by Mina Mahmodi
On Saturday 28th October, I attended a writing festival in London. It was organised by Jericho writers, an organisation that provides writing courses, helps new writers find agents and get published. It was amazing to see so many fellow writers, be inspired by them and learn tips from literary agents. Philippa East, author of Little white lies, and few other psychological thrillers opened the festival with her keynote address, How to fail better. In her engaging speech she told us about her own journey to become a writer and how we all have to learn to deal with failure as an inevitable part of a writing career. Reaching all the way up to the summit is almost impossible for the majority of us, so it is important to enjoy and celebrate little hard won achievements along the way. Philippa is a clinical psychologist as well as fiction writer and her mini course on, The Psychological Secrets of Writing, which was held in the afternoon, explored the best ways to create realistic and believable characters then explain their actions.
Is it strange to call yourself a writer having never heard of an Elevator Pitch? Well, I had no clue until literary agent Laura Williams in her workshop, Nail your Elevator Pitch explained the term to us: the idea is to be able to tell someone the main gist of your book during a short elevator journey. According to her, fifty well selected words should be sufficient enough to pitch someone’s attention and make them want to read your story. Only fifty words, come on! What actually convinced me were the pitches read back from the floor. People can do magic with just fifty words.
There were other mini courses and workshops and a Friday night live (only on Saturday), how weird! Why couldn’t they just call it Saturday night live? How else can we show that writers are a weird breed? Anyway, during this event the eight shortlisted writers read their five hundred words and got feedback from a panel of literary agents and the winner was the one who got the most cheers and applause from the floor.
I came away from the festival uplifted and encouraged to write more. it’s great to be part of such an amazing community.
Mina’s latest novella, The Rolling Pumpkin can be purchased here