Cape Cod Writers Conference

I'm in the process of signing up for the Cape Cod Writers Conference, or maybe the official name uses "Center" rather than "Conference". I've gotten as far as reserving a room for Aug 19th through the 24th at the conference center which belongs to the Unitarians. That's practically in the family. An uncle of mine, while serving as president of a college town Jewish congregation, was approached by the local Unitarians with a merger offer! My sole business outing last year was for an Internet conference, and I realized I haven't been to any author oriented events since I quit the Author's Guild.

The room reservation being set, I'm having some trouble deciding which sessions to attend. A close reading of the course descriptions left me with the impression that most of them are essentially workshops. I'm frankly more interested in a passive classroom experience at this point. I'd rather get a structured lecture series from somebody who knows their stuff than random thoughts from fellow writers, which I already get plenty of by e-mail:-) I'm leaning towards two full week sessions, "WRITING COMICS" by Peter David, and "CREATIVE NONFICTION" by Mel Donalson. I don't know anything about comics, though I've dabbled with cartoons in a few of my books, and the creative nonfiction course looked more like a lecture series than the others.

I'm often chided by friends, including one who is a working actor in NYC, over avoiding anything resembling performances myself. Part of it is pure neurosis, I've always hated public speaking, and while I've always been able to do it when I had to, part of the fun of being self employed is not having to do things you really don't like. The other part is that I'm sufficiently competitive that when drawn into public discussions, I find myself trying to take over the room, which isn't so nice for the programmed speaker or the participants. It took me a decade of attending lectures just to reach the point where I didn't HAVE to ask a follow up question.

So, I figure I'll register, show up, and try to keep my mouth shut for at least the first few days. If nothing else, it should give me some fresh blog material, maybe I'll even get a guest entry from somebody. And since it's on Cape Cod, if I don't like it, I can always go swimming instead.