirty Little Secrets the IRS Doesn't Want You to Know; The SAT Word Slam; Divorce After 50; The Complete Book of Bone Health; The Safe and Sane Guide to Teenage Plastic Surgery, to name a few.
She is the agent provocateur of Making the Perfect Pitch: How to Catch a Literary Agent's Eye, a collection of pitching wisdom from leading literary agents.
Actively building her client list, she likes books that have a clear benefit for readers' lives in categories of food, travel, lifestyle, home arts, beauty, wisdom, relationships, parenting, and fresh looks, which might be at issues, life challenges or popular culture. When reading fiction she wants to be compelled and propelled by urgent storytelling and hooked by characters. For memoir and femoir, she likes to be transported to a world rarely or newly observed.

"Katharine Sands is a dynamic speaker. A day with her is a writing event you don’t want to miss!"

LA Attorney and Literary Agent Paul S. Levine: The Paul S. Levine Agency
Paul S. Levine ”wears two hats”–he is a lawyer (www.paulslevine.com) and a literary agent (www.paulslevinelit.com).
Mr. Levine has practiced entertainment law for over 30 years, specializing in the representation of writers, producers, actors, directors, composers, musicians, artists, authors, photographers, galleries, publishers, developers, production companies and theatre companies in the fields of motion pictures, television, interactive multimedia, live stage, recorded music, concerts, the visual arts, publishing, and advertising.
In 1998, Mr. Levine opened the Paul S. Levine Literary Agency, specializing in the representation of book authors and the sale of motion picture and television rights in and to books. Since starting his literary agency, Mr. Levine has sold over 100 fiction and non-fiction books to at least 40 different publishers and has had many books developed as movies-for-television and feature films.

"Paul is a writer’s resource of epic stature, and a terrific speaker and presenter."

 

Publishing A - Z: The Fiction and Non-fiction writers' Guide

Writers gathered at Town & Country Resort in Stowe to spend a full day with literary agents Katharine Sands and Paul S. Levine, Esq., learning about query letters, book proposals, the writer-agent relationship, understanding contracts and protecting intellectual property, working with editors, navigating the publishing process, and so much more!

Our people took advantage of ample opportunities to talk and share their writing challenges and experiences, gaining insight into the creative process and business practices of writing and publishing as it evolves in the Internet age.

Participants' book ideas and works-in-progress were discussed and critiqued during the course of the day, so thank you to the brave writers who stepped up and shared!  We all learned from this real-world conversation.

The Day's Schedule:

Arrival, Meet & Greet
8:30 am – 9:15 am

Greetings and Announcements
9:15 am – 9:30 am

Plenary Session: Introductions to Katharine Sands and Paul S. Levine, Esq.
9:30 am – 10:00 am

Breakout Sessions

Katharine Sands: Getting Ready, Getting Read, and Getting Readers
Paul S. Levine, Esq.: Rights and Overview of Copyright Law

10:00 am – 11:00 am
11:15 am – 12:15 pm

Plenary Session: Morning Wrap
12:15 – 12:30


LUNCH
12:30 – 1:30 pm


Plenary Session: Submissions
Katharine Sands
1:30 – 2:30 pm

Plenary Session: Acquisitions
& Project Discussions
Sands and Levine

2:40 – 4:00 pm

Plenary Session:
Publishing Agreements and Beyond
Paul S Levine

4:15 pm – 4:45 pm

End of the Day Wrap
4:45 pm – 5:00 pm

Registration includes Continental Breakfast of fruit, yogurt, danish, beverage; Lunch; and Full Day of Programming.

League of Vermont Writers Members: $80

Non-Members: $90

For more information and the League and our annual programs, see our current newsletter, League Lines, here.

LVW Events - League of Vermont Writers

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THE VERMONT TRADITION grapples energetically with the basic problem of human conduct...how to reconcile the needs of the group, of which every man or woman is a member,..with the craving for individual freedom to be what he really is.

—Dorothy Canfield Fisher, 1953