Sunday, May 13, 2007

WNC Woman's Writing Conference

I had such a great day at the WNC Woman's Conference Women and Words that I could go on and on and on about it. But most importantly I told some women I would post some of my resources that I used to develop my session "Reading You Own Work Aloud." Well, actually, I told the one woman who attended that session that I would post it.

Shoot. If I were faced with a choice with hearing Kathryn Stripling Byer or myself speak, I sure wouldn't choose me!

However, I really learned a lot finding and reading the following articles:

Probably the most helpful thing I learned from all the reading and preparing is the audience wants you to do well. Why? Well, for lots of reasons: they want to enjoy themselves, they want to feel like they've made a good decision to come hear you, they want to have a one-of-a-kind never-to-be-repeated experience. They don't want to be nervous for you nor do they want to hear you diminish yourself or apologize for anything.

As an extension of that, the audience wants to know they are important to you--that you care about them. And if you can make them feel that way, you buy that much more time, they cut you that much more slack, they'll listen that much longer... You can show this by something you say at the beginning, or by really taking the audience and the occasion/location (specifically) into consideration when you choose your poems/prose and plan the duration of the reading.

I could go on and on (since I had a two-hour presentation planned). But I know the average attention span for an on-line surfer is 8 seconds... and I've exceeded that already!

Friday, May 4, 2007

Remiss

... and here Matt has linked to my blog and I finally get around to thanking him, and giving him credit for the photo below...

I hope better late than never applies in this case!