"Striving for excellence motivates you; striving for perfection is demoralizing."
~ Harriet Braiker

"My mother, Southern to the bone, once told me, 'All Southern literature can be summed up in these words: "On the night the hogs ate Willie, Mama died when she heard what Daddy did to sister."' She raised me up to be a Southern writer, but it wasn't easy."
~ Pat Conroy

Quick Links

E-mail Pat
(pat at patmcnees dot com)
Writers on Writing
(complete archive of the NY Times series, writers exploring literary themes. Requires free membership.)
Letters of Note
(fascinating letters, postcards, telegrams, faxes, and memos--that you were never expected to see)
About Pat (site host)
Aha Moments
(from the brilliant Mutual of Omaha campaign to record people's stories about moments of clarity, defining moments when they gained the wisdom to change their life)
TED: Ideas worth sharing
Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world
Demystifying ID Fraud (C-Net FAQ)
Local idiot to post comment on the Internet (The Onion)
Freelance National Anthem
(Bill Dyszel, 4 minutes)
KeepMeOut
(addicted to a website? bookmark this page and it will remind you to get back to work!)
Today's Front Pages
(check out Newseum's U.S. map -- move your cursor across the map and see the front pages change)
PostSecret
Comic Strip Generator
Online Education Database
150 resources to help you write better, faster, or more persuasively
Help a reporter out (HARO)
(useful for reporters and for sources)
Paris Review "Writers at Work" Interviews
(selections from 1953 on, a gift to the world, and with a single click you can view a manuscript page with the writer's edits)
Padraic Cassidy's great links for investigative journalism
A tutorial on the Web
The Onion
(if the news is making you sick, try this approach)
Writer's Digest's choices for 101 best websites
Truth-o-meter (St. Petersburg Times, www.politifact.com)
(St. Pete Times on whether, and how much, various notable people are telling the truth)
Fact Check
(Annenberg sorts political truths from half-truths)
Telling your life (or family) story
Find Authors
Contemporary Latin American Short Stories
Blog roll (and other great stuff)

Writers conferences, workshops, and other learning places

Algonkian/​Harper's Ferry Writers Conference
Algonkian/​Point Loma Writers Conference (San Diego, fiction)
Amherst Writers & Artists (training for leaders of writing groups)
ASJA) conference (American Society of Journalists & Authors,for freelance journalists), Friday for members only, Saturday and Sunday open to all
ASJA conferences (where to order tapes or CDs, if you can't attend)
Association of Personal Historians (APH) conference
Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP), an annual conference that draws thousands -- authors, teachers, writing programs, literary centers, and small press publishers
Audit courses at the University of Oxford (listen to podcasts of courses at the oldest university in the English-speaking world, free)
AWP conference 2008 evaluation (interesting and frank)
Banff Centre (Alberta, Canada)
Bloody Words (Toronto, mystery readers and authors)
Bouchercon (authors and fans)
*Bread Loaf Writers' Conference (Middlebury)
Calendar of writers conferences of all types, by state (Screenwriters Online)
Christian Writers Conferences (Rachelle Gardner's list)
Computer-assisted reporting (CAR) conferences, IRE
Copyeditors' Knowledge Base (KOK Edit's guide to training, certification for editors, proofreaders)
Creative Writing (Andrew Hoffman's creative writing course, University of Utah, course materials free online at this link)
Dynamite That Heals: A Writing Retreat with Amherst Writers & Artists, by Marian Calabro (the theme: "write it first, fix it later")
Editorial Freelancers Association courses, for members and nonmembers (editing, copyediting, indexing, structural editing, magazine writing, copyright basics, Adobe Indesign)
eLearning Guild (an online community for the design, development, and management of web-based educational or instructional content — e-Learning)
Ernest Hemingway Festival (Sun Valley)
Frost Place Conference on Poetry & Teaching
826 National (7 nonprofit organizations dedicated to helping students 6 to 18 learn to write)
Gotham Writers' Workshop: Writer's Toolbox (tools to help you write, including articles by faculty)
Green Tiger Writers Conference (fiction)
Health Journalism (the annual conference of the Association of Health Care Journalists is one of the best values on this page -- a truly informative conference)
HP Learning Center: Microsoft Office and Adobe (free online classes, available 24/​7; topics include Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint,Digital Photos, etc. Go to www.hp.com/​go/​learningcenter.

International Women's Writing Guild (IWWG) conferences
Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) conferences
It's 2010. Where's your career heading? (Bevi Chagnon, PubCom, on which training courses you should be getting)
Key West Literary Seminar (this one sells out quickly)
Leather, Lace and Life Stories Highlight Association of Personal Historians Annual Conference (Pam Vetter, American Chronicle, 10-31-09)
Left Coast Crime
Lifewriting, Steve Barnes' free course on screenwriting (about.com)
Macdowell Colony (artists' residency program)
Magna cum murder (annual crime fiction festival)
Making the most of Microsoft Word and other software
Malice Domestic (May convention saluting the traditional, especially "cozy," mystery, where fans buy books from enthusiastic, often new, writers) and The Usual Suspects (the Malice Domestic newsletter); Malice Domestic awards.

