TWUC Professional Development Symposium

Yesterday, I spent the day in Vancouver at The Writer’s Union of Canada Professional Development Symposium. Any aspiring, emerging or established author should attend one of these yearly seminars. For seven hours, Ross Laird, Betsy Warland and Deborah Windsor talked us through “A Secure Footing in a Changing Literary Landscape.” (Hint: depending on who you talk to, the changing landscape is either dismal or full of opportunity.) The lively discussion and excellent presentation skills kept me interested throughout the long day.

At the end of the day, Betsy asked us to write down the three things we wanted to do over the next six months, based on what we’d learned. Mine are:

1) Research emacs text editing software
2) Create a YouTube video of Mountain Machines
3) Add to this blog weekly!

Another tip Ross hammered home was that any writer (or anyone who brands themselves by their personal name versus a company name) must own their own domain (www.firstnamelastname.com), and should use that as their email address.