Hoje irá rolar um festival de literatura no Second Life. Haverá oficinas, debates e palestras. Veja abaixo a circular do grupo de que participo. (Não irei traduzir, afinal, será tudo em inglês mesmo. Quanto à camiseta da foto abaixo, eu mesmo a fiz. Trata-se de Dostoiévski abraçado a uma gata.)

SL Literary Festival
Saturday, December 16

Schedule of workshops, classes and speakers

Classes generally run one hour each and will be located on the South Lawn.

3:00 PM

PUBLISHING
INDUSTRY/AGENTING
William Fresse, real life literary agent Will Francis at Greene & Heaton Literary Agency in London, will speak about the publishing industry, what agents do and the process of taking a book from typescript to publication. Question and answer period afterward.

Will Francis joined Greene & Heaton, a London-based literary agency, in 2003 after working at Random House and PFD, and is actively building a list of his own clients. He is interested in literary fiction, crime, science fiction and fantasy, as well as a wide range of non-fiction, including history, biography, politics, philosophy, popular science, popular culture, art and literary criticism. His clients include Jonathan Jones, Tim Radford and Jordan Goodman.

Book Collecting & Care
An introduction to book collecting and the care of books: different styles of collecting, how to chooses the best books, where to find them, how to get the best value for money and how to care for your collection so it stays looking its best! Will include a handout with information and resources.

Coelacanth Seurat in RL is a professional editor/writer and collects and sells rare books. In SL, she runs an experimental bookstore, Coelacanth Books, in Changmi (98, 252, 95) and writes for several in-world publications.

4:00 PM

FREELANCE WRITING
AND EDITING FOR RENT MONEY

Atrus Blackthorne will give a real world perspective on freelance, commercial writing. Topics covered include how to get business, training the customer and getting paid.

There are plenty of books about freelance commercial writing. Many of them promise large figures of money for people who can produce useful words on demand. this class is meant to cut through all of this hype and deliver to you what is really possible for the average Jane who needs PAYING work while she pursues the reality of literary achievement.

Atrus is the editor at Score Entertainment, producer of board and card games. He develops, writes and edits games and game documentation for Score products. He worked as a successful freelance writer for a few years before obtaining his current position.

MARKETING FOR WRITERS
Successfully completing the writing of a book is only the first half of the creative battle. The most difficult part be bringing your story to the attention of agents, publishers and potential readers.

Fleet Goldenberg, Second Life speaker and director of Squirrelverse (an online retailer, education services provider and small press publisher) will reveal the secrets of a great book promotion campaign in a friendly, informal question and answer session.

Before you post your precious manuscript, be sure to attend Fleet’s class and learn how to reduce the number of rejection slips!

BIOGRAPHY

Fleet Goldenberg is an educator and public speaker on a wide range of topics and is also the director of Squirrelverse (www.squirrelverse.com), an online retailer and information services provider. Fleet is available for bookings for Second Life speaking engagements and private group instruction / presentations by instant messaging ‘Fleet Goldenberg’ in-world or emailing queries to sales@squirrelverse.com

5:00 PM

DIGITAL NARRATIVE AND ONLINE SPACE:
In this talk, Patrick Lichty/Man Machinga will consider the differences in narrative structure in online worlds, and how one creates narrative in digital media and online worlds.
URLs will be provided for additional reading.

Patrick Lichty is a technologically-based conceptual artist, writer, independent curator, animator for the activist group, The Yes Men, and Executive Editor of Intelligent Agent Magazine. He is currently a Professor of Interactive Media and Media Theory at Columbia College Chicago.


GETTING STARTED WRITING
Do you want to write, but don’t know how to start? The instructor in this class, a former software engineer and web developer who long dreamed of writing fiction, will tell how he finally got started writing and then went on to receive a student screenwriting award at the Northern California Emmys and to publish a novel. Through interaction with class participants, he will help students explore ways they can begin writing.

Erik Gordon Bainbridge, until recently was a computer software engineer and web developer. He has a BA in German from Stony Brook University and an MA in Radio/Television from San Francisco State University. While in graduate school, he received a student screenwriting award at the Northern California Emmys, and recently one of his screenplays was the top rated script on Francis Ford Coppola’s Zoetrope.com website.

Author of Warrior Brothers (2006) and currently writing his second novel.

6:00 Workshop

Creativity in Writing

The biggest fear of most writers is not having any ideas – writers block. Whilst I haven’t got an antidote to this malaise, I do have some tools and techniques that can help with the process of unblocking. I will cover the way the brain works, in terms of left sided and right sided thinking, how we can use our brains more than we do, and cover some simple techniques for generating ideas. I will teach mind mapping to encourage associative thinking and also give attendees an opportunity to write a short piece using the technique shown.

At the end of the session delegates will be able to explain how the brain works in terms of left and right sided thinking. They should also be able to use mind maps effectively. They will have written a small piece of prose using the techniques shown.

Recommended reading

The Mind Map Book: Radiant Thinking – Major Evolution in Human Thought (Paperback)
by Tony Buzan (Author), Barry Buzan (Author)

The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (Paperback)
by Betty Edwards (Author)

***ATTENTION SERIOUS CREATIVE SL WRITERS AND ARTISTS***

We are looking for high-quality contributions for a new literary magazine, tentatively titled SKALD, that will be dedicated to exploring books, writing, and art in relation to Second Life.

We seek short stories (particularly short shorts), poetry, essays, book reviews, literary criticism and commentary, and black and white photography and art. Work should in some way be relevant to Second Life.

All materials will be reviewed by an editorial team; writers must be willing to work with an editor to develop and refine their pieces if needed. Fiction, poetry and art can be submitted directly; all others should email query first. Materials can be submitted to secondlitmag@yahoo.com.

Edgy is welcome but no porn/racism.

Those interested in contributing in other ways — advertising, promotion, beta testing, column development, hosting info posters/kiosks, please IM the editors, Erin Weiland and Coelacanth Seurat.

Please submit in November/December for the premiere January 2007 issue!