Not registered yet? There's still time ...

Remember that you can still register for BWC by mail through this coming Friday. If that doesn't work for you, we'll also take walk-up registrations Saturday morning when the conference starts at the University Union at Towson University.

Registration buys you a day filled with authors, editors and agents (featuring our keynote speaker, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie), along with a hot lunch and post-conference wine-and-cheese reception. Registration the day of the conference opens up at 8:30 a.m. See you there!

Hope. Change. Reality.

BWC 2010 panelist Wil S. Hylton just published his latest article in GQ magazine, for which he is a contributing editor. Hylton's profile of Eric Holder, the U.S. attorney general, raises the question of how difficult it is to be an idealist in Washington, D.C.

For BWC 2010, Hylton might discuss how difficult it is to be an idealist as a freelance writer.

Corked!

Laura van den Berg, who will give the BWC 2010 fiction craft talk, recently returned from Cork, Ireland, where she participated in the Frank O'Connor Short Story Festival. Laura's book, What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us, was a finalist for the Frank O'Connor Award in the short story. Her book was also selected for Barnes & Noble's Discover Great New Writers program.

You can read about her Cork adventures on her blog and visit with her at BWC 2010.

Beat the deadline! Save money!

Take advantage of BWC's lower rates for early registration by registering today! The early-registration deadline of FRIDAY, NOV. 5 is rushing toward us. Pay $75 now ($35 for students). After Nov. 5, the rates go up to $95 and $50.

Your registration fee gets you a full day of writers -- including keynote speaker Chimamanda Adichie -- editors and people who work in publishing, quick critiques of your work, a hot lunch, and a post-conference wine & cheese reception.

Print out your registration form and send it in today!

(Or pay us more later. We're good with that, too.)

Poe House in Tin House

Rob Spillman, editor of Tin House magazine and our guest this year at the Baltimore Writers' Conference, published a bit of Baltimore in the magazine's most recent edition. You can read an online excerpt from "On the Outskirts," an essay by A.N. Devers about her visit to the Edgar Allen Poe house in Charm City, or you can buy the magazine and read the whole thing.

Tin House started in 1999 and quickly became one of the country's top literary magazines and publishing houses. If you'd like to meet Rob Spillman, make sure you register for the conference. See our main page for details.

"Dark Horse"

The conversation keeps spreading following publication of Lisa Couturier's article "Dark Horse" in the July issue of Orion magazine. Her article, bringing to light the practice of horse-slaughter, has generated more than 50 online comments with the most recent coming this week. Couturier will participate in the BWC panel "Words for the Natural World."

In her article, Couturier reports from an auction where horses are sometimes sold for slaughter. She quotes a trustee with the New York Racing Association: " 'There are two things that flourish in the dark—mushrooms and horse slaughter. Most people don’t know it’s going on. We must deny them the darkness.”

Rated "R" and ready for BWC 2010

When we invited novelists Jessica Anya Blau (pictured, right) and James Magruder to BWC 2010 to dish about writing sex scenes, we imagined a raucous fun time. But we thought they'd wait until we put the kids to bed and closed the door.

Turns out, Jessica and Jim can't keep their words off each other. If you're over the age of 18 and want a peek at what's coming to BWC 2010, check out Jessica's "sex interview" with Jim at the website The Nervous Breakdown.

SAVE THE DATE!

BWC 2010 is scheduled for Nov. 19 - 20 this year, with panels and quick critiques on Saturday and a reading by special guest Chimamanda Adichie on Friday night at 8 p.m.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a writer of international acclaim, the author of three books: the novels Purple Hibiscus and Half of Yellow Sun, and the short story collection The Thing Around Your Neck. Having earned a graduate degree in creative writing from Johns Hopkins, she has since won the prestigious Orange Prize, given annually for the best novel written by a women in English. She has also received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship.

