Westercon 60: Gnomeward Bound

By Deirdre Saoirse Moen, writers at westercon60 dot org

What is the Gnomeward Bound Writers' Workshop?

A convention writers' workshop, especially one at a Westercon, is an opportunity to learn how to improve your prose from peers and professionals in the field. Each workshop section is conducted in a small room with a limited group — those writers who are being critiqued, a few professionals, and a moderator who keeps the group focused and on the time schedule. Participants must be at least 18 years old and able to give and accept criticism in a mature manner.

Deadline Extended!

Submission criteria:

1. Stories must be either Science Fiction, Fantasy, Gothic, Horror, or have a fantastic element of some kind.
2. All submissions must be emailed to writers at westercon60 dot org no later than May 22, 2007. I will send a confirmation when manuscripts are received.
3. Manuscript submissions can have up to 7,500 words. Manuscripts should conform to professional submissions standards. Not sure what those are? Vonda McIntyre has a wonderful description of manuscript format here.
4. Longer pieces or novels must include a summary with a writing sample (the beginning is preferred). The summary counts as part of the 7,500 words.
5. Authors must be pre-registered Gnomeward Bound (Westercon 60) attending members. Not sure if you have an attending membership? Check here. Want to get one? Regsiter here.
6. If the piece of writing is a collaborative effort, then the team will be treated as "one author." To put it another way, you will be given the same total amount of time as an individual author. All present must have a Gnomeward Bound membership to be present at the workshop.
7. Manuscripts must be emailed to writers at westercon60 dot org. Your manuscript must be in either Adobe Acrobat PDF or Microsoft Word Format or text files. For text files, I will up-convert to PDF from a plain text file that understands _underlines_ to be italics. All manuscripts will be delivered as PDF files, so please have a PDF reader available. If using Word, please turn off smart quotes (Tools -> Autocorrect -> Replace as you type -- turn all those off). If submitting as PDF, please use Courier. All other manuscripts will be changed to Courier.
8. If for some reason, you need technical assistance, please let us know soonest at writers at westercon60 dot org so that we might help.

Deadlines are much closer then they appear — we'll need your work by May 22, 2007!

After Submission:

After submission, I call upon the carefully-selected pros and moderators and work out their schedules, then work out how many groups there need to be. When all that's arranged, I then put people into groups. You'll receive the manuscripts for your group and you'll be expected to critique them, as will the professionals and the moderator.

Please note that, due to vacation, I may be unable to answer questions between the end of May and mid-June.

Deirdre Saoirse Moen, Gnomette, Westercon 60 Writers' Workshop