Paolo Valdemarin seems to create an interesting new art that could compete with the mirror-shot idea: How much recursion can you catch in a photo (displayed on a screen). (Simone Bettini joins)
As promised, everyone, here is the third and last chunk of our Big Hairy World of Book Publication workshop.
Please bear in mind that entire book are written on the above question. You can take a whole online write course on the above question. So please, please understand that this answer is extremely abbreviated.
A query letter is an introduction and it is a sales pitch. It’s like you and your book distilled down in miniature. A query letter is your cover letter whether you’re writing an agent to request representation or to a press. A query letter tells the story of your book – very quickly – and it shows an agent or an editor that you are serious, professional and that you can write. You’d be surprised at how many people send query letters who are not/cannot do any of those things.
Query letters are for fiction and they are for non-fiction, children’s and adult. And they are extremely formulaic. Please go look up “query letters” in your Writer’s Market and you will see that you are writing what is basically a form letter. For your reading enjoyment, I’ve attached two really excellent REAL query letters below, one fiction and one non-fiction.
Recently you requested the manuscript of TITLE, a biography aimed at middle grade readers. I am pleased to have an opportunity for you to consider it; it’s now titled A DIFFERENT TITLE.
Enclosed are the manuscript, lists of sources and possible images, and a copy of my original query. Please note that this is a simultaneous submission.
TITLE OF THIS BOOK could be described as a cross between POPULAR EXISTING BOOK SERIES and POPULAR MOVIE FRANCHISE. It is complete at 63,000 words and has series potential. Also, please note that I have been querying this novel to other agencies.
I am a freelance writer and editor with over 15 years’ experience in the publishing industry, including a 2008 middle grade novel, TITLE. In addition, I teaching adult-continuing education classes in novel-writing, and I have an MFA in creative writing.
The first three pages of my novel are pasted below this letter. Please let me know if you would like to see the full manuscript.
Due to unforeseen circumstances, the April 1, May 6, and June 3 workshops with Kurt Dinan have been cancelled.
The glory of April showers its light on poetry readings that otherwise throughout the year are overshadowed by non-poetry-related experiences.
The most adventurous, experimental, or word-starved of us writers love this month. It brings out more poems written or spoken into the netherworld of passersby than a small library contains. Well, almost.
The month of April raises the platform for wannabe lyricists, original new voices, and seasoned poets, each empowered to try out new work, to fling poems out in the open and listen for the words to touch a new audience.
Poetry rocks in Cincinnati. It always has. It occupies a pedestal high enough for any poet to find, if one wants to find it.
And the unexpected is most welcome. Take the case of Dr. Walter Von Perrier, the fictitious president of the fictitious Fossing Institute.
The non-fictitious Steve Kemple, a librarian specializing in music in the Popular Library division at the Main Library, contrived the sheepish and comically erudite Walter Von Perrier to herald the arrival of “Experimental Music and Poetry” night at the main library.
It happened Wednesday, April 20. the exotic brainchild of Steve. That’s right: he created this fictitious Von Perrier who lugged around his big, fictitious manuscript of academic research. “Poetry is everywhere…even somewhere in this 600-page manuscript I’m holding.”
Let it be known that Steve Kemple revels in the unexpected. It’s just what we all got. And the evening was a hit parade.
Von Perrier, er, Kemple even prepped everyone before the musicians and poets joined artistic arms: “Well, let’s give this a try. It’s an experiment. It’s all an experiment. We’re throwing tonight up to chance. Literally. So, let’s get spinning.”
There were two “Chance Wheels” on two tables. Envision the “Wheel of Fortune” wheel diminished to a spare tire-size version. Imagine two tire-size wheels. Lovely wheels. You could spin each with two fingers. Well, most of the time.
The Chance Wheels contained the names of five musicians and five poets, respectively. Von Perrier, er, Steve Kemple had solicited musicians and poets in preparation of the collaboration. Names were on plain paper and taped to a wheel.
The wheels, when spun, sometimes wobbled their way to the same musician’s or poet’s name several times in a row. “No, sit back down,” Kemple joked. He was leading the hit parade of the unexpected. “You just played. Let’s spin it to someone else’s name.” Or, this: “Well, ah, no, you just read a poem. Let’s spin it again.”
And then: “Well, let’s spin the musician’s wheel one more time.” We had a lot of fun spinning the wheels.
By the way, the violin, guitar, snare drum, cymbal, trumpet, frying pan, typewriter, and synchronized audience chanting all worked marvelously to give the poems a courageous edge, a luxury of sound most poems seldom receive – unless it’s in a venue like this, where the unexpected will give birth to the art of juxtaposing music and poem.
Poet and main branch librarian, Charles Gabel, collaborated with violinist Chase Watkins to get the most out of his maximal poems. Gabel’s discursive work, rich in luscious sound and quickening rhythms, paired beautifully with Watkins’ violin riff. In fact, Watkins even recorded his violin and Gablel’s poems as he read. Then, Watkins subsequently played them aloud in a “loop,” which caused this really interesting voice-over effect. Gabel read a poem “in the present,” while a just-recorded Gabel poem simultaneously could be heard through a speaker. Two simultaneous voices of Charles Gabel. Two simultaneous riffs by Chase Watkins.
This kind of cacophony of sounds blossomed the whole evening. The sounds might have been either disquieting or really melodic (Josiah’s guitar), but they blossomed.
This so pleased the fictitiously-esteemed Dr. Walter Von Perrier, er, Steve Kemple, in his fake mustache. 1) You never knew what the wheels were going to do; 2) you never knew what the musicians were going to play while accompany the poets; and 3) you never knew what the poets were going to read.
Picture Walter Von Perrie of the fictitious Fossing Institute on Saturday Night Live, leading his troops of poets and musicians.
At one point, a woman, who did not write poetry, read a passage from an Anne Rule book that Von Perrier arbitrarily pulled off the shelf. “Read from this! Let’s see how this sounds…when matched with an instrument. Spin the musician’s wheel.” And off into the unexpected we went. The accompanying musician was so entertaining – and the reader so smooth – that they actually lifted the questionable quality of the Rule passage.
Winding up the program, the fictitious Walter Von Perrier gave us an aesthetic boost: he complimented us poets and musicians. “I’m glad everyone took a chance on chance tonight.”
Film Central Florida supports film, TV, commercial productions and still photography. Our staff will assist you in processing your permits to make your filming and production easy in Central Florida's Polk County.
Colorado Springs is a beautiful world-class city that has historically inspired artists and poets from around the world. Most notably known as "America's Mountain", Pikes Peak precipitated the creation of the song "America the Beautiful" written by Katharine Lee Bates in 1893 as she stood on the summit of Pikes Peak.