Adichie's reading is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the Baltimore Writers' Conference, the Towson Literary Reading Series, the Department of English at Towson University through the Clarisse Mechanic Fund, the Dean's Office in the Towson University College of Liberal Arts, and Johns Hopkins Master of Arts in Writing Program.

The Baltimore Writers' Conference is sponsored by City Lit, Johns Hopkins Master of Arts in Writing program, and Towson University.

We hope to see you at BWC 2010!

The craft of poems and prose

Our featured poet and fiction writer have announced the subjects for their BWC 2009 craft lectures.

Elise Levine will speak about "Narrative Thrust, Lyric Suspense."

Levine is author of the novel Requests and Dedications and the short story collection Driving Men Mad. Writes Levine: "In this lecture we’ll first consider the fundamentals of story

structure and pacing in fiction writing. And then you’ll learn how —
by deploying a variety of techniques including a heightened use of
language to temporarily suspend the forward movement of your story —
you can enhance the dynamic tension in your fiction."

Poet Jane Satterfield will talk about "Epistles and Other Conversations: The Poem as Letter". Her poetry volumes include Assignations at Vanishing Point and Shepardess with an Automatic.

Not registered yet? Walk up ...

BWC 2009 is on pace to be one of our most popular yet with pre-registration numbers outpacing last year's. If you haven't registered yet but would still like to attend, we'll accept walk-up registrations starting at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday. Registration is $95 for the general public and $50 for students with student identification. Those amounts include breakfast snacks, a buffet lunch, and a post-conference wine-and-cheese reception, in addition to access to writers, editors and publishing professionals. Join us!

Early registration deadline looming!

Take advantage of BWC's lower rates for early registration by registering today! The deadline of Monday, Nov. 2 is rushing toward us. Your registration fee gets you a full day of writers -- including keynote speaker Mark Bowden -- editors and people who work in publishing, quick critiques of your work, and a hot lunch. Love those creamy enchiladas!

Visit our main page for more information.

Exhibit tables available for BWC 2009

At BWC 2009, exhibitors—freelance editors, designers, journals, small presses, and literary organizations—are able to reach their primary audience...writers! For $35 you get a table in the exhibition area and lunch for one person. Additional lunches are only $15. Submit your reservation by Nov. 1 by downloading the reservation form or by calling 410.704.5196 or sending an email to PRWR@towson.edu.

"Cutting-edge" sensation to lead fiction session

BWC 2009 will feature a craft lecture in fiction writing from novelist and short story writer Elise Levine. Originally from Toronto, Levine was named by Margaret Atwood as one of Canada’s most important emerging women writers. Reviewers have called her “a cutting-edge literary sensation” and “a sensitive, cagey dominatrix of literary form and human psychology." Her books include the story collection Driving Men Mad and the novel Requests and Dedications.

Panel on YA novels to include FUNNY LITTLE MONKEY author

Andrew Auseon, a video game designer and the author of young adult novels, will join the Baltimore Writers Conference for its panel on writing for young adults. Auseon's books include Funny Little Monkey, Jo-Jo and the Fiendish Lot, and Freak Magnet. His recent project, Alienated, will be published in fall 2009. Written in collaboration with filmmaker David O. Russell, Alienated tells the story of two boys who discover aliens in their town, a discovery that puts them in the center of an intergalactic struggle.

BWC 2009 keynote speaker's latest in Vanity Fair

Our keynote speaker for 2009, Mark Bowden, also contributes to Vanity Fair. Here's an excerpt from his latest, an examination of the New York Times, its ownership, and what forces of economy and character have combined to endanger one of the country's great newspapers.

America is not kind to the heir. He is a stereotypical figure in our literature, and not an appealing one at that. He tends to be depicted as weak, pampered, flawed, a diluted strain of the hardy founding stock. America celebrates the self-made. Unless an heir veers sharply from his father’s path, he is not taken seriously. Even in middle age he seems costumed, a pretender draped in oversize clothes, a boy who has raided his father’s closet. The depiction may be unfair, but it is what it is.