Mastering Art & Craft (writing, reporting and speaking skills)
Mastering Multimedia (Writers & Editors)
Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference (Grapevine, Texas, July), as experienced by Sam Eifling and described in I Heard It While in Grapevine (Columbia Journalism Review, 7-28-09).


Mid-Atlantic Mystery Convention and Book Fair (Philadelphia)
Montana Festival of the Book
Murder in the Grove (The Popular Fiction Assn of Idaho, Inc)
NAGC Communications School (National Association of Government Communicators)
National Association of Science Writers (NASW) annual meeting
National Book Festival (Washington, D.C., on the mall), check out webcasts from earlier events
National Storytelling Festival (Jonesborough, Tennessee, every fall)
Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism (and related resources, including tapes of past conference workshops)
New York Times Knowledge Network, online courses, including Creative Writing and Nonfiction Writing. Here's a list of all categories in which classes are taught.

Open Culture (the best free cultural & educational media on the web)
Pacific Northwest Writers Association Summer Conference
PEN World Voices (The New York Festival of International Literature)
Publishing University Online (Independent Book Publishers Association, IBPA, formerly PMA)
Romance Writers of America (RWA) conference
Romance writers: When Romance Writers Gather, The Plot Quickens (Monica Hesse, Washington Post 7-18-09)
San Miguel Writers' Conference (in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico), as described by Nathan Bransford, literary agent.

Santa Fe Science Writing Workshop (one must apply)
Shaw Guide to Writers Conferences (searchable database)
Sleuth Fest (writer-oriented mystery writing conference in Florida, February)
Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) conferences
Society of Environmental Journalists conference (reportedly a super conference)
Society of Professional Journalists convention (mostly staff journalists)
Story Circle Network online classes
Tax Benefits for Education (IRS, PDF file)
Training and education for editors (KOK Edit's list of places that provide training, from her Copyeditor's Knowledge Base)
Travel Classics Writers Conferences
Universities with the best free online course (Education-Portal)
University of California online extension courses (writing and editing courses included)
Vegas Valley Book Festival
Virginia Festival of the Book (five days of mostly free literary events)
Wendee Holtcamp's Online Nature Writing Course (Advanced Writing, on Travel, Natural History, and the Environment)
Whidbey Island Writers Association conference
WOW Women on Writing online workshops and classes
Writers & Editors One on One Conference (where magazine writers meet magazine editors)
The Writer's Center (Bethesda, MD)
Writers' Conferences and Centers (searchable listings of member conferences)
Writers conference advice (Ginny Wiehardt, About.com, interviews an editorial director at Random House)

Websites, organizations, and other resources

A GREAT READ
A+ blogs
Blog roll, too
Book news, reviews, interviews
Books for book clubs
Best reads and most "discussable"
Books for writers and editors
Great search links
Fact-finding, fact-checking, and news and info resources
Memoirs (a reading list)
Recommended reading
Narrative nonfiction
BOOK AND MAGAZINE PUBLISHING
Acquiring, swapping, or selling books
New and used books, Amazon.com and elsewhere
Agents and book proposals
Book collaboration, ghost writing
Communicating and marketing online (Web 2.0)
Blogs, social media, podcasts, ezines, survey tools and online games
Freelancing,contracting, telecommuting
Getting published (starting out)
Job banks, publishing marketplaces
And finding freelance gigs
Marketing, publicity, promotion
Blogs, video promotion, intelligent radio programs
Publishing (and e-publishing)
See also Self-Publishing
Self-publishing and print on demand (POD)
Indie publishing, digital publishing, POD, how-to articles
So, You Want to Write a Book!
Includes original text by Sarah Wernick
WRITERS AND CREATORS
Adding images, sound, story, humor
Awards, grants, fellowships
Plus contests and other sources of funding
Conferences, workshops, and learning places
Corporate and technical communications
Copywriting, speechwriting, marketing, training, and the like
Fiction writing
Literary and commercial (including genre)
Film, drama, and documentaries
Journalism and journalists
Local and regional organizations
Major writers organizations
Mastering art and craft
Writing, reporting, multimedia, equipment, software
Media pros and other allied professionals
Translators, indexers, designers, photographers, artists, illustrators, animators, cartoonists, image professionals, composers
Memoir, biography, and corporate history
Nonfiction
Poetry and verse
Science and medical writing
Specialty and niche writing
Groups for writers who specialize in animals, children's books, food, gardens, family history, resumes, sports, travel, Webwriting, and wine (etc.)
The writing life
ETHICS, RIGHTS, AND OTHER ISSUES
Copyright, work for hire, and other rights issues
Google Books Settlement (Pro and Con)
Ethics, libel, freedom of the press
Plus media watchdogs, FOIA
EDITORS AND EDITING
For editors
Preface, foreword, or introduction
Style, grammar, diction
Tips on tact and